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NEWS: Analyst: Pokémon Go Shows Downward Trend Among Players


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Kadmos1



Joined: 08 May 2014
Posts: 13552
Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP
PostPosted: Wed Aug 24, 2016 6:47 am Reply with quote
This is probably the best news I have heard about this game so far. This news is similar to video games or movies in that the 1st few weeks it is really in the news but then starts to drop off the news maps.
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Renasviel



Joined: 24 Oct 2015
Posts: 143
PostPosted: Wed Aug 24, 2016 2:11 pm Reply with quote
And it serves Niantic right. They released the game unfinished. Now, you can say this wasn't all on them, and maybe so, but they really needed to start fixing the bugs as early as possible. Instead, they let the success go to their heads and thought they were above having to deal with customer issues, effectively breaking Google's Terms of Service. Add in removing features that were present in a game already missing too many due to the fact they couldn't be bothered getting it to work, their focus on banning users instead of fixing the game and complaining about sites doing a better job of tracking than they were, as well as offering horrible rates for eggs and way too many instances of the same Pokemon spawning and you've got a game that was on life support within weeks.

Frankly, this is almost entirely on them. They've managed to make even the worst mobage devs look competent in comparison by their standards, and they've managed to screw themselves out of potentially having a mobile game that could last well over a year and warped it into a game that is set to be dead within a few months.
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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
Posts: 7163
Location: Another Kingdom
PostPosted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 12:34 am Reply with quote
We all know the answer: DLC expansion packs! That's how Angry Birds managed to stay aroud for so long!

Zoneflare wrote:
thats to be expected with school starting up for both grade school and college students. I can see it lowering even more as fall and winter come when its too cold to even go outside.


Depends on where you live. Around here in the southwestern US, it's summer when it's too inhospitable outside to be traveling about. At least unless you want to get sunburn and dehydration.

ParaChomp wrote:
This is a good sign to start programming generation 2, however, Niantic still wants to add a few more features and there are still a plethora of bugs that need to be ironed out.


It'll be hilarious if they're actually at work with Generation VII, timed to coincide with the release of Pokémon Sun and Moon.

TrueZangetsu wrote:
They promised gameplay mechanics that aren't there. I stopped playing too. Collecting Pokémon has never been my main goal in any Pokémon game. The fun for me were the battles, the story, the details the world as a whole.
Pokémon go needs those mechanics right now.

But what also contributed to the drop in players is the fact that apks aren't allowed to be used anymore. That's imo most likely the main reason sadly.


Collecting has always been an appealing objective for newcomers or people jumping in after a while though. It's something people can do at their own pace and by themselves, and it doesn't require keeping up to date or learning hidden mechanics (well, that many hidden mechanics anyway). Also allows them to get to know the Pokémon they were formerly not familiar with.

walw6pK4Alo wrote:
I get they're a small company, but being small doesn't mean they can get away with zero communication for 3 and a half weeks. That's going to be seriously hard to recover from. It's not that "it's just a fad, it had to blow up on them", no it's because they squandered their chance by smothering the game to death a week after release. The game wasn't ready for release.

I'll keep the game around and hope they someday get to Hoenn.


A lack of communication with the outside world is a depressingly common problem for small video game companies. I remember trying to deal with one for an app game that is otherwise good but has a few really weird bugs, some that would force me to restart the device, but most would cause the game to crash or run at double or triple speed, rendering it unplayable. Turns out their only public contact person is outsourced and doesn't have a direct line to the company, his main purpose seemingly to create Facebook and Twitter posts and reply to questions (many of which he doesn't really understand or isn't clued in on).

I do wonder if it's because a person interested in making a game is likely to be an introvert, and a company made entirely of introverts (or has extroverts too busy to do much else) is guaranteed to have poor to nonexistent public relations. That is, it may be the key players in a small game company might not be comfortable speaking in public or might not see the need to have someone dedicated to relaying information in from outside.

Even companies that have been around for a long time can be horrible with contact with customers. Last week, I attempted to find a means of contact with Avantech (which is apparently France's oldest software company). It has no support forums, and contacting them costs US$10 per call. To figure out a solution to my problems, I had to find unrelated sites on Google.
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