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I will admit to only playing Pokémon Go, and nothing else in their portfolio. And I finally gave up on Go about 6 months ago, after playing since 2016. (Maybe

I will admit to only playing Pokémon Go, and nothing else in their portfolio. And I finally gave up on Go about 6 months ago, after playing since 2016. (Maybe they made some amazing updates since then, and my points here are totally invalid…) But what an extremely mismanaged product. Extremely buggy, extremely slow development, and extremely over-hyped AR features. Niantic was very slow in fixing any issues with the core game loop, and they basically never fixed issues with the later features, namely Battle League. I don’t even know where to start with the issues…opaque errors, location problems, low frame-rates, awful connectivity for Bluetooth accessories, buggy “Adventure Sync”, poor communications with users about issues or UI problems… I played forever because of my perpetual love for Pokémon, and because it helped me connect with neighbors. Not that Niantic helped in any way at all there—community building was totally ad-hoc, via Facebook groups, or Facebook group chats, or Discord, or WhatsApp. But the entire time, I knew I was playing in a rickety house that was going to fall down at any moment. And it’s just not a surprise that house is starting to fall down. (I just sort of drifted away, when my new dog demanded much more attention than my old fella. Turns out a year-old Chesapeake Bay Retriever has a lot of energy, versus a 9-year-old Lab…)

