
Pokémon GO: The Data Behind America’s Latest Obsession - nateberkopec
https://www.similarweb.com/blog/pokemon-go
======
NamTaf
If Google had any sense, they would be throwing a tonne more at this. It may
be Ingress with less features and a Pokemon skin but that latter part is
exactly the mainstream appeal they need to make AR big. This is their big
chance to create a new market. If they sort out the bugginess and roll out
decent features in the next couple of months to keep retention, they're onto
something big.

At near-on midnight on Saturday, there were 150-200 people sitting in a 70m
stretch of the main public park area here in Brisbane CBD (Southbank). During
Sunday when I walked through, that was closer to 250-300. This is purely
because there's 3 or 4 points of interest in close proximity so people
congregate there to interact with it. It's truly a sight to behold.

This game has captured the imagination of non-gamers better than anything I
can think of in recent history. It's nearing WoW / CoD levels of ubiquity.

~~~
yoodenvranx
The one thing which is missing (and which made Ingress the amazing game it is)
is ingame notification and ingame player activity.

Based on the gym activity there are at least 15-20 players in my town but
there is just no way of contacting them. If I am lucky I can manage to meet
one by random chance but currently Pokemon Go is a rather single player game.

The other thing which is missing is a system which shows ingame player
activity. At any given point I can open my scanner in Ingress and see exactly
what's going on around me. I can see if there is a new player in town, I can
see if my favorite enemy is active again, ... but in Pokemon Go I feel like I
am blind.

I know that there are other Pokemon Go players out there in my town but I just
can't see them or interact with them.

~~~
viraptor
This game is targeting young kids, so I'm not sure there will ever be any
person-identifying interaction. A lot of online multiplayer games for kids
don't have interactions beyond friending/favouriting someone. P-GO would be a
prime candidate for 4chan type people and you can imagine how that would work
together with location spoofing and global playground. I expect that Nintendo
& Niantic know this (Ingress never solved the chat spamming issues - bots
advertising resources for real money)

~~~
FungalRaincloud
If the game is targeting young kids, it's missing out on its primary audience.
For one thing, young kids often do not have cellphones of their own. But for
another, I was recently at a mall in a fairly major city, and I did not see
one person under 18 playing, but near every Pokestop, and every lower spawn
rate Pokemon, I found dozens of people. Pokemon games have had somewhat adult
humor and themes for years, though the TV show is undoubtedly meant for a
younger audience. Given that most of the people who really wanted this game
are people who grew up on Pokemon and are now adults, not at least providing
the option to have social interaction feels a bit wrong. It could be abused,
sure, but I think throwing the necessary resources at keeping it from being
abused, and punishing abusers would be worth keeping the game relevant to its
current primary consumer.

~~~
jerf
I believe the point is that if the target audience _includes_ kids, you get
stuck with the restrictions that implies, whether or not they are the
majority. Some of this is directly legally mandated, some of it is indirectly
legally mandated by fear of lawsuit, and some of it is mandated by avoiding
bad PR about any bad thing maybe possibly happening to some kid somewhere
because of your app. By that, I don't mean to minimize concerns about the real
possibility of things that could be bad, but to highlight the fact that the PR
disaster doesn't even need a real bad thing to happen, just a semi-credible
accusation made to the right media for any reason.

None of those three concerns can be fixed by any amount of "resource
investment" that will satisfy anyone. It would just get them accused of
censorship anyhow.

------
onion2k
Ignoring the comparison with Twitter for a moment, this shows that Nintendo's
mobile strategy has been woefully slow. They've been ignoring a huge market
segment to try to shift hardware instead, and this toe in the water shows that
_a lot_ of people are interested in playing their games but not necessarily
buying their consoles. I'd argue this means their business needs to change
dramatically - away from their own hardware and towards leveraging their
terrific IP on other platforms. Very much like Sega did a while ago.

~~~
kalleboo
Doesn't that depend on if they can make money on this model? This is a
126-year-old business, not a startup that's starving for "eyeballs" to
increase their VC valuation. Selling hardware and $60 games could be a better
(and more long-term) business than selling in-app "coins". (Or not!) I guess
we'll see now.

~~~
chatmasta
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Nintendo is not the creator of the Pokemon Go
game. Niantic (spelling?) licenses the Pokemon brand from Nintendo.

