[subtypefiddler]

There's been a lot of community backlash in Pokemon Go (#HearUsNiantic Niantic movement)and the game director response to it was that the company has “no plans to directly address any of [it]” [0]

The fan base is very loyal to the Pokemon brand and it really feels Pokemon Go is successful despite all of Niantic's shenanigans.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/comments/13lfd1c/its_offi...

[londons_explore]

Is Pokemon Go successful? I feel it was huge for a few months in 2016, and then died as everyone moved on to other things.

[agrippanux]

It makes a billion a year in rev so I’d say its still going pretty well.

[paulgb]

Woah! As someone who hasn't paid much attention since the initial launch, I had no idea. Here's the business model:

> Besides in-game purchases, partnerships with retail chains like Starbucks, McDonald's, Sprint, pay Niantic Labs for "Foot Traffic" on-demand of the retail shops.

[swarnie]

The trick was combining a popular franchise with aggressive whale seeking monetisation and having that all backed up by three figure agencies.

The app more than did its jo.

[sushid]

You lost me at three figure agencies. Are you saying that the FTC should be somehow involved here? What other agencies are you referring to?

[pleaselegalize]

I'm pretty sure they're referencing John Hanke, who used to work for the U.S. govt, founded Keyhole through funding from In-Q-Tel (CIA's VC), which ended up spawning Niantic.

It seems they're actively working with the NGA, NSA, DIA, and CIA. It could be just for 3D geo-spatial tech, or it could be for sharing data. It's secret and it doesn't look like conclusive evidence of data sharing has been published. My personal belief is a little bit of both is going on.

[charlieyu1]

Is it Japanese only collaboration?

[mrguyorama]

Mobile games like Pokemon Go don't really want billions of players, but instead thousands of whales, which I assure you they are milking quite a bit.

[brvsft]

Some of their decisions do the opposite, especially the recent limitation of five remote raid passes used per day. It used to be unlimited, and of course they have a way to purchase game coins that are then used to purchase those passes.

IMO this was more in line with their original principles over profits (that you ought to walk outside to do a raid at a gym, rather than going on Discord to get a remote invite and use a pass you purchased with pokecoins). But I find the game boring and tedious anyway.

[TX81Z]

“Hey kids! Let’s play a fun game called what is your moms credit card number?”

[axus]

Uggh, apparently this is a well-tread genre of YouTube videos

[TX81Z]

It’s a scam going back to the 90s. It’s a big part of the reason we have COPPA.

[londons_explore]

The article suggests they make lots of money from partnerships with people like mcdonalds to bring people near to a branch by putting pokestops there. I'd guess the deal is along the lines of "we'll pay you 30 cents for each person you get to our front door".

For that to work, you don't want a few whales - you want as many hungry mcdonalds lovers as possible...

[benbayard]

Yes it’s huge. I play in my community and many people pay in the hundreds per month to play. The community is still huge and it’s international.

[aardvarkr]

It’s really easy to forget that their target market isn’t us the adults who love Pokémon. In reality, they have hooked a generation of children that spend >$1B on the game each year so I think they’re doing just fine

[gertlex]

Hmmm. Citation needed. Am an active player. All the whales in the communities are adults.

Maybe you mean a generation of children as in children in the 90s), but even that's not true, as there's plenty of folks > 40yrs old, too. They've got multiple groups hooked.

[throwaway5959]

So they’re drug dealers?

[teeray]

Yeah, it really is an evergreen brand, like Barbie or Hot Wheels

[relyks]

I still play almost everyday since 2016 and I know there are other people like me out there

[boo-ga-ga]

My wife plays it regularly, I sometimes run the app to help her win a gym:). Lots of players, everywhere.

[mrweasel]

My wife and I play to, but infrequently, but they aren't really pushing you heavily to buying anything. In fact there isn't much to buy in their store at all, so I am a little impressed that they make that much money.

[kmeisthax]

I have several friends that play regularly. Every time there's a big event I hear them complain that it's broken.