acalzycalzy 4y ago
nijave 4y ago
It seems they ignore anything that isn't directly monetizable
cjensen 4y ago
Your points about AR are worth emphasizing: Pokemon Go has AR... that most users turn off. With AR turned off, it's strictly a location-based game.
- nkrisc 4y ago
  Frankly I’d have turned it the location based aspect too if I could have. I don’t want to go places to play a video game, I just want to play it wherever I am. Obviously that wasn’t the point of the game, but it turned me off to the game after a few days. Never mind how repetitive it was.
  - ryderdini 4y ago
    Wouldn’t it be better to just play the regular Pokémon games at that point?
    - nkrisc 4y ago
      Not on my phone.
  - faeriechangling 4y ago
    Hopefully after this all blows over they will eventually make the obvious sequel to Pokémon Go. Pokéstop!
  - recursive 4y ago
    Well then you could just play literally any other game. I'm very intrigued by the possibilities of a physical-location-based multiplayer game. I got into Ingress, but there wasn't significance to decisions in that game for my taste. I hope one day someone produces another GPS-based game that has more interesting strategy.
    - mattnewton 4y ago
      Ah, but you couldn’t play Pokémon on your mobile phone, (side-loading emulators on android nonwithstanding). I’d bet that was a sizable chunk of the appeal, especially since ingress did not have anywhere near the success.
  - silisili 4y ago
    It's not my kind of game either, but was definitely interesting and to me a good thing because it got people out of house. I used to walk my local park daily for years, only ever saw a few people. Seemingly out of nowhere, the park seemed always packed...kids, adults, you name it. It was kind of jarring to me, to be honest. I mentioned it in passing to my brother, kinda complaining about the sudden crowds but later describing it down to details...how people seemed to be taking pics of the ground for no reason...he said "they're playing pokemon go, dummy." I had no idea such a thing existed and thought I was going nuts. But ultimately what I saw was a lot of people venturing out and about, enjoying the day, having fun solo or in groups... and thought it was a net positive to society, for once, unlike most modern apps and games.
- perardi 4y ago
  I immediately turned off the “feed your Pokémon AR mode”. While it is theoretically fun to plop your Piplup on a table and feed it a Pinap: it’s slower than a Slowking to do so, and got very old very fast.
  - undersuit 4y ago
    Wailord has to be the slowest Pokemon to feed that there is and impractical to place in AR space too as one of the largest Pokemon
    - perardi 4y ago
      Yeah, but that’s way harder to find good alliteration for. Some of the big flying Pokémon were also terrible to interact with. Nearly off-screen if they moved.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - seanhunter 4y ago
    Like most things in life, you have to go with a Snorlax-only strat and then everything makes sense.
    - perardi 4y ago
      I could make some quite obscure Smogon references here, but I will stop myself.
- darknavi 4y ago
  We had some design challenges (and many other types of challenges...) but we really tried with Minecraft: Earth to go big with AR AND location-based gaming. After we sunset it, it really struck me how scary GaaS can be. No one can play Minecraft in AR any more (at least currently) and I think that, even if it got old fast, it was a pretty magical experience. It made me really want to record a video playthrough for a few hours to try and capture the experience.
  - 411111111111111 4y ago
    And it applies to all games with a server component. It is arguably even worse with MMOs like world of warcraft that have significant patch circles, as it effectively get removed every 1-2 yrs.
  - cykros 4y ago
    Minecraft Earth's big failure was being just too bloated for most hardware to handle it. I was running a fairly current Pixel phone and in one of the AR modes (build or adventure) watching the battery drain was like time lapse photography...never mind how hot the phone would get in the process. Microsoft jumped the gun with software that the hardware wasn't ready for; I'd hope they try something similar in a few years when things have had a chance to catch up.
Cayde-6 4y ago
For anyone that played Ingress, Niantic's earlier game, then the poor handling of Pokemon Go development is exactly inline with expectations, though still disappointing.
- RugnirViking 4y ago
  ingress is a weird one, despite being several years older it still has longevity. There is still a dedicated core of players for it that follow the complex story, and I know a bunch of the players in my (small-ish) city, and have on several occasions occasion come across them in person. The big issue to my eyes is that they have a winning formula with the area control game, but they don't do much to shake it up (they do occasionally and every time it's awesome, like targets that travel between portals that players have to fight to funnel towards certain areas for their team)
mylons 4y ago
- perardi 4y ago
  I am a 38-year-old. I am perfectly capable of assessing what is of worth to me. It got me out exploring my new neighborhood. I made casual friends which made me feel connected to the area. Got my dog lots and lots of walks, especially when the pandemic started. I have some truly fond memories of coming across rare Pokémon with said dog—who is now dead. I had a great time. I was outside, in the world, walking and interacting, and it cost me some in-app purchase money. I spent, per month, significantly less than I would have going to one single movie. So don’t you dare to assume what is valuable or me to not.
  - mst 4y ago
    "Makes dog walking more interesting" sounds like a killer feature to me. I'm glad you and the dog enjoyed the results.
Tepix 4y ago
Were you playing on iOS or Android?
praptak 4y ago
It must be "in their DNA" or something. You could replace "Pokemon Go" with "Ingress", their earlier game, and get to almost exactly the same conclusions. Also, with Ingress the most innovative area was also the one that players complained about the loudest - I am talking about actual player interactions. Going to someone else's portal and bombing it, creating blocker links, covering a strategic area with a huge field so as to win the cycle, etc. Unfortunately it got too competitive some players, so they started location spoofing, edit wars on portals and other behaviors that made the experience shitty for others. Niantic's reaction was to gut that from their next games rather than try to improve. So I'm still waiting for a good location-based game where you can have some real location-based interactions with other players. Current offering is mostly "everybody going outside and playing a single-player game next to each other".
- hnbad 4y ago
  I think Introversion Software's "Subversion"[0] is an excellent case study for the kind of problem Niantic's games always had: all tech demo, no game. Ingress was an incredibly exciting technical innovation at the time. The idea of playing an area control game using your real world GPS coordinates was novel and the game encouraged genuine discovery in its initial phase by allowing you to record local points of interest: even in your hometown the game might lead you to walk down a road you were unfamiliar with and discover an interesting monument, fountain or building. But they never really considered where to take it from there. Once the novelty wore off, it was mostly grind. Advanced players quickly developed strategies to optimize their play and "casuals" quickly fell behind with no way to catch up. The game remained fun for a small core group but effectively lacked an on-ramp for new players. Pokemon Go repeated this problem. They had created new exciting systems but not figured out how to make the game sustainably "fun" for most players. I can only recommend watching the entire Failure Masterclass series from Introversion Software but at least the final video addressing their most anticipated game that never was, Subversion (a spiritual successor to Uplink). Without spoiling too much, the game was becoming increasingly complex and interesting but ultimately failed because there was no "game" there that would survive contact with players. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1giu6sMnAxY&list=PLbv7YX5V1ccWqZDhUtUQdUIpMg--o-U6l&index=9 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1giu6sMnAxY&list=PLbv7YX5V1c...
shultays 4y ago
Pokemon Go is so much wasted potential. Could have been an amazing game with more content. Just look at existing pokemon go games and try to add such content (random NPCs around the world, random/semi random quests, more building/store types etc. Maybe even seasonal events like fighting gyms and collecting badges) and it would be an amazing game. Hire me niantic. My guess is pokemon company intentionally butchers it and makes it distinct than (or lite version of) regular pokemon games.
lambic 4y ago
I played Pokemon Go daily throughout the pandemic as a way to get out of the house and get some exercise. I also quit a few months ago as the walking habit has stuck without the need for any other incentive.
eddyfromtheblok 4y ago
it's their player-created database of waypoints that is their most tangible asset, they have data on which spots are visited by the most people.

