
Apple says Pokémon Go is the most downloaded app in its first week ever - doppp
https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/22/apple-says-pokemon-go-is-the-most-downloaded-app-in-its-first-week-ever/
======
jandrese
Shows you just how much pent up demand there was for Nintendo to release games
on mobile.

Getting a huge first week download count is a lot easier when you have
literally decades of brand recognition. Being a free download certainly didn't
hurt either.

It remains to be seen what the customer retention numbers look like. I saw
some absolutely insane projections earlier this week about how Apple and
Nintendo were going to make billions off of Pokemon Go. I don't see how
they're going to sustain the current game as it gets fairly grindy and there
isn't much to do once you've caught them all. Maybe some compelling new
features will be added to keep players from getting bored? Direct peer to peer
battles and possibly trading for example.

~~~
Mahn
> Shows you just how much pent up demand there was for Nintendo to release
> games on mobile.

Does it? My impression is that there's a lot more people playing Pokemon Go
than there are Pokemon fans. The IP no doubt helped, but I don't think that
you can just release any Nintendo IP on mobile and instantly have the massive
virality success of Pokemon Go. There's something more to it than that.

~~~
dmoy
Yea, count me as one. I have literally never played any Pokemon game before,
and half-caught maybe one episode of some TV show featuring some comical evil
cat villain thing.

But, I'm catching pokemon on my walk to/from work (makes it less boring, and
doesn't make it take any longer). My wife is now dragging me to the park every
other day to run around in circles catching pokemon.

I'd be interested to see some survey results on what percentage of people
playing this are actually pokemon fans.

~~~
stepanhruda
1\. We know pokemon is a powerful phenomenon people get hooked onto. 2\. You
were previously not a fan of that phenomenon. 3\. You now started liking that
phenomenon. 4\. The survey would show how many people started playing because
they were hooked onto the phenomenon already.

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MattyRad
When someone told me that Pokemon Go was exploding, I looked into it, and got
really excited about its concept. People getting outside, interacting though a
long-loved game, using real landmarks to denote checkpoints, playing a
localized "king of the hill" type minigame. The architecture behind it and it
really feels like it's using bleeding edge VR push us into a more social and
fun world.

That said, I also feel like it's equally the biggest missed opportunity to
date. Usually, I just see players walking, heads down, not talking. It was
downright eerie when I was downtown one Tuesday night at midnight, and it was
dead quiet despite ~60 Pokemon players meandering about. They should have
introduced PvP earlier (hopefully it's around the corner!), and better yet,
make it so you get more exp for battling people you haven't battled before.
Spur people into social interaction!

~~~
2bitencryption
You know that one mobile "space pilot" game? The one where everyone's phone
displays different elements of a fictional spacecraft, with buttons labeled
"Power Overdrive" and knobs and levers to pull with crazy names? And players
get instructions they need to shout to other players, like "Whoever has the
Neutrino Ray, set it to 4!"

Basically, the game forces one big fun social interaction by requiring players
to exchange information to stay alive.

How could this work with Pokemon Go? I don't know. Currently the only social
exchanges are "There's a Blastoise over here!" (which is pretty darn cool).
But maybe more could be done. Some type of puzzle where one person in an area
is designated the "Puzzle leader," and gets to rely information to other
people...

~~~
AlexKang
Ooo! You're talking about Spaceteam I presume?

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sleepingbe...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sleepingbeastgames.spaceteam&hl=en)

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/spaceteam/id570510529?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/spaceteam/id570510529?mt=8)

------
chipperyman573
I'm confused by the title. Is PoGo the first app to reach x downloads in the
first week of release, or is it the most downloaded app of all time, just one
week after release? Slow internet won't let me view the article.

~~~
puddintane
"While the game was only available in a few countries at the time, the app has
attracted more downloads in the App Store during its first week than any other
app in App Store history."

~~~
awqrre
That probably mean that hey had more downloads then any other app's first week
but it could also mean more downloads then any other app since their initial
release?

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curiousgal
This game has become a victim of its own success. Niantic has be strangely
silent about bugs and server outages. I foresee a massive drop in interest
soon.

~~~
liquidise
I keep seeing these comments foretelling the "inevitable" doomsday from the
development community. This is a surprising sentiment. What Pokemon Go has
shown, regardless of its future success, is a new ceiling for mobile app
virality.

Also notable is that people always cite the issues as the reason for failure.
But these issues have affected the app since day 0. Pokemon Go is having this
success _despite_ its technical flaws. Further evidence that building the
right product trumps building a flawless product.

I say flip the narrative. What Pokemon Go has shown is that a product that
fills a burning desire can achieve what seems like unprecedented success
levels, quickly. The app doesn't need to be perfect. It needs to be something
people want.

~~~
anthonybsd
I've been playing since day one and I've already lost interest. Most everyone
I've spoken to is of the same thinking. It was fun at the beginning but there
is simply not enough substance in the game to keep anyone interested for more
than 2-3 weeks. There are only so many Doduos and Pidgeys you can catch before
you are bored out of your mind.

~~~
lettergram
I'm actually at level 23, and I'm trying to "catch them all" \- or at least,
all that are in my country. Once I do that, I'll probably just wait for more
content. That way I'll be well positioned if new content comes out.

The game hasn't even been released in every country, and to be honest I don't
think it should have been released at all (at least until the combat system
was decent). However, they clearly have an extremely popular game. Even if 99%
drop off, and only 50% return they will still be raking in the dough.

~~~
curiousgal
Just out of curiosity, how long did it take you to get to that level? I am
still rocking a level 12.

