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Surprised people are still playing Pokemon Go. Niantic made all the wrong moves.

minimaxir 10y ago
Pokemon Go may not have been the superstar everyone expected much later, but it still drives more revenue than most mobile games. (Nintendo is probably OK with that since it will no longer detract from Sun/Moon)
keyle 10y ago
Me too. Kids still do. They seem to jump on/off the latest craze a lot slower. It gives them something to do while walking with their parent, which is inherently boring to them.
Kiro 10y ago
How so? I play Pokémon Go and can't think of a single thing they've done that has spoiled the experience for me. Neither can my friends. We love the game as it is. Bear in mind we are casual players, like most are.
- curiousgal 10y ago
  Granted it's not the most representive sample but a glance through https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo shows that the majority of people are complaining. I live by a park where there are 3 Pokestops and a Gym and it used to be mildly crowded, now it's empty. It's obvious that the game has died down and it all can be traced back to when Niantic broke the tracking system and proceeded to go after Maps. Every "anti-cheat" measure they introduced (Detecting movement speed and root) netted a large number of false positives and they refuse to listen to their active and vocal community. Not to mention the inherently broken Gym battle system where anyone can take over a Gym even if you were the one to beat the Gym owners. That was the one aspect I found too frustrating.
  - Kiro 10y ago
    I wouldn't say that the vocal minority of reddit is representative of the player base in large but I see your point. And yes, I've noticed the same thing. However, I don't think anyone thought it would continue like the crazy early days forever, where every other person you saw played. Just because that extreme hype died down doesn't mean no-one is playing. I don't agree that it's due to the actions of Niantic though. I think it's just a natural fade of the hype. It would be completely insane if the player percentage had continued at that level until now. Even if they did all the right things I think the fade would have been inevitable.
  - evilDagmar 10y ago
    I'm pretty sure they've been going after the mapping people both because those guys add a ridiculous load to the map servers, and because eventually people are going to start asking serious questions about why all of two cities have varying spawn areas for Pokemon, and the rest of the world put together has about as much detail as those two cities. If you're not in San Francisco or New York, sadly, your most efficient method of "catching them all" is to simply sit and camp lures, because what doesn't spawn from that isn't going to spawn anywhere nearby so there's little point in searching. Flogging an RNG endlessly is _not fun_, and that's apparently a heavy player in what's driving players away from the game.
- Taek 10y ago
  I left the game because: + Disabled footpad tracking made it less fun. + Some update made it sluggish on my 10-month-old phone. + They don't let you play with Root (I have a workaround, but it's a pain). + Gameplay is highly repetitive past lvl 20 I just feel constantly trampled on. I'll waste my time with someone who treats me like an adult.
  - daenney 10y ago
    > + Disabled footpad tracking made it less fun. That made me quit too. It's basically a slot machine now. You can't hunt anymore, you just have to accidentally stumble across something. > + Gameplay is highly repetitive past lvl 20 I would say gameplay is highly repetitive in general. You're basically just throwing Pokeballs around hoping something sticks. Sometimes a gym battle once you get to that point but most gyms around here are controlled by people with such ridiculous levels and Pokemon that it's barely possible.
    - neolefty 10y ago
      I started just after footpad tracking was disabled, but now "Sightings" lets me track down 'mons just fine. Maybe it's more work than footpad? I wouldn't know.
      - hibikir 10y ago
        That only exists in San Francisco. Anywhere else, we are pretty much blind without cheating tools. Besides, the Sightings system is only helpful in areas with high pokestop density: Without it, the system wouldn't help: There are ZERO pokestops in a one mile radius around me. The nearest area with pokestops has 5 clustered together in a park... that has no pokemon spawns barring luring pokestops. Third party tracking systems let me go with my son pokehunting in my subdivision: we could see a pokemon we want, and leave the house to look for it. Without that, the game is no fun, as a typical trip will only yield pidgeys and weedles.
bsder 10y ago
> Niantic made all the wrong moves. The problem is that Niantic recreated Ingress instead of creating Pokemon. So, the Pokemon players are leaving after the initial hype. The worst part is that Niantic has scads of data as to what game the players want to play and has failed to implement it. The other piece to this is that it really seems like Niantic don't have a stake in whether Pokemon Go continues to succeed. I suspect Niantic was desperate, Nintendo beat them up in negotiations, gave them a fixed payment, and then flogged them mercilessly. The terribly slow pace of reaction reeks of: "<American side> We don't automatically get a percentage of success, so we're not going to implement that without more money." "<Japanese side> Well, let me discuss that with my manager. But we expect you to be honorable and fix this anyway." "<American side> Uh, yeah. Sure. We'll work real hard on the promise that we might get paid when we're already having to do WAY more than we expected in terms of support given what you paid us. Yeah. We'll get right on that." Rolls eyes, and goes back to team "Do the MINIMUM you need to keep it from burning down and NOTHING else".