So in this case the comparison is not between selling in-app coins vs games.
It's between licensing IP to the company that sells coins, vs selling games.

~~~
Sephiroth87
Technically Nintendo is not even the full owner of Pokemon, that would be The
Pokemon Company [1], which is only partially owned by Nintendo

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pokémon_Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pokémon_Company)

~~~
donkeyd
Yet Nintendo market cap gained 7 billion on Pokemon Go alone. I wonder if
these investors really have no idea that the tech behind the game is Niantic
and that Pokemon isn't even completely owned by Nintendo, or that there's
something I'm missing here.

~~~
avree
Pokemon Go is magnitudes larger than Ingress, their previous project, even
though it's been plagued with more issues than Ingress and is arguably not as
fully featured.

The difference?

Pokemon, which Nintendo owns.

If I was an investor, I'd view the potential for licensing the Nintendo IP
(something Nintendo has been extremely reluctant to do in the past) as a huge
potential growth vector for a struggling market segment (consoles,
specifically Nintendo-made ones.)

~~~
donkeyd
True. Nintendo, of course, has a lot more IP than just Pokemon that they could
license for all kinds of stuff. And the people who grew up with their games
are now earning money, so they can actually buy the licensed material. Good
point.

~~~
hockley
They could be like Marvel. Tons of characters and story lines to license for
film and games.

~~~
distantsounds
Marvel licensed their IP out to Marvel Puzzle Quest (which was somewhat of a
Bejeweled clone) and was quite successful with it. They didn't have a huge
studio behind it either.

------
MBCook
The amazing thing to me is that, at least on iOS, the game is pretty
objectively bad.

Of course that hasn't stopped me from sinking a lot of time into it this
weekend. I've spent $10 on it, which is easily a record for free to play game
for me.

The server issues are one thing, but the game doesn't even get lots of basic
things right. If the server goes away, or sometimes if I'm just out of the app
too long, I have to log back in. It seems to forget my settings for weather I
want sound and music on, or to use the AR functions. I've run into numerous
crashes and graphical glitches. Input getting confused requiring app restarts.
Poor handling of the (common) network/server issues.

One of the mechanics requires walking around, which it won't track outside the
app despite the fact that iPhones have had motion coprocessor for years. So
they offer a special mode (very poorly documented) that basically turns the
screen black and tries to reduce power usage a bit. But you have to keep the
Pokémon app open to track steps.

I am having fun. I REALLY hope they can fix these issues. I sought earlier
today that they do plan to add Pokémon trading and expand the functionality of
the various waypoints in the world. I'd also love to be able to battle my
friends.

The social aspect on this just amazes me. In the last couple of days they're
been numerous times when I saw a random people clearly playing this game. Guys
walking around parking lots at work, cars parked at empty banks that were
closed because there happened to be a gym there. Numerous posts on social
media about random gatherings and flash mobs because of something going on in
the game.

It's clear that Ingress had a pretty good idea. Tying it to a major brand (not
unlike the way Mario kart was created) that really encourages the collecting
aspect and getting it out on iOS at basically the same time have clearly made
a huge difference.

I'll also say, is a Pokémon fan I'm glad that it's only the 150 original in
the game. At this point there are way too many Pokémon that seem the same to
me, so I'm glad to see my old friends instead. I imagine that'll change
someday but this is a good start.

~~~
georgeecollins
Speaking as someone who has helped develop two extremely successful mobile
games "objective" goodness is pretty meaningless. People have more patience
than you expect for a game that captures their imagination and will put up
with buggyness. In the long run, if a game isn't polished it will lose because
of retention. But pure technical polish is often overrated.