acalzycalzy 4y ago

nijave 4y ago

It seems they ignore anything that isn't directly monetizable

cjensen 4y ago

Your points about AR are worth emphasizing: Pokemon Go has AR... that most users turn off. With AR turned off, it's strictly a location-based game.

nkrisc 4y ago
Frankly I’d have turned it the location based aspect too if I could have. I don’t want to go places to play a video game, I just want to play it wherever I am. Obviously that wasn’t the point of the game, but it turned me off to the game after a few days. Never mind how repetitive it was.
- ryderdini 4y ago
  Wouldn’t it be better to just play the regular Pokémon games at that point?
  - nkrisc 4y ago
    Not on my phone.
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  Hopefully after this all blows over they will eventually make the obvious sequel to Pokémon Go. Pokéstop!
- recursive 4y ago
  Well then you could just play literally any other game. I'm very intrigued by the possibilities of a physical-location-based multiplayer game. I got into Ingress, but there wasn't significance to decisions in that game for my taste. I hope one day someone produces another GPS-based game that has more interesting strategy.
  - mattnewton 4y ago
    Ah, but you couldn’t play Pokémon on your mobile phone, (side-loading emulators on android nonwithstanding). I’d bet that was a sizable chunk of the appeal, especially since ingress did not have anywhere near the success.
- silisili 4y ago
  It's not my kind of game either, but was definitely interesting and to me a good thing because it got people out of house. I used to walk my local park daily for years, only ever saw a few people. Seemingly out of nowhere, the park seemed always packed...kids, adults, you name it. It was kind of jarring to me, to be honest. I mentioned it in passing to my brother, kinda complaining about the sudden crowds but later describing it down to details...how people seemed to be taking pics of the ground for no reason...he said "they're playing pokemon go, dummy." I had no idea such a thing existed and thought I was going nuts. But ultimately what I saw was a lot of people venturing out and about, enjoying the day, having fun solo or in groups... and thought it was a net positive to society, for once, unlike most modern apps and games.
perardi 4y ago
I immediately turned off the “feed your Pokémon AR mode”. While it is theoretically fun to plop your Piplup on a table and feed it a Pinap: it’s slower than a Slowking to do so, and got very old very fast.
- undersuit 4y ago
  Wailord has to be the slowest Pokemon to feed that there is and impractical to place in AR space too as one of the largest Pokemon
  - perardi 4y ago
    Yeah, but that’s way harder to find good alliteration for. Some of the big flying Pokémon were also terrible to interact with. Nearly off-screen if they moved.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- seanhunter 4y ago
  Like most things in life, you have to go with a Snorlax-only strat and then everything makes sense.
  - perardi 4y ago
    I could make some quite obscure Smogon references here, but I will stop myself.
darknavi 4y ago
We had some design challenges (and many other types of challenges...) but we really tried with Minecraft: Earth to go big with AR AND location-based gaming. After we sunset it, it really struck me how scary GaaS can be. No one can play Minecraft in AR any more (at least currently) and I think that, even if it got old fast, it was a pretty magical experience. It made me really want to record a video playthrough for a few hours to try and capture the experience.
- 411111111111111 4y ago
  And it applies to all games with a server component. It is arguably even worse with MMOs like world of warcraft that have significant patch circles, as it effectively get removed every 1-2 yrs.
- cykros 4y ago
  Minecraft Earth's big failure was being just too bloated for most hardware to handle it. I was running a fairly current Pixel phone and in one of the AR modes (build or adventure) watching the battery drain was like time lapse photography...never mind how hot the phone would get in the process. Microsoft jumped the gun with software that the hardware wasn't ready for; I'd hope they try something similar in a few years when things have had a chance to catch up.

