[tuna-piano]

A few thoughts:

1. I tried playing this game, but really don't enjoy it. It feels to me it's not about strategy as much as it's "the one who puts in the most hours of playing wins". Felt actually like work to me.

2. I don't see this game being a long term super success, as it is now. I'd imagine cohort analysis would show the first cohorts waning in usage in the next several weeks. I imagine as more people begin playing, the overall popularity of the game will continue to rise for a while, but that hides the fact that the game has a limited shelf life with the masses.

[jessaustin]

1. Many successful computer games are this. Did you ever play a MMORPG?

2. Sure, many players will play less as time goes on, but with the kinds of numbers they're seeing now they'll be massively popular for a long time.

[danvoell]

1.) Agreed. 2.) The way I see it, they really brought a new game category into the mainstream. I foresee thousands of similar games coming shortly except instead of games, they will teach us about neighborhoods, history, architecture, health or figure out how to help us do more outdoor activities without walking around like zombies looking at our phones.

[ljk]

not many other apps would have the crowdsource data like this game though

[sliverstorm]

I speculate, perhaps groundlessly, that they could be racing to add the other traditional elements of Pokemon, e.g. battles and trading. So long as they begin to deliver those before people forget about the game, they can get a second, probably much longer lasting, wind.

I certainly couldn't see myself being a devotee even if they added those features, but kids the world over devoted countless hours to the gameboy games, and that's pretty much what they were.

P.S. When "playing" equates to "biking around town, walking around town, etc", I'm A-OK with play volume being an important element to "success"!

[splonk]

You are correct about the trading part.

http://www.businessinsider.com/pokmon-go-will-get-pokmon-tra...

[kedean]

I'd be curious to see a graph of active users as time goes on. Anecdotally, I've noticed they have been losing a lot of users in the last few days (myself included) who are fed up with how absurdly buggy the game is (especially the bugs that manifest due to server issues), and the incomparable amount of battery that it consumes.

[jerrysievert]

and as someone who has continued to play, thank you.

with less users, the issues have manifested less often. i was starting to wonder if they had addressed their scale issues, but i've noticed less people on the streets playing, so it might just be that the demand is much less.

[Sumaso]

The game has different layers. Personally I just try and catch pokemon. 'Winning' would be getting all 150.

[nkrisc]

Agreed. The most enjoyment I've gotten from the game so far is actually walking around and finding them and getting the best stats. As for actually using them in the gyms and such, I'm not yet interested in doing that.

[bargl]

I also agree, but a way I find entertainment on my quest to filling out my pokedex is by fighting gyms with the goal of adding a crappy pidgey or rattata after I've taken it.

I change the names in my replacements to something like "The King".

For a level 10 pidgey that's a lot of confidence.

I do this for a few reasons: 1) I can. 2) It's fun and keeping gyms is ridiculously hard. 3) It gives new players a chance to unseat my gym and get their daily bonus. 4) Powering up gyms is way under powered at this point. 5) This also gives other people on my team to power up the gym and reach their own goal if they like.

[skizm]

I assume the plan is to release new pokemon similar to the way they do throughout the generations. Also I assume they will add a battle system which is similar or exactly the same as the one on the Nintendo handheld systems since the one now is pretty lack luster. I do see the game coming down from this insane high pretty quickly but I bet it stays relevant for a long time.

[specialist]

Agreed. Half-life of this game is small.

Not having proximity based P2P battling tells me the implementors never played Pokemon. It's the other half of the game.

It's like directing a Batman movie without first reading the comics. It shows a complete distain for the culture, history, players of the Pokemon universe.

[nogbit]

All games are supposed to be like this. A player has fun (hopefully) grok's it (usually) and then moves on (beat it, got frustrated or bored).

However, games that implement vegas like mechanics turn their games into an addiction. I can see that happening with this game as there are 720+ pokemon and only 150 in the game currently https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon

Though, this game is kind of like the iPhone, it's "cool" to be seen playing it (I presume, I've never played but do witness the pokehorde often). It may stick around for various reasons.

[hammock]

I have not seen a single mention if this yet, but it seems pretty clear to me that its popularity is partly enabled by the summer weather and will die off as soon as cooler weather kicks in.

Idly playing on your phone outside is not so bad in summer, but in winter? Forget about it. The new season of [xyz] is back on.

[ngokevin]

The competitive pieces aren't mandatory. And even then, even if you're weak, you can team up with other players, and you get to use 6 Pokemon vs. just one or a few.

The level differences will become more marginal as well as the experience required to level raises exponentially.