~~~
Betabot101
Agree, just look at DayZ. Players stuck with that through extreme buggyness.
Sure it might not have the same number of players as it once did but there
were periods during which players were putting up with a lot of bugs.

~~~
MBCook
I don't really 'get' DayZ, but I also know that it was a pay-once game, not
free to play. Once you've paid the money you might as well get your fun out of
it. But if you're constantly losing items and getting frustrated by bugs
what's the incentive to keep playing and possibly giving Niantic money?

------
kdamken
I think people will look back on this game as important, as something special.
I've been playing video games for over twenty years, and I can't remember the
last time something felt quite as exciting as this. Each time I've gone out,
I've seen other people walking around playing, and everyone gets the same
goofy smile when you ask them if they're playing Pokemon too.

It shows the potential for AR games, and I think it will help a lot of people
get in shape. I've walked around outside more in the past three days than I
have in the past two months. Even hanging out with friends, rather than
sitting inside watching tv or playing xbox, it's like "let's check out that
lure", or, "I see a Bulbasaur, let's go get it".

When I was a kid, I remember wishing that Pokemon was real. This game really
captures some of the magic and sense of adventure I felt when I first played
it so many years ago.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Ingress was as exciting as this. And it was a lot of fun running into other
players (friendly and enemy) and spotting them from a few dozen yards away. I
still regularly talk to people I met on the Ingress scene, including one enemy
player who was, at the time, my "archnemesis" of sorts. I did meetups with
other local players to takeover large areas as a group and stuff as well.

But yeah, version 2 is cool too, I guess. ;)

Like Ingress, it'll be pretty busy for a few months and then it'll probably
recede back to a core community of people who really really get into it.

~~~
niftich
No doubt Ingress was exciting, but it was a new AR/VR concept and an original
sci-fi plot, putting it in the same ballpark demographic as a AAA video game.

Pokemon GO has the advantage of being based on an multi-billion dollar,
20-year-old franchise. Its appeal goes beyond that of a typical videogame, so
has a significant leg up over Ingress in people's hearts and minds. Its
popularity will eventually segment into a hardcore group and a mainstream
group, but its mindshare among the wider population is likely to remain
strong.

~~~
MBCook
One of the big problems with Ingress was it wasn't available on iOS until
maybe a year ago.

Since Google made it I don't exactly blame them, but that was a huge chunk of
the market. I wanted to give it a try and I'm sure there were tons of other
people but we couldn't since we didn't have Android phones.

That's not an issue with Pokémon GO.

~~~
kyrra
Ingress on iOS was 7 months after Android.

Closed beta - November 15, 2012

Open beta - October 30, 2013

General Android Release - December 14, 2013

iOS Release - July 14, 2014

~~~
MBCook
Really?

Huh, I only heard about it last year.

------
niftich
The previous iteration of this concept was Ingress, by the same developer.
It's an active subculture, but not to the level of Pokemon GO.

The marketing is ingenious. It manages to capitalize on the nostalgia of two
generations that grew up playing Pokemon games, and the fact that the stated
(virtual) premise of Pokemon was always to roam the world and catch these
creatures.

Regardless of the longevity of the game, this phenomenal marriage of a popular
videogame series with an experienced alternate reality company will be studied
for many years.

~~~
detaro
And clever reuse of user-collected data from Ingress, to find good public
landmarks all over the world.

~~~
cloudjacker
I had a hunch thats what was going on

------
ro_sharp
I'm in Australia, and I've never seen an irl viral phenomenon on the streets
like this. In the inner city of Brisbane, every second person I see is staring
at their phone, swiping up to catch Pokemon. Mobs of 100+ people chasing
'lures' are being moved on from parks in the middle of the night. And there
was a pub crawl:
[https://www.facebook.com/events/267390546965461/](https://www.facebook.com/events/267390546965461/)

~~~
voltagex_
I think the real tell will be how many people are still playing in a month.
The game can get very expensive, especially if you're in a rural area.

~~~
MBCook
I do hope they rebalance it a bit. The only way to get coins without paying
money is to own a gym, which is difficult to do. And less you're willing to go
farm a bunch of little Pokéstops then you probably have to buy potions. If
there was something equivalent to the Pokécenter then things would be better.
It be nice to be able to battle friends to train your Pokémon as well.

~~~
voltagex_
Niantic are either too busy or really don't care about social media. There's
lots of people pointing out real problems with the game. I hope it's not like
Ingress all over again, where the only way to get something fixed was to know
someone at Google.

~~~
MBCook
Since it has the Pokémon company's brand (and therefore Nintendo's) I really
hope to be a great app. One of the things I love about Nintendo with how well
they polish all their software.

Instead it's very clear to me that it's a Google app with Pokémon branding.
Release fast, bugs are OK, we can fix them later. Don't worry about the fact
that the iOS version feels like an Android app and is somewhat obnoxious to
use.

I can't help but think that if this game had another two months of polish it
would be amazing. Instead, it's in its current slightly crappy state with a
serious server issue going on.

