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Users spend more minutes per day in Pokémon Go than Facebook
- baq 10y agoduh. call me if that's still the case in 3 months.
- curiousgal 10y agoI hope it's here to stay, maybe, since it uses a lot of battery power, phone manufacturers will start prioritizing that.
- thaumasiotes 10y ago"Start"? Battery power is one of the primary complaints people make about their phones. It's been a priority for... ever.
- joncrocks 10y agoWhile it's one of the primary complaints (after purchase), the market would seem to suggest that people prefer smaller/thinner phones in terms of purchasing decisions.
- Rexxar 10y agoTo be more precise: "smaller/thinner and less expensive".
- ckluis 10y agoI’d happily have a 1-2 inch thick well made premium phone with a battery that lasted days.
- kruczek 10y agoSounds like Pentagram Monster series. The one I have with 4100mAh battery lasts for over 20 days, if I'm not using it heavily. And while it is heavier than typical smartphones, it's only about 1cm thick. As far as I know there's also a newer model with 6000mAh battery.
- curiousgal 10y agoOf course it's been a complaint forever but how many flagship phones with great battery life do you count? My point is that More battery-hungry widespread applications = More pressure on manufacturers to answer to those complaints.
- 27182818284 10y agoAt least two off the top of my head. The Droid Turbos that Verizon shows off in commercials have massive batteries.
- thaumasiotes 10y agoIt's also been a complaint forever that people's parents, friends, children, and selves keep dying. And yet somehow that hasn't translated into enough market pressure to make them all immortal. Of course in reality the market pressure for protection from death is much greater than the market pressure for improved battery life while seeing weaker results in the market. Your battery life is not a market pressure issue.
- simonswords82 10y agoAs thaumasiotes has already pointed out battery life on phones has been a number one priority for years. In fact, the shortcomings of batteries are now one of the biggest bottlenecks in transport, energy, infrastructure and more. Some of the best minds/companies in the world are already investing everything they've got in fixing the problem.
- qznc 10y agoWe may have reached the peak of Pokemon already: https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=pokemon&date=now%207-d&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT-2 https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=pokemon&date=now%207...
- douglasisshiny 10y agoExcept through yesterday it was only released in five countries. Today it'll be released to three more countries [1], and it will continue to expand going forward. 1. https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/15/pokemon-go-go-go-go-go-go-go/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/15/pokemon-go-go-go-go-go-go-...
- akerro 10y agoWhich is great! People go out and start new relations with other people instead breaking them on facebook!
- sreyaNotfilc 10y agoYeah, its almost like Pokemon is a truer social network than Facebook. You're finding common interest (but in real life). You're connecting (but in real life).
- obj-g 10y agoSeems obvious to me -- it's a game that takes time to play. Most people check Facebook for, like, 30 seconds at a time. It's like saying people spend more time playing Overwatch than checking their email? There's probably a better analogy. A bunch of interesting data in the article though.
- sliverstorm 10y agoThe thing about Facebook is many people dwell on it, rather than checking it for 30 seconds. The timeline becomes a time sink for many people.
- obj-g 10y agoSome people, for sure. In my experience, I usually see people checking it for 30 seconds or so but many times daily. Even if you're right, it still seems like a no-brainer that the average Pokemon GO player would spend more time playing than the average Facebook user is on Facebook.
- ionwake 10y agohmmm is anyone else essentially finding the game unplayable due to server issues? Or is this perhaps a region specific issue?
- Illniyar 10y agoYes! Another arbitrary metric that pokemon go passes an arbitrary company. We get it, Pokemon Go is popular. Seesh.
- Kiro 10y agoWhy so snarky? Don't you think it's an interesting phenomena?
- Retr0spectrum 10y agoNot really, it seems just like any other fad. The technology involved has been around for a while, and nobody paid much attention to it before. I'd be interested to see articles detailing technical difficulties that they may have overcome, but I've seen way too many articles just saying "Pokemon GO now has more X than Y".
- pantalaimon 10y agoI'm curious about the social consequences of mass adoption. I'm already seeing groups of random people gathering around gyms when they see they are taken by their team/in the process of being taken away. The meta-game that might develop is interesting, and only possible due to wide adoption.
- jvolkman 10y agohttps://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/4stnx4/how_can_we_reduce_the_number_of_pokemon_go/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/4stnx4/how_can_we_...