Pokemon Go may not have been the superstar everyone expected much later, but it still drives more revenue than most mobile games. (Nintendo is probably OK with that since it will no longer detract from Sun/Moon)

keyle 10y ago

Me too. Kids still do. They seem to jump on/off the latest craze a lot slower. It gives them something to do while walking with their parent, which is inherently boring to them.

Kiro 10y ago

How so? I play Pokémon Go and can't think of a single thing they've done that has spoiled the experience for me. Neither can my friends. We love the game as it is. Bear in mind we are casual players, like most are.

curiousgal 10y ago
Granted it's not the most representive sample but a glance through https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo shows that the majority of people are complaining. I live by a park where there are 3 Pokestops and a Gym and it used to be mildly crowded, now it's empty. It's obvious that the game has died down and it all can be traced back to when Niantic broke the tracking system and proceeded to go after Maps. Every "anti-cheat" measure they introduced (Detecting movement speed and root) netted a large number of false positives and they refuse to listen to their active and vocal community. Not to mention the inherently broken Gym battle system where anyone can take over a Gym even if you were the one to beat the Gym owners. That was the one aspect I found too frustrating.
- Kiro 10y ago
  I wouldn't say that the vocal minority of reddit is representative of the player base in large but I see your point. And yes, I've noticed the same thing. However, I don't think anyone thought it would continue like the crazy early days forever, where every other person you saw played. Just because that extreme hype died down doesn't mean no-one is playing. I don't agree that it's due to the actions of Niantic though. I think it's just a natural fade of the hype. It would be completely insane if the player percentage had continued at that level until now. Even if they did all the right things I think the fade would have been inevitable.
- evilDagmar 10y ago
  I'm pretty sure they've been going after the mapping people both because those guys add a ridiculous load to the map servers, and because eventually people are going to start asking serious questions about why all of two cities have varying spawn areas for Pokemon, and the rest of the world put together has about as much detail as those two cities. If you're not in San Francisco or New York, sadly, your most efficient method of "catching them all" is to simply sit and camp lures, because what doesn't spawn from that isn't going to spawn anywhere nearby so there's little point in searching. Flogging an RNG endlessly is _not fun_, and that's apparently a heavy player in what's driving players away from the game.
Taek 10y ago
I left the game because: + Disabled footpad tracking made it less fun. + Some update made it sluggish on my 10-month-old phone. + They don't let you play with Root (I have a workaround, but it's a pain). + Gameplay is highly repetitive past lvl 20 I just feel constantly trampled on. I'll waste my time with someone who treats me like an adult.
- daenney 10y ago
  > + Disabled footpad tracking made it less fun. That made me quit too. It's basically a slot machine now. You can't hunt anymore, you just have to accidentally stumble across something. > + Gameplay is highly repetitive past lvl 20 I would say gameplay is highly repetitive in general. You're basically just throwing Pokeballs around hoping something sticks. Sometimes a gym battle once you get to that point but most gyms around here are controlled by people with such ridiculous levels and Pokemon that it's barely possible.
  - neolefty 10y ago
    I started just after footpad tracking was disabled, but now "Sightings" lets me track down 'mons just fine. Maybe it's more work than footpad? I wouldn't know.
    - hibikir 10y ago
      That only exists in San Francisco. Anywhere else, we are pretty much blind without cheating tools. Besides, the Sightings system is only helpful in areas with high pokestop density: Without it, the system wouldn't help: There are ZERO pokestops in a one mile radius around me. The nearest area with pokestops has 5 clustered together in a park... that has no pokemon spawns barring luring pokestops. Third party tracking systems let me go with my son pokehunting in my subdivision: we could see a pokemon we want, and leave the house to look for it. Without that, the game is no fun, as a typical trip will only yield pidgeys and weedles.

bsder 10y ago

> Niantic made all the wrong moves. The problem is that Niantic recreated Ingress instead of creating Pokemon. So, the Pokemon players are leaving after the initial hype. The worst part is that Niantic has scads of data as to what game the players want to play and has failed to implement it. The other piece to this is that it really seems like Niantic don't have a stake in whether Pokemon Go continues to succeed. I suspect Niantic was desperate, Nintendo beat them up in negotiations, gave them a fixed payment, and then flogged them mercilessly. The terribly slow pace of reaction reeks of: "<American side> We don't automatically get a percentage of success, so we're not going to implement that without more money." "<Japanese side> Well, let me discuss that with my manager. But we expect you to be honorable and fix this anyway." "<American side> Uh, yeah. Sure. We'll work real hard on the promise that we might get paid when we're already having to do WAY more than we expected in terms of support given what you paid us. Yeah. We'll get right on that." Rolls eyes, and goes back to team "Do the MINIMUM you need to keep it from burning down and NOTHING else".