~~~
ZenoArrow
Pokemon Go isn't made by Google, it's made by Niantic. Niantic were originally
linked to Google, but have been independent since October 2015.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niantic,_Inc](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niantic,_Inc).

~~~
MBCook
It was an internal Google startup that spun out, so I'm assuming they're used
to 'the Google way' of operating.

I don't feel great saying this stuff, but I don't know how else to communicate
just how startlingly bad the app can be, and how much it feels like a terribly
lazy port of an Android app.

I don't know. Maybe if I use the Android app for a few days I'd find out that
more or less every single issue is just as bad.

------
int_19h
I'm surprised there's so little talk about privacy and nuisance implications
of this.

We've had a large number of "suspicious behavior" reported in our neighborhood
in the past week - and, honestly, it really is suspicious, as in people
crawling through the bushes on private property at dusk snapping pictures with
cellphones; you know, the kind of stuff that would normally make you go "hmm,
I wonder if this house gets robbed soon", and give your local PD a quick call.

But I'm pretty sure it's mostly GO, just looking at how many are around.
What's worse is that the game places some of those pokemons in private yards
or even inside buildings, with no way to access them short of trespassing...

~~~
gagege
I just turn off AR mode if it's in someone's house or yard.

------
Fej
I expect this to go quite a bit like Miitomo. Quick uptake, followed by most
of the userbase getting bored and forgetting about it.

This game is pretty superficial. There isn't much to do. It unfortunately
perpetuates the notion that mobile games cannot have depth or good, lasting
gameplay.

Last phone game I really enjoyed was Tiny Wings. That was a while ago. Since
then, anything I play on my phone has been in an emulator with a GameKlip and
a DualShock 3.

~~~
TheHippo
If you are looking for an AR mobile game with more depth maybe you should try
Ingress.

------
pja
All I know is that I mentioned Pokemon GO to my kids (it’s not out in the UK
yet, so no advertising push to make them aware of it already) and they were
instantly telling me that they _had_ to have it.

I can’t imagine any other brand having that kind of impact - Talk about an
unmet need in the marketplace waiting to be filled!

------
agumonkey
Central Park now
[https://twitter.com/IGIhosT/status/752357024156028928](https://twitter.com/IGIhosT/status/752357024156028928)

------
diziet
The data and methodology is pretty suspect here -- Google for Pokémon Go
reports 5m-10m installs while Tinder is reported to have 50m to 100m installs.
This is an order of magnitude more worldwide installs. I think the 'current
data' is being heavily weighted and producing a too sensational of an article.

For Tinder, about 25% of it's installs came from the US on Android. That still
puts it at 12.5m - 25m Android installs range.

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tinder](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tinder)

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nianticlab...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nianticlabs.pokemongo)

~~~
mikek
Yes, but there were also many uninstalls. These numbers are accounting for
that.

------
shostack
The crazy thing for me is the sheer explosive growth this has seen. I was
walking around downtown Redwood City last night near the theater. Easily 50%
of the people on the sidewalk walking or standing around were playing as
verified by glancing at their screens as I passed them.

And these weren't just kids. Adults, men, women, all ethnicities, etc. were
all playing. I've never seen anything like it. They've really stuck to their
goal of getting people outside as summed up by this hilarious Reddit post [1].

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/comments/4rwf24/pokemon_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/comments/4rwf24/pokemon_trying_to_get_people_outside_for_2_decades/)

~~~
sharkweek
It honestly has reminded me of when Facebook launched at my college back in
05. I remember being in the library and had Facebook pulled up, another
student who I didn't know walked by and was like "Facebook! Add me!"

Immediate flashbacks when last night I was walking to my car from the grocery
store with Go up on my phone. Guy yells "Pokemon go, right?"

------
jmadsen
Currently discussing with friends best way to crack it and make it seem like
there's a rare pokemon just up ahead - for all those people who slowly clog up
the sidewalks and stations staring at their phones.

Ideas welcome!

(For the official record, since you have to say this these days - I'm only
joking)

~~~
abstractbeliefs
It's already been noted that the application itself doesn't verify the
validity of TLS certs, so it's trivial to MITM the connection and there are
currently people working to learn the ins and outs of the API.

~~~
Dylan16807
It verifies certs, it just doesn't _pin_ them. So if you can hack your phone,
you can hack it, shocker. Not a security flaw.