- sliverstorm 10y agoThe technology involved has been around for a while, and nobody paid much attention to it before. Could that not be what's intriguing? I.e. everybody is paying attention to it now? We're wondering if this will be the first "killer app" for AR?
- 10y ago
- adamors 10y agoCan we have a moratorium on Pokemon Go posts? It is getting really annoying, especially since submissions regarding it have absolutely no value.
- mynewtb 10y agoFlag and hide is the way to go.
- alexhawdon 10y ago"Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think a story is spam or off-topic, flag it by clicking on its 'flag' link. If you think a comment is egregious, click on its timestamp to go to its page, then click 'flag' at the top. (Not all users see flag links; there's a small karma threshold.)" Just hide if you're not personally interested. IMO flagging that would be an abuse of the facility and just wasting moderator time.
- mynewtb 10y agoFlappy Bird flaps more than the average paper plane!
- goodplay 10y agoI would be very happy if Niantec releases an in-depth write up on the how the backend was implemented and what measures they took to make it scale to handle this kind of traffic. I don't care much for the game, but details of why the servers weren't (aren't?) able to handle the traffic interests me immensely.
- Roritharr 10y agoI'm pretty sure they had immense scaling capabilities, but were hitting upon bottlenecks which were unexpected. I'd be also really interested in what those were.
- zyx321 10y agoIt's just not economically viable to scale your architecture to day-one or week-one traffic requirements. Look at Blizzard games for comparison, a new release every year or so and they're NEVER equipped to handle it. They know that by the end of the month, user count will drop sharply before stabilizing at a much more manageable level.
- nilved 10y agoIf this is true, your horizontal scaling is the problem. Not taking advantage of those users with auto scaling is leaving money on the table.
- phamilton 10y agoFor every Blizzard there's a Netflix, who never has any problems with a big release nowadays.
- knowaveragejoe 10y agoBlizzard had very few issues with their largest launch in recent history.
- rajeemcariazo 10y agoI wonder how much is the valuation of Nintendo now the Pokemon Go is out
- hornbaker 10y agoLast I saw, Nintendo's market cap was up $9B since the launch of PG.
- caub 10y agotechnically 0>= 0
- z3t4 10y agoI always feel uneasy by viral marketing, like paying professionals to like it. Compared to the user engagement of say Flappy Bird.
- sevenless 10y agoI don't have the game, but it sounds like GPS power drain is the big problem. Is there not some way to improve that? Maybe only turn on GPS intermittently and use accelerometers, wireless signals or the camera to track your position from the last known point and any landmarks?
- chatmasta 10y agoI know iOS and Android already use non GPS data to aid in location sensing, but I'm not certain to which degree they actively avoid the actual GPS sensor.
- TorKlingberg 10y agoGet a mobile power bank.
- knowaveragejoe 10y agoJust from using the app you can tell there are optimizations to be made that would dramatically save on battery life before even getting to the power draw from location services. Pokestops for example don't appear to locally cache their images and descriptions for long.
- fencepost 10y agoAside from the assorted obvious optimizations that people have discussed, it might be possible to "offload" the GPS to a separate battery-powered Bluetooth GPS receiver. I didn't see any results for this on a quick search, so I'm not sure whether it's been tested or not. Of course, if you don't already have one a Bluetooth GPS receiver appears to cost at least 5x as much as a low-end external battery and 2-3x as much as a pretty substantial one.
- chriswwweb 10y agoI'm tired of those articles "Pokemon Go is bigger then X", they contain no useful information besides the fact that Pokemon Go is really popular, yeah Ok we got it, now please tell us something interesting that ain't obvious ;) ... Don't get me wrong, I'm happy Pokemon Go is such a success because it's good for Nintendo as it is their first mobile game (even though they haven't developed it inhouse) and this success will help them to stay afloat
- mcv 10y agoConsidering how many people get serious exercise out of this, I think they're wise to spend their time on Pokemon Go rather than Facebook. And then there's stories like these: http://www.thememo.com/2016/07/14/autism-advice-asd-advice-pokemon-go-mum-thanks-nintendo/ http://www.thememo.com/2016/07/14/autism-advice-asd-advice-p... Just watch where you're going, okay?
- saiya-jin 10y agoas a non-player - by serious exercise you mean walking around or is there some real exercise involved?
