
Niantic, Maker of Hit ‘Pokémon Go’ App, Refuels with $3.9B Valuation - mpoon
https://www.wsj.com/articles/niantic-maker-of-hit-pokemon-go-app-refuels-with-3-9-billion-valuation-11544748877
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swampthinker
I firmly believe that had Niantic been allowed to mimic the traditional
Pokemon PvP, it would have been an even greater success.

The core gameplay of the Nintendo games wasn't terribly complex, but had tons
of replayability.

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skocznymroczny
I think a big flaw of Pokemon Go was how different the experience was for
urban folks and the rural folks. While the former were running between
Charizards and Blastoises, the latter were enjoying their very rare Pidgey and
Rattata spawns.

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titusjohnson
As someone who grew up in an extremely rural area, I sympathize with those who
didn't get to experience the full Pokemon Go launch, it was pretty amazing to
partake in. Seeing hundreds of people out for night walks, hearing someone
shout "There's one down here!" at the other end of the park, running in crowds
with strangers to get in on a capture, it was a lot of fun while it the
initial surge lasted. The magic burnt out pretty quick for me, but I do still
see people playing the game at least a few times a week.

As someone who left that rural background and now lives in a smaller, but
proper city, my response is a lot colder and less sympathetic. Living rurally
is a trade off. Cheaper land and housing, more space, less culture, fewer
people, and less socialization. The internet _helps_ but it doesn't _cure_
this issue. Until we have teleportation living rurally will always be more
isolating.

It's not really surprising that a walking-based game with a social streak that
seeks to have 10 to 30 interactions per user per hour (pokes to catch, teams
to form, battles to fight, etc) wouldn't work well in areas of the world where
there aren't even 10 to 30 _people_ per square mile.

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erikpukinskis
> Until we have teleportation living rurally will always be more isolating.

I am very curious how close VR with gaze and body language tracking will get
us.

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b_tterc_p
I would bet on the Harry Potter game being a relative flop. The Japanese
market will probably be dead and that accounted for a huge proportion of
Pokémon Go’s revenue. I would also doubt that many “whales” would be
immediately attracted to the premise. They will have a tough time not just
being Pokémon go but with Harry Potter this time, and I bet that will hurt
mainstream adoption.

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sandworm101
Potter is dead. It was a franchise pegged to a particular generation. The
original author consciously upped the aged of the books to match the age of
the fans. The movies did the same. Potter fans have now grown up. They don't
relate to the material as they did as kids. They find the early material
childish, silly. Marketing potter to them again is very difficult.

Similar franchises (star wars/trek etc) did not attempt to 'grow up' alongside
fans. So, decades later, they can still be relevant to new people. Star Wars
VIII isn't attempting to be any more mature than Star Wars IV. But compare
potter's first and latest movies. They are aiming at totally different age
groups.

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tehlike
I believe you could say the same thing for pokemon.

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GolDDranks
Expect that Pokemon has done the exact opposite: it deliberately has not upped
the age of the target audience of the core product. Ash is still ten years
old, after adventuring for 20 years. And he's still "relatively
unexperienced". Time doesn't pass.

Pokemon has diversified the franchise selection though, there are now many
goods (themed tableware etc.) aimed for more mature audience.

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jerf
I've seen at least 3 or 4 posts to the tune of "I'm 23, and I just can't get
into this latest Pokemon game. It's so easy, not like they used to be! Am I a
bad person?"

If you value your karma score, on no account should you say anything like
"It's OK, Pokemon is a game designed for children, and while that doesn't mean
you must now make an angry face at it, growl, and loudly announce that you're
too grown up for it now, it does mean that you're likely going to want to move
on. Consider {GAME LIST} for similar more mature takes on the ideas."

In the meantime, my 8 and 10 year olds, while not necessarily mega-fans, are
decently into it, and will probably be even more so when they actually get
their hands on the games. System is working as designed.

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Noos
The Pokemon games are very complex for games designed for children, as are
games like Yokai Watch. The first game is probably one of the most complex
8-bit console RPGS, I'd think. But they really aren't children's games in the
usual sense of being designed specifically for them into well into the later
lifespan.

I think the later games make more concessions to them, but it feels more like
it was just a normal rpg that somehow got big for kids due to ancillary
merchandise, like trading card games and cartoons.

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jerf
"The Pokemon games are very complex for games designed for children, as are
games like Yokai Watch"

This is one of those "don't underestimate children" times. I was playing
Ultima 4 at the age kids play Pokemon nowadays. But it's definitely designed
for 10-14 year olds, and I wouldn't even be surprised a 14 year old not
wearing nostalgia goggles would actually start to notice it's getting kinda
easy.

A lot of that "complexity" is just fluff. Non-competitive Pokemon is still
like most other (J)RPGs; ultimately, an answer to every problem (not _the_
answer, but _an_ answer) is to trade time for levels and just blast your way
through the next boss. And time is what kids have at that age.

A systemic problem with the genre and the exponential-power-gain treadmill.
There are solutions, like the Shin Megami Tensei approach of greatly raising
the power of non-level-related elements, or the Disgaea approach of just
embracing it and going nuts, and some other things (Elder Scrolls has tried a
couple of solutions though I'm not in love with either of Oblivion's or
Skyrim's attempts to solve this) but the exponential-power-gain approach is
still pretty dominant.

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ruytlm
>There is also hope that Niantic’s pending game with a Harry Potter theme will
also be popular when it comes out some time next year.

It will be interesting to see how successful this is, given that unlike
Pokemon, Harry Potter isn't really a franchise defined by the location-based
hunt-and-collect mechanic that drives Pokemon Go and Ingress.

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otoburb
>> _[...] given that unlike Pokemon, Harry Potter isn 't really a franchise
defined by the location-based hunt-and-collect mechanic that drives Pokemon Go
and Ingress._

Pokémon itself wasn't location driven either before the launch of Pokémon Go.

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steve19
The games, and I assume the anime, are about searching for pokemon in
different locations.

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otoburb
You assume correctly about the anime. Then again, Harry Potter also turned
into a quest to search for Voldemort's seven horcruxes, so it won't be much of
a stretch to adapt Harry Potter to a location-based game.

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neonate
[https://outline.com/7E9wLe](https://outline.com/7E9wLe)

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TeMPOraL
Between Ingress, Pokémon Go and now Harry Potter, aren't they worried about
fragmenting the landscape? There's only so much time an individual can spend
on AR games; looking at how people moved between Ingress and Pokémon Go, I'd
guess the limit is _one_ popular game on the market, max two. Releasing more
sounds like a way to selfpwn the entire business.

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hrrsn
Pokemon had mass appeal. Ingress was always relatively niche and nerdy.

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craftyguy
I wonder if they'll give any of that to OpenStreetMap.

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taurath
This feels a bit like Rovio for me - Pogo was very very popular but they look
in every way like the classic one and done. They haven’t put very many good
mechanics into any game yet