Cayde-6 4y ago

For anyone that played Ingress, Niantic's earlier game, then the poor handling of Pokemon Go development is exactly inline with expectations, though still disappointing.

RugnirViking 4y ago
ingress is a weird one, despite being several years older it still has longevity. There is still a dedicated core of players for it that follow the complex story, and I know a bunch of the players in my (small-ish) city, and have on several occasions occasion come across them in person. The big issue to my eyes is that they have a winning formula with the area control game, but they don't do much to shake it up (they do occasionally and every time it's awesome, like targets that travel between portals that players have to fight to funnel towards certain areas for their team)

mylons 4y ago

perardi 4y ago
I am a 38-year-old. I am perfectly capable of assessing what is of worth to me. It got me out exploring my new neighborhood. I made casual friends which made me feel connected to the area. Got my dog lots and lots of walks, especially when the pandemic started. I have some truly fond memories of coming across rare Pokémon with said dog—who is now dead. I had a great time. I was outside, in the world, walking and interacting, and it cost me some in-app purchase money. I spent, per month, significantly less than I would have going to one single movie. So don’t you dare to assume what is valuable or me to not.
- mst 4y ago
  "Makes dog walking more interesting" sounds like a killer feature to me. I'm glad you and the dog enjoyed the results.

Tepix 4y ago

Were you playing on iOS or Android?

praptak 4y ago

It must be "in their DNA" or something. You could replace "Pokemon Go" with "Ingress", their earlier game, and get to almost exactly the same conclusions. Also, with Ingress the most innovative area was also the one that players complained about the loudest - I am talking about actual player interactions. Going to someone else's portal and bombing it, creating blocker links, covering a strategic area with a huge field so as to win the cycle, etc. Unfortunately it got too competitive some players, so they started location spoofing, edit wars on portals and other behaviors that made the experience shitty for others. Niantic's reaction was to gut that from their next games rather than try to improve. So I'm still waiting for a good location-based game where you can have some real location-based interactions with other players. Current offering is mostly "everybody going outside and playing a single-player game next to each other".

hnbad 4y ago
I think Introversion Software's "Subversion"[0] is an excellent case study for the kind of problem Niantic's games always had: all tech demo, no game. Ingress was an incredibly exciting technical innovation at the time. The idea of playing an area control game using your real world GPS coordinates was novel and the game encouraged genuine discovery in its initial phase by allowing you to record local points of interest: even in your hometown the game might lead you to walk down a road you were unfamiliar with and discover an interesting monument, fountain or building. But they never really considered where to take it from there. Once the novelty wore off, it was mostly grind. Advanced players quickly developed strategies to optimize their play and "casuals" quickly fell behind with no way to catch up. The game remained fun for a small core group but effectively lacked an on-ramp for new players. Pokemon Go repeated this problem. They had created new exciting systems but not figured out how to make the game sustainably "fun" for most players. I can only recommend watching the entire Failure Masterclass series from Introversion Software but at least the final video addressing their most anticipated game that never was, Subversion (a spiritual successor to Uplink). Without spoiling too much, the game was becoming increasingly complex and interesting but ultimately failed because there was no "game" there that would survive contact with players. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1giu6sMnAxY&list=PLbv7YX5V1ccWqZDhUtUQdUIpMg--o-U6l&index=9 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1giu6sMnAxY&list=PLbv7YX5V1c...

shultays 4y ago

Pokemon Go is so much wasted potential. Could have been an amazing game with more content. Just look at existing pokemon go games and try to add such content (random NPCs around the world, random/semi random quests, more building/store types etc. Maybe even seasonal events like fighting gyms and collecting badges) and it would be an amazing game. Hire me niantic. My guess is pokemon company intentionally butchers it and makes it distinct than (or lite version of) regular pokemon games.

lambic 4y ago

I played Pokemon Go daily throughout the pandemic as a way to get out of the house and get some exercise. I also quit a few months ago as the walking habit has stuck without the need for any other incentive.

eddyfromtheblok 4y ago

it's their player-created database of waypoints that is their most tangible asset, they have data on which spots are visited by the most people.