[birdyrooster]

I still play almost every day but about 75% of my in game friends have stopped playing.

[wnevets]

> Is Pokemon Go successful?

obnoxiously so.

[hospitalJail]

>The fan base is very loyal to the Pokemon brand

I find it interesting that Nintendo fans can recognize they are slaves to the IP, but they don't change their buying habits.

For instance, if BOTW was released under a different IP skin and released for xbox, it would probably be a 6-8/10.

Since we were marketed to as children, I think we have limited free will when nostalgia comes up. We automatically give our childhood friends(corporate mascots) a pass on quality.

I am guilty, I keep playing every Zelda religiously, despite thinking BOTW wasnt good, I still plan to play TotK. I don't know why I do it. I feel like I need to play it.

I might have been a pokemon go addict, but the closest pokecenter(or whatever) was like a 5 minute drive/10 minute walk away.

Scary stuff. I know some people who are similar with Disney IP.

[sangnoir]

> For instance, if BOTW was released under a different IP skin and released for xbox, it would probably be a 6-8/10.

Hard disagree. I was a PC gamer since forever and decided to buy a Switch when I had to travel a lot (pre-Steam-Deck days). BoTW was my first Zelda game (and second Nintendo game ever, after playing Mario on PC). I'm not a Nintendo fan, I'm not a Zelda fan, and I still consider BoTW to be a 10/10 game. It's the best game I've played in years and it's in my top 3 games of all time. The only quibble I have is with the crafting system, but I'm not big on crafting in any game, everything else is perfect: combat, open-world roaming, pacing, puzzles, character design, level design - everything. Nothing was half-assed.

[kbenson]

> For instance, if BOTW was released under a different IP skin and released for xbox, it would probably be a 6-8/10.

If released today, then maybe. BOTW being a good game has nothing to do with it being on the switch. Getting enough audience immediately to be a phenomenon and enough people/press interested in it to spend time so it it got enough reviews that everyone saw them, sure, but the game itself is extremely good based on most people's opinions I've heard, even people that are routinely playing Xbox, PS or PC games.

I think perhaps your experience is colored by you not quite liking it as much as others so assuming it was nostalgia goggles. I can assure you, in many many cases (IMO the vast majority of them), that's not what was going on.

> I am guilty, I keep playing every Zelda religiously, despite thinking BOTW wasnt good, I still plan to play TotK. I don't know why I do it. I feel like I need to play it.

I felt like this back when Metroid Prime came out. It was okay, and fun, but I also didn't really feel a huge urge to play the next game in the series, and I haven't played a Metroid in some time (even though metroidvania is one of my favorite genres and I play other games in it).

Different people like different aspects of games. Sometimes games lean into one aspect or another, often when there's a major shift in them (such as 2d to 3d, but not always), and people that likes that aspect are happy and people that weren't as interested in that aspect may be disappointed to varying degrees.

For me, Zelda was always at least partially about exploring everything. I remember revisiting every screen on the map over and over after I got new items to see if I could get to new areas of do new things. BotW brought that in spades, since you could literally go everywhere, and that was rarely done as well in prior games on any systems (it gets easier/possible to get to new sub-areas as the game progresses and you get more stamina, which is a nice way to promote revisiting areas to explore where you couldn't get previously, or novel approaches to getting to areas). I'm sure some people dislike that, or feel bored by it, but many do not.

[praisewhitey]

>For instance, if BOTW was released under a different IP skin and released for xbox, it would probably be a 6-8/10.

That game is Genshin Impact and it's very successful

[hospitalJail]

Genshin Impact was actually good though.

[rjh29]

> For instance, if BOTW was released under a different IP skin and released for xbox, it would probably be a 6-8/10.

This reads like an attempt to justify why you didn't like the game but other people did. You know, you can just say "games are subjective" without reaching into this whole meta theory that people are slaves or somehow don't know what a good game is.

[coding123]

It seems somewhat comical to me that there's some kind of protest against niantic and it's being hosted on reddit.