~~~
bognition
Curious why you don't think this is a security flaw. Surely a browser failing
to pin certificates would be a bad thing, no?

~~~
darklajid
There are legitimate reasons to extend the trusted root certificates (notably:
corporate deployments). Admitted, I cannot come up with a reason that has
anything to do with Pokemon, but - in general I think this should be possible.

Plus: Who do you want to protect and from whom? The only person able to make
Pokemon Go (locally, on their phone) accept another certificate is by having
full access to the phone in the first place. It's the user, 'hacking' his own
device.

If this leads to exploits on the Pokemon Go server for some reason, than
_those_ are the problems. The communication between app and Pokemon Go server
uses TLS, even if I spoof a certificate for my very own device.

For me this is one of the examples of Raymond Chen's "If you're already on the
other side of the hatch it isn't a security exploit", but I might absolutely
fail to understand the risks of course.

~~~
bognition
wow, thanks for the reply. Although i'm not sure why my question was
downvoted...

------
ryenyc
The Twitter comparison seems very off. Note that the article is talking about
Android only. According to
[https://about.twitter.com/company](https://about.twitter.com/company),
Twitter has 310 MAUs and 83% are Mobile. They've publicly stated MAU to DAU
retention is 44% (Bloomberg, etc). That leaves Twitter on Android with 40-60M+
DAUs. Pokemon Go's download number which is plainly visible in the Google Play
Store is >5M but <10, and that's worldwide. So Android Pokemon Go = 5-10M DAUs
MAX, Android Twitter = 40-60M DAUs

------
bpchaps
Has anybody gone through their privacy policy? The speed that this became
viral and the possibilities to have an enormous amount of people take video
all over the place gives me the heeby jeebies.. Some of the things in the
policy sound very, very invasive.

[https://www.nianticlabs.com/privacy/pokemongo/en/](https://www.nianticlabs.com/privacy/pokemongo/en/)

Edit: Heh, I went on indeed to see if there was a spike of video analyst jobs
and got this awesome ad on the right:
[https://imgur.com/MMyjbQN](https://imgur.com/MMyjbQN)

------
alexmingoia
Let's wait a month to see what engagement looks like. Most people are
downloading simply because everyone is talking about it - especially news
media

~~~
gre
Engagement is crazy right now. I drove home at 3am last night and stopped by a
PokeStop, and as I was leaving the parking lot, another car pulled in just to
play... Same at the church by my place 15 minutes later. Different car.

What will really be telling is how many people still play after a week or two.

~~~
MBCook
I feel that if they don't get the server issues under control soon (I saw they
delayed the European lunch) then it doesn't matter what WOULD have happened
the game is going to lose players in the social/network effects won't be
there.

~~~
bpicolo
I think more of an issue will be people hitting "completion" relatively soon.
Certainly, the most interesting part right now is just catching new Pokemon,
but there aren't so many that you can't burn through most of that enjoyment
fairly quickly.

The gym battles are terribly boring.

~~~
neuronexmachina
So far the game only includes the 151 original Pokémon, and I imagine it
should be pretty straightforward to add in the later generations
(700-something total). That's without adding things like shinies, gender, etc.

------
skc
This game has all the makings of a fad.

The AR angle is new but this is simply Flappy Birds all over again.

~~~
savanaly
Not saying it's not a fad, but isn't it different in quite a number of ways?
The Pokemon brand and geo coordinate aspects had all my friends ("core
gamers", if you will, who would probably not have dreamed of playing flappy
birds for fun) playing it all weekend.

~~~
bargl
I'm into this game. It's fun, it gamifies walking and going to parks. I love
that I can play this for a few minutes while walking my kid to the park, or
while he's at the park playing.

Is it perfect? Hell no, but I play it in spite of how popular it is. It is
fun, engaging, rewards activities I want to do more (walk) and really doesn't
work well in the house. My wife likes that I wanted to get out of the house
more this weekend.

Is it kinda sad that I need a videogame to make going outside fun for me? Yeah
sorta, but that's who I am.

EDIT: One final note. This game uses the Pokemon _I_ played with as a kid. The
ones I traded on cards and really leverages that nostalgia to make it
something I want to do. I want to catch these specific pokemon because I've
done it before. And it's more rewarding because I have to physically earn them
too.

