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This is going to be the same shitshow as Ingress and PoGo. Niantic has two of the potentially greatest games in modern history but they somehow manage to contin

This is going to be the same shitshow as Ingress and PoGo. Niantic has two of the potentially greatest games in modern history but they somehow manage to continually piss of their whole userbase. Niantic has proven again and again and again that they are completely incompetent when it comes to a) communication with their fanbase, b) development of good content and c) quality control. They had 5 years and hundreds of millions of dollars and what do we get? A completely stagnant Ingress with no new features in a long time and a completely boring and bug-ridden Pokemon Go which rapidly loses players. Don't get hyped about anything Niantic is doing, you will just get disappointed even if you already had low expectations. I really really hope a competent game company picks up where Niantic fails and releases truly great AR games.

jdminhbg 9y ago
Serious question, as I am not a gamer: Why are they so successful? Why doesn’t someone just do the same real-world-including game style but with scalability? Are they much better at game design than other people? Better at acquiring IP rights? Something else?
- Niksko 9y ago
  Very good question. Clearly they have brand recognition in the industry, I would speculate the this is the only thing they have going for them. It's only a matter of time before somebody cuts their lunch.
- on_and_off 9y ago
  They got a lot of shit for scalability issues but their initial success just took them by surprise, like everyone else in the industry. IIRC they had at least an order of magnitude more users than their more optimistic estimations. It does not excuse everything but their initial scaling issues are pretty understandable
- empath75 9y ago
  Their partnership with google and ingress gave them a massive geolocation database to work with. That’s a pretty big moat.
arkitaip 9y ago
Maybe Niantic's core business isn't AR games. Maybe it's collecting user data for their investor, In-Q-Tel, and the intelligence community.
GuiA 9y ago
And yet everyone and their dog knows about Pokémon Go. In addition to having proved the things you outlined (I completely agree with you, just in case it's unclear), Niantic is also the perfect reminder for every entrepreneur out there that if people really want your product, it doesn't matter (at least in the short term) how buggy it is. As long as it is somewhat usable, people will flock to it. Better to have a buggy piece of software that everyone wants to use than a perfectly engineered piece of software no one cares about.
- opportune 9y ago
  Ingress was a total flop, PoGo made money solely off the fact that it was a freemium pokemon game. I don't think it means they're doing a good job just because Nintendo allowed them to use their IP
- AznHisoka 9y ago
  This is so misinformed. Pokemon Go was the quintessential example of something that was so overhyped, and covered everywhere for a brief 1-month period, then disappeared. Don't mistake extensive press coverage for "everybody wants your product". Some bugs are fine if you're a B2B app, and intolerable if you're a consumer game.
  - GuiA 9y ago
    Taking the subway in Tokyo, I still see people playing Pokémon Go many times a day. Not sure what your definition of “disappeared” is.
    - Niksko 9y ago
      Comparatively it disappeared. The hype was ENORMOUS in the beginning. That wasn't sustainable, but it would have tapered off much less sharply if the game hadn't gone from fun to shit very rapidly within a month or two as Niantic made completely unjustified 'balance' changes
  - hkmurakami 9y ago
    That game still makes a bunch of money if you look at app analytics charts.
opportune 9y ago
They really are utterly incompetent, I don't understand how they can mess something like Pokemon Go up unless Nintendo is asking them not to make the game too much like the normal one. I feel like an intern could add better (not necessarily more) features in a single summer than Niantic has added over the entire release.
- 83457 9y ago
  Nintendo is asking them not to make the game too much like the normal one.
justhackedme 9y ago
They buy a big license, make money and get out. It's just a scheme... not a game development cycle.

jdminhbg 9y ago

Serious question, as I am not a gamer: Why are they so successful? Why doesn’t someone just do the same real-world-including game style but with scalability? Are they much better at game design than other people? Better at acquiring IP rights? Something else?

Niksko 9y ago
Very good question. Clearly they have brand recognition in the industry, I would speculate the this is the only thing they have going for them. It's only a matter of time before somebody cuts their lunch.
on_and_off 9y ago
They got a lot of shit for scalability issues but their initial success just took them by surprise, like everyone else in the industry. IIRC they had at least an order of magnitude more users than their more optimistic estimations. It does not excuse everything but their initial scaling issues are pretty understandable
empath75 9y ago
Their partnership with google and ingress gave them a massive geolocation database to work with. That’s a pretty big moat.

arkitaip 9y ago

Maybe Niantic's core business isn't AR games. Maybe it's collecting user data for their investor, In-Q-Tel, and the intelligence community.

GuiA 9y ago

And yet everyone and their dog knows about Pokémon Go. In addition to having proved the things you outlined (I completely agree with you, just in case it's unclear), Niantic is also the perfect reminder for every entrepreneur out there that if people really want your product, it doesn't matter (at least in the short term) how buggy it is. As long as it is somewhat usable, people will flock to it. Better to have a buggy piece of software that everyone wants to use than a perfectly engineered piece of software no one cares about.

opportune 9y ago
Ingress was a total flop, PoGo made money solely off the fact that it was a freemium pokemon game. I don't think it means they're doing a good job just because Nintendo allowed them to use their IP
AznHisoka 9y ago
This is so misinformed. Pokemon Go was the quintessential example of something that was so overhyped, and covered everywhere for a brief 1-month period, then disappeared. Don't mistake extensive press coverage for "everybody wants your product". Some bugs are fine if you're a B2B app, and intolerable if you're a consumer game.
- GuiA 9y ago
  Taking the subway in Tokyo, I still see people playing Pokémon Go many times a day. Not sure what your definition of “disappeared” is.
  - Niksko 9y ago
    Comparatively it disappeared. The hype was ENORMOUS in the beginning. That wasn't sustainable, but it would have tapered off much less sharply if the game hadn't gone from fun to shit very rapidly within a month or two as Niantic made completely unjustified 'balance' changes
- hkmurakami 9y ago
  That game still makes a bunch of money if you look at app analytics charts.

opportune 9y ago

They really are utterly incompetent, I don't understand how they can mess something like Pokemon Go up unless Nintendo is asking them not to make the game too much like the normal one. I feel like an intern could add better (not necessarily more) features in a single summer than Niantic has added over the entire release.

83457 9y ago
Nintendo is asking them not to make the game too much like the normal one.

justhackedme 9y ago

They buy a big license, make money and get out. It's just a scheme... not a game development cycle.