~~~
lettergram
Well, I leave the game open at work and just spin the stops near me (there are
three). Ive also walk an average of 20k steps per day since Pokemon Go came
out.

I usually walk 15k steps, so it was a 30% increase.

------
Osiris
75% of the time I launch the game, I'm confronted with an error that I
couldn't be logged in.

Maybe the game is so popular because it feels like a rare resource. It's so
hard to get into the game that when you do you have to play it as long as
possible until the servers go down again.

------
hogwash
Funny retrospective on the last 25 years of AR:

[http://unanimous.ai/augmented-reality-then-and-
now/](http://unanimous.ai/augmented-reality-then-and-now/)

------
kin
The numbers will absolutely drop. I mean, there's definitely a ton of content
that can be added like earning gym badges, Gen 2-6 Pokemon (which people don't
really care about), trading, PvP, etc. But, at the end of the day I doubt
Niantic has the time/resources for that. The execution has been rather poor.

Still though there's a demand for Nintendo software on mobile. They just need
to really to execute. They're really lucky we're tolerating these huge bugs
(nearby Pokemon and frozen Pokeball after catch still outstanding).

~~~
dabeeeenster
Got to love Hacker News! Fastest downloading app of all time, global
phenomenon, absolute zeitgeist..."The execution has been rather poor."

~~~
bllguo
> Fastest downloading app of all time, global phenomenon, absolute zeitgeist

All three of which can be attributed in large part to the Pokemon IP, rather
than any other characteristic of the game.

~~~
Keyframe
You're saying that like Nintendo had nothing to do with making that IP what it
is in the first place.

~~~
goldenkey
Nintendo did. Not Niantec

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blhack
I think that the biggest feature that Pokemon Go will add, that will hopefully
come soon, is the ability to broadcast your position.

This is something that I wish ingress had done. The game is a multiplayer
game, there is no doubt about that. I'd love to be able to open map map, see
that some of my friends are over playing at $foo location, and then go meet
them there.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Ingress had at least a proxy for that - an in-game chat with distance-
filtering, i.e. you could limit messages you see to sources closer than X
kilometers. As for third-party tools, someone somehow made a player tracker
once; I think it used changes in portal owners to narrow down your location.

~~~
blhack
I think that the player tracker could get you banned from the game, though. It
technically violates the ToS.

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smaili
Would love to know the app who previously held the record.

~~~
BryantD
Clash Royale would be my guess. Recent release, IP carries over from a very
popular existing game, but it's not just a sequel. Also had great word of
mouth from the geobeta.

~~~
boodm
I have to speculate that Minecraft and Angry Birds have both individually had
more downloads than Clash Royale.

~~~
Steko
Not the first Angry Birds, that was a snowball hit not a first week blowout.

Minecraft is paid.

I would guess FB Messenger or maybe Google Maps. Or something from China,
seems like when QQ releases a core app there's millions who just go and
download it.

~~~
crgt
Maybe Instagram? It was a Day 1 hit..

------
meerita
A game can't have everything the first day of launch. They released this to
test it against the market. Now that it is a success, changes will come to
increase retention and purchases. Now the next biggest events will be promoted
also with Pokemon things to do in the place, like "get this rare pokemon on
the Vegas Electronic Event. The game is a real success and the mechanics
described by Richard Bartle proved that people loves to collect, it is the
Diogenes syndrome but in mobile version.

------
kevindong
The dropoff in interest has already started. I pretty much stopped playing
last week. I got to level 14 and the amount of grinding required was just
ridiculous (the amount of XP you earn per action does not increase as you
level up meanwhile the XP required to level up goes up exponentially). The
bugginess of the game really did not help.

The dropoff in interest has already, objectively speaking, started[0]. It's
currently (as of July 22) 66% of its peak (per Google Trends). In my personal
experience, interest on my college campus has already subsided. It's not
completely dead, mind you, but the hype is over.

[0]:
[https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=pokemon%20go&date=to...](https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=pokemon%20go&date=today%201-m&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT%2B4)

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TheMagicHorsey
Have I missed something, or is this game just about walking around collecting
pokemons with eggs? Is there anything else to it that I missed? The interface
isn't illuminating.

~~~
gthtjtkt
> is this game just about walking around collecting pokemons with eggs?

Pretty much.

You can also battle to control gyms, but the rewards are pitiful and the
combat system / pokemon types are so poorly implemented that it's basically a
waste of time. Where I live, all the gyms change teams every minute or so.

So you collect pokemon, level up, and pray that Niantic will add some better
features soon (trading, PvP, ladder system, more rewards for gyms, etc.). But
there's no indication that they'll do so...

~~~
scaryclam
There are actually some indications of enhancements and new features, trading
being one that is confirmed:
[http://www.polygon.com/2016/7/12/12158480/pokemon-go-
trading...](http://www.polygon.com/2016/7/12/12158480/pokemon-go-trading-
update)

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Bonsailinse
These numbers are probably the reason why niantic was totally caught by
surprise and have these massive server issues. I really don't like to see the
app offline every time I have to go for a longer walk, but hey, I take it easy
and wait for either niantiv upgrading their ressources or the userbase to
shrink, which shouldn't take too long imo.

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melling
So, do we have an entirely new class of games/apps that are about to appear?
Like Pokémon go but for ...

~~~
rezashirazian
Yes. I bet you plenty of companies are already on it as we speak.

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mp3geek
How does the numbers stack up between the downloads on Google play vs Apple?

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xlayn
As time pass there are more iDevices.... so the number can be irrelevant. So
maybe a percentage as download/devices?