------
jhanschoo
Cave lector: Twitter, in this case, seems to refer to the Android twitter app,
compared against the Pokemon GO Android app. If that is the case, I expect the
reported Twitter DAU to be much lower than the actual Twitter DAUs.

~~~
rout39574
Caveat? ;) I mean, those readers can be scary, but...

~~~
trvz
Cave is the singular imperative form. Cave lector therefore makes sense,
meaning "beware, reader", while caveat means "warning".

~~~
jhanschoo
Either should be fine; caveat is the jussive subjunctive, and so the meaning
is similar.

------
malchow
It's difficult to escape the feeling that Nintendo is not exactly central to
the success of Pokémon Go, and that the 7BB increase in market cap is. . .
excessive.

Fact is, this game is the work of a small VC-backed game shop in San Francisco
with some great talent. They license the Pokémon characters, which are owned
by The Pokémon Company, which is minority owned by Nintendo.

~~~
tdaltonc
Nintendo is also an investor in Niantic Labs. If you think the price is high,
you're welcome to short it.

~~~
malchow
Do you have a link for this? (I believe you, but I don't see it reflected in
any of the VC DBs.)

~~~
tdaltonc
[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/nianticlabs-
google#/...](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/nianticlabs-
google#/entity)

------
Sephiroth87
Just image if the game was actually good... It's kind of a shame :(

~~~
jhanschoo
I'm optimistic that the game will continue getting fleshed out; there's no way
Niantic isn't going to capitalize on this.

~~~
Sephiroth87
I don't doubt it'll get better, but I also don't expect any major rewriting of
the core loops / mechanics, which might invalidate user progress

~~~
toxican
The way I see it, they've got like two weeks tops to flesh it out more.
Because after that, running around catching them and struggling against the
weird gym system until you win is going to stop being enjoyable at all (and I
do find it enjoyable for now!). Even just a bare bones friends system and a
combat system that utilizes the 2 attack method gym battles have could go a
long way to give the game a little more staying power.

------
cdevs
The terrifying thing is how the games location of items can manipulate foot
traffic and could show bias of one business over the other across the street
in turn manipulating be economy by moving us and our eventual spending around
like lemmings....but it's just Pokemon right?

~~~
markcerqueira
Yeah - it's definitely "new age" advertising but why jump to a "terrifying"
"moving us around like lemmings" conclusion? If a company wants to spend money
to drop lures good for them. People can go there if they choose or just ignore
it.

------
AnonymousPlanet
I am really surprised it has taken this long for such an app to emerge. After
smartphones took off and gained GPS, I remember sitting in a friend's student
den (ca. 2009) idly brainstorming an AR game that would let you roam the city
as an RPG character, occasionally battling or collaborating with other
players. We thought it was pretty obvious and we wouldn't be the first to
think of it, so we never bothered to actually pursue the idea.

Ingress was the first big game I remember that provided something similar, but
it kind of ended there. The Pokemon theme is pretty much perfect for such a
setup: inventory, challenges, not too martial and you get to piggyback on an
existing story. Our vision was more geared towards the WoW gamer crowd.

------
shostack
I'm just waited for the first theft tied to this. Shouldn't take a thief long
to get the app and find a seedy area to drop a Lure in. Wait for unsuspecting
hapless victim(s) to stand around staring at their phones oblivious to the
world for an extended period of time and it would be like shooting fish in a
barrel for a ride-by phone snatcher on a bike.

~~~
legohead
Wait no longer: [http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/thieves-pokemon-
find-p...](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/thieves-pokemon-find-players-
rob-missouri-article-1.2706417)

------
DKnoll3
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned anything about Niantic being an
"independent" spinoff from Google/Alphabet.

Interesting to think about what personal information they're gaining from
this, as well as mapping information.

~~~
jwcooper
Nintendo (along with Google and the Pokemon Company, which Nintendo also
partially owns) invested $30 million into Niantic 9 months ago [1].