- knowaveragejoe 10y agoOne could argue that walking around - kilometers at a time, in the case of getting an egg to hatch - is serious exercise compared to sitting in front of a computer or on a couch.
- z3t4 10y agoNot saying walking is not good for you, but walking is very energy efficient. Your heart rate is probably higher reading HN, at least for me. Doing some sprints and other movements, like playing football, or moving the lawn, will give you a good workout though.
- mcv 10y agoIf you want to burn fat, walking is one of the best ways to do it. It you want to build muscle, there are better options. But long walks are absolutely good for certain kinds of exercise.
- z3t4 10y agoyou also burn fat while eating pizza, but you put in lots of more calories. Walking doesnt use many calories. Its still healthy though, and better then nothing at all.
- ccozan 10y agoWell, I am honestly waiting for WarcraftGo. I'd love to instance that local shopping mall :).
- hellweaver666 10y agoI'm the opposite... I would love a Pokemon MMO (imagine WoW with Pokemon!)
- ahoy 10y agoIt's frankly stunning that Nintendo never attempted this in the mid 2000's when MMO's were the hot thing. I've seen the idea floated so often of the past decade.
- bpicolo 10y agoAnd yet there have been very, very few successful MMOs. Nintendo doesn't really have MMO experience, either. That said, they'd probably swim in cash on a Pokemon one.
- xenihn 10y agoRemember this? http://www.gamespot.com/articles/iwata-customers-do-not-want-online-games/1100-6102100/ http://www.gamespot.com/articles/iwata-customers-do-not-want...
- tuna-piano 10y agoA few thoughts: 1. I tried playing this game, but really don't enjoy it. It feels to me it's not about strategy as much as it's "the one who puts in the most hours of playing wins". Felt actually like work to me. 2. I don't see this game being a long term super success, as it is now. I'd imagine cohort analysis would show the first cohorts waning in usage in the next several weeks. I imagine as more people begin playing, the overall popularity of the game will continue to rise for a while, but that hides the fact that the game has a limited shelf life with the masses.
- jessaustin 10y ago1. Many successful computer games are this. Did you ever play a MMORPG? 2. Sure, many players will play less as time goes on, but with the kinds of numbers they're seeing now they'll be massively popular for a long time.
- Sumaso 10y agoThe game has different layers. Personally I just try and catch pokemon. 'Winning' would be getting all 150.
- nkrisc 10y agoAgreed. The most enjoyment I've gotten from the game so far is actually walking around and finding them and getting the best stats. As for actually using them in the gyms and such, I'm not yet interested in doing that.
- bargl 10y agoI also agree, but a way I find entertainment on my quest to filling out my pokedex is by fighting gyms with the goal of adding a crappy pidgey or rattata after I've taken it. I change the names in my replacements to something like "The King". For a level 10 pidgey that's a lot of confidence. I do this for a few reasons: 1) I can. 2) It's fun and keeping gyms is ridiculously hard. 3) It gives new players a chance to unseat my gym and get their daily bonus. 4) Powering up gyms is way under powered at this point. 5) This also gives other people on my team to power up the gym and reach their own goal if they like.
- realrocker 10y agoLet's give it a minute.
- realrocker 10y agoLet's give it a minute.
- realrocker 10y agoLet's give it a minute.
- realrocker 10y agoLet's give it a minute.
- realrocker 10y agoLet's give it a minute.
- jessaustin 10y agoThe success of Pokémon Go as the first breakout AR "belief circle" certainly seems like a victory for the Scooch-a-mouti. I wonder how the Librarians Militant will respond?
- aerovistae 10y ago...what is Scooch-a-mouti ?
- GFischer 10y agoI had to Google it too. It's something out of a Vernor Vinge novel, Rainbow's End.
- jessaustin 10y agoActually the title is: Rainbows End. No apostrophe.
- johanneskanybal 10y agoWell yes ofcourse?
- synaesthesisx 10y agoDo people really spend an average of 22 minutes/day on Facebook? That's astounding....I find it hard to believe unless that's including Messenger or something (which not a lot of my colleagues even use since there are better, more secure chat alternatives)
- gmartinweb 10y agoCan anyone explain how these companies are gathering this data? How do they know how many minutes per day people use facebook or Pokémon go on their phones?