[1]
[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-16/nintendo-g...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-16/nintendo-
gains-on-investment-pokemon-go-game-developer-niantic)

------
mkagenius
Is Tinder the right app to make the comparison with? Game vs Game would be
better, like Angry birds or something.

~~~
MBCook
The only good reason I can think of Tinder being used is because it's a well-
known app and involves real life social things. I can't think of a well-known
game that has in person/real world social interaction like this.

------
elmar
This Guy Used a Drone to Try to Catch Pokémon

[http://gizmodo.com/can-you-speed-up-your-pokemon-go-
progress...](http://gizmodo.com/can-you-speed-up-your-pokemon-go-progress-
with-a-drone-1783418966)

------
kriro
Release in Germany is delayed due to server issues. You can download the APK
and play the game if you want to. I'm sticking with Ingress until the final
release.

It's pretty bad that Google can't scale this. It's not like the mass of users
is unexpected. They have Ingress data to go on and there's the Pokemon factor.
Makes me not want to use the Google cloud for my next project.

~~~
voltagex_
Google / Alphabet != Niantic. [1]

I'd be pretty embarrassed at not predicting the load that a game like this
would put on servers. I wonder if they got a good deal from GCE?

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niantic,_Inc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niantic,_Inc).

------
sumitgt
The game is acting like a Tinder for Pokemon fans. I've seen hoardes of people
gathering around Pokestops and socializing as a side-effect.

------
prawn
Can someone explain how it works? I understand that it's AR- and location-
based. How/where/why do you acquire the virtual creatures? Do you have to look
for them aimlessly or are there clues?

~~~
woah
Just played a little bit on someone else's account. You walk around looking at
a map on your phone (very little detail on the map, it's just a 3d street map)
and sometimes you see a pokemon running around on your block. You tap on the
pokemon and a screen opens up where you have to throw a ball at it. When you
hit it, you capture it. There are also these floating disks with images of
local landmarks, and when you swipe on them, you get more balls or other
prizes. That's about it.

~~~
pests
You missed leveling, evolving, gyms, the meta game, searching for rare
Pokemon, and more.

------
smaili
To be fair:

> Data published today by SimilarWeb indicates that the mobile game is poised
> to surpass Twitter in daily active users on Android.

------
karimdag
It seems to me that almost every other app is about to or has surpassed
Twitter in Daily/Monthly active users. Twitter seems to have some pretty big
problems keeping its users engaged.

~~~
guidopallemans
Instagram and Snapchat are not just every other app. I think Twitter is used
as a reference in these kind of statements because their number of active
users is pretty stagnant.

------
kelukelugames
I don't do much cardio but I walked 4 miles this weekend trying to catch
Pokemon. I love a game that makes me healthier.

------
Eun
Just a side note I leave here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12069450](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12069450)

~~~
celticninja
You should look at auto detecting the users location instead of a drop down
menu.

~~~
Eun
Thanks for the suggestion. => Done :)

~~~
celticninja
Could I be cheeky and ask to see the bit of code that achieves the affect?

~~~
sleepychu
[https://github.com/Eun/is-pokemon-available/blob/gh-
pages/in...](https://github.com/Eun/is-pokemon-available/blob/gh-
pages/index.html#L32)

------
wodenokoto
I think this number is considerably more impressive than beating the number of
Tinder installs.

~~~
userbinator
Indeed, although I'd bet a much larger percentage of the population knows
about Pokemon than Tinder.

~~~
evook
Going with that, I'd bet a much larger percentage of the population knows
about Pokemon than Twitter.

------
eva1984
Well, doubt how many will remain after 1 month.

~~~
rickyc091
I'd imagine people will stay as they did with the original Pokemon. To this
day, they are still adding more and more Pokemon. I'd expect they'd treat this
game in a similar fashion. They'll probably introduce trading (already
confirmed), a battling system amongst peers, side objectives, events (battle
Mewtwo) as we saw in the commerical, etc.

------
sergiotapia
I've run into people playing this game in the park, at Publix, in Costco and
even restaurants. It's a SENSATION, never quite seen something like this. I'm
excited for the future for Nintendo - we could be witnessing the birth of a
new age of Nintendo supremacy!

------
golergka
The most important quality for such a game is how many players are playing it.
In that sense, Pokemon GO is already far better than Ingress or anything else.

------
jlebrech
It's a much less cringey way to meet someone than Tinder, especially if you
want to meet someone who's into Pokemon.

------
cpeterso
Pokémon Go is very similar to the Nintendo DS game "Treasure World" (2009),
where you collect randomized virtual loot based on Wi-Fi networks around you:

[http://www.gamesradar.com/treasure-world-
review/](http://www.gamesradar.com/treasure-world-review/)

------
veeragoni
Do I need to feel out of place in this world? I still dont understand why the
game is so popular!

~~~
mkane848
It's the social aspect and the act of "dude there's a Snorlax at the
basketball court let's go" and getting a group of your friends to go, then as
you show up you see other people doing the same thing.

It's an innocent conversation starter. What better ice-breaker between social
groups than "You playing Pokemon?" Even people who aren't playing know what's
going on. The game itself isn't the selling point here. Being an IRL Pokemon
trainer is.

------
darkboltyoutube
A story of how 2 people nearly died playing this game
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2KXVfnw4rg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2KXVfnw4rg)

------
BillyParadise
Yeah, but will it get me laid?

~~~
wccrawford
If you count meeting people and possibly getting to know them to be a first
step on the path to that, then yes. It's very easy to see who's playing the
app nearby, and people often get talking while they're trying to take over a
gym over waiting for spawns near a lure.

------
jhwhite
Yeah, but what's the daily active users like?

------
Eun
Just a side note I leave here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12069450](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12069450)

------
jacquesm
I wonder what the intersection of the sets of gamers and people that wonder
how they can improve their productivity is.

------
robotboy1000
Does this include downloads from apkmirror etc.?

------
Chris2048
Tinder - gotta catch 'em all!

------
jomamaxx
Who cares about Tindr. Tindr is the poster boy for lowest common denominator
both in the social and technological sense. Ok, maybe Ashley Madison.

~~~
andyjdavis
>Tindr is the poster boy for lowest common denominator

Why yes, it does have very broad appeal.

~~~
jomamaxx
So do porn, gambling, and films like 'Transformers' that literally have no
plot.

~~~
astrange
That's pretty harsh for an app that just shows you people's European vacation
photos and lets you talk to them.

~~~
jomamaxx
Aside from some basic benefits, it mostly encourages people to make judgements
about important things ('human relationships') based on the most absolutely
material, fleeting and trivial physical elements. Especially given the
magnitude of 'choice', it commoditizes people. Even worse, it normalizes this
behaviour. Far from connecting us, it actually disconnects us.

Talking recently to a female friend recently who is on Tindr ... it was pretty
astonishing how numb she'd become to the profiles... absolute objectification.
Even as she was fairly self-aware about it.

It's about as healthy as nicotine.

Admittedly, it's an absolutely brilliant business model, tapping into primal
forces, but it's not a step forward. It's a step sideways, at best, and maybe
even a little step back.

When VC meets creativity meets technology, it will induce a lot of dollars in
this direction irrespective of long term positive economic or social outcomes,
often taking attention away from 'better' causes. Absent reasonably
enlightened consideration (and I mean just 'basic' consideration, not some
holier-than-though ideology), there is no moving forward - just moving in
random directions, pulled by the arbitrary forces of hyper-populist memes and
trends. Some will make a lot of $$$ as the money sloshes around in a zero-sum
game, but surely, but that really isn't the point. In the long run, the Valley
and tech scene will lose authenticity and be about as credible as politicians,
homeopaths, or Amway.

I'll bet $100 that anyone working in tech or any other industry for more than
5-8 years, will start to understand that it's not about 'a job' or 'making
bling', or 'being startup famous' and that they work they do has impact across
cultures and communities, and that they are ultimately responsible for
whatever it is they are working on. Given that there are 10 000 projects
around to chose from, it's hot hard to climb higher on the ladder than Tindr,
by almost any measure, even $$$.

I don't really care about Tindr that much, I have about as much 'against it'
as I do a ridiculous Transformers film (which is nothing), but it's not worth
any attention either.

I'm looking forward to Pokemon :)

~~~
etatoby
> absolutely material, fleeting and trivial physical elements

What would those be? Whether they find the potential date attractive in the
first place?

Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words.

~~~
jomamaxx
Making a snap decision about a person based on a 1/2 second assertion.

Of course, looks matter. We make such 'snap decisions' all day long. The
problem is, absent anything else, that's the _entire_ decision. In the real
world, personality goes a much longer way than the 1000 words in a photo.

At least most online dating apps try to develop and communicate a sense of who
you are, which in some cases, they do very well.

------
jgalt212
AR >> VR

