Pokémon GO was a viral sensation in the Summer - politicians were playing it when they should have been governing, drivers were playing it when they should have been watching the road, and millions of more sensible people were using it as a fun tool to improve their health and fitness. Walking, as an activity, was trendy, and the odds were that if you saw someone stood in an unlikely place staring at their phone, they were playing Pokémon GO.
Of course, all viral hits eventually lose their lustre, but Pokémon GO continues to deliver relatively impressive results. At the time of writing it's still a high-grossing download - according to App Annie it's currently the top grossing iPhone game in eight countries, including the UK, and is number four in the US.
Speaking to Eurogamer, Niantic's chief marketing officer Mike Quigley explained that the company is finished "fire-fighting" and is ready to "get back to developing core features". He re-iterates, too, that Niantic believes the app can deliver long-term success, in the process keeping players engaged.
Yes, we looked at mobile game curves and yes we modelled some of this, although the initial curve was far higher than expected. As for how we modelled it, we're trying not to get distracted by [headlines like] 'There's a huge fall-off! Pokémon Go's dead!'. There's a lot of those stories which have been written. We're like, 'guys, it's just noise. We know what we're doing, we know what we want to build. We're listening to the community.
But we are more an MMO than anything else. We have two week client sprints, two week server-side sprints. Every two weeks there's new content or bug fixes going in the game. There's key content releases we're planning.
I think our lifespan and curve may be quite different from a free-to-play mobile game - it may be more in a [World of] Warcraft vein just because of the type of game we are. It's not about taking a bunch of money off the table and going. Monetisation has never been the focus for us. It's about doing right by the brand and doing right by the fans.
Quigley holds the company line in terms of apologising for early issues, admitting Niantic was "overwhelmed by how [Pokémon Go] took off", struggling to deal with server issues and the weight of feedback. He also reiterated why popular third-party apps were locked out, saying that they were "crushing us on the server side". Spoken like a true marketing officer, he praised fans for their feedback.
The fans kept us going. We'd go out after a 12 or 14 day and see people playing - that was better than an adrenaline shot. Red Bull is great but fans kept us going.
And they kept us honest. They're critical and they should be. There are expectations from two decades of Pokémon and expectations on Niantic to deliver a quality experience. The best part of the last year - because we've taken some lumps and the hardest part of working with [Pokémon] is the expectations - but for us it's that we know we're just getting started.
As for upcoming features, Nearby is heading towards a global roll-out after tests in the US. Naturally fans are waiting for more promised features, such as trading, while recent update data included pointers to Generation II Pokémon being on the way.
Hopefully, over time, we're going to build that trust with fans. And they may not always know it, you may not always hear from us, but we're listening. We're always listening to community feedback.
People may have started to give up on Nearby, but you know what - they never stopped telling us about how they wanted it and how much they missed it - and their frustration with us for blocking third-party apps. So, maybe it didn't happen in the timeframe people wanted it but we are getting to it. Right now in small ways and soon in much bigger ways - we are making progress on our product roadmap, doing things which fans want.
And there are things coming in the next several weeks... I think if you look back on this conversation on December 31st, or the 1st of January, what I've said will be validated. But even that stuff is still the tip of the iceberg - there's a long road to go.
Niantic and Pokémon GO have faced some heavy criticism online in the past few months. Perhaps some major updates in the near future can shift the narrative and keep user numbers high. The recent Halloween event, for example, apparently boosted user numbers in the US by nearly 20%; the audience is probably still there, albeit waiting for promised updates.
Are you still playing Pokémon GO, and are there any particular features that could tempt you to play it more? Let us know in the comments.
[source eurogamer.net]
Comments 29
Stopped playing after 2 weeks as it personally wasn't a thing I could get into. I'll stick with the main games I think.
How can you say it's just noise? These are potential players which you are losing. If all weapons were removed from a Zelda game, would it still be enjoyable? Or when playable? No! Removing core features makes a game unplayable, that's why I have stopped playing. But most people other select hard core fans will give it a second chance
Definitely needs some new features besides just catching and battling, it's wearing thin. They've made some adjustments recently:
I have been somewhat frustrated with their lack of communication with the community, but I must say this was a nice read. I still play it plenty, but their recent updates are what have kept me going. I was really close to dropping it a month or two ago when the amount of Pokemon spawning in my area had dwindled greatly. However, they made some updates before Halloween that changed that.
I can imagine what it's like from their end, though. Churning away spending long hours on this thing and then they go outside and are encouraged by people playing it.
I just hope they release Gen II soon. I'm sure that will be a huge boost to the number of players actively using the game.
I can't believe it has taken them this long to test the new tracking feature. It's been, what, 2 or 3 months?
Anyways, I still think Pokemon Go is a great game and one of the best mobile games I've played. It had a rough start but it seems to be shaping up. I just hope Niantic gives me a reason to play soon. I still have it on my phone, so get to it Niantic!
@Link506 I don't get what you mean by "removing core features". To my knowledge, they've only removed the tracking system, which was already broken, to put in an improved one, and playing at high speeds (in a car, bus, train, etc), which they never wanted players to do in the first place.
And yes, a lot of it is just noise. It's websites that write Pokemon Go stories for clicks grabbing at straws by mentioning it as much as possible.
"We're listening to the community" quote of the year.
Too little too late?
I read the full article, it's pretty nice and informative, especially when they have been "quiet" on the reactions for so long and vague.
In this age of social media, people always want you to be transparent know your every move, which is why Twitter and Facebook is so popular. Is the nice (and funny) to know they read and listen to everything going on.
The big test they should do with the sighting is to release it in NYC next. If you can make it there you can make it almost anywhere 😉
My playing slowed down when my job gave me more hours, but I still play once in a while. Great to see the tracker is almost here.
My playing stopped at a screeching halt when they banned rooted Android phones from playing the game. (I only have my phone rooted so that I can move apps to my microSD Card anyways since my phone's storage is tiny, I'm not hacking the game lol) Otherwise I'd probably still play every now and then.
I too was definitely losing momentum, bored with the same pidgeys, ratattas and weedles day in day out. The Halloween event spiced things up a bit and hase peaked my interest in it, now I'm back to walking around like a PokéZombie staring into my phone again. lol
I'm really glad that they've clamped down on the GPS spoofers and 3rd party app, it's made it much more playable and fair.
well by barring custom rom users from playing they lost me. which sucks because I was actually still enjoying the game. hopefully when I get a new phone I'll be able to play again. already had over 100 pokémon 😕
But criticism can also helps you move forward Niantic? Or anyone for that matter.
You had the attention of the world...but with each subsequent update you alienate more and more players to move onto something else...
@Link506 except tracking wasn't a core feature, it was more of a helpful feature, catching Pokemon is a core feature
When I went to San Francisco back in September the Nearby feature was working. It showed exact locations of 6 nearby Pokemon plus 3 sightings that were the same guessing game we've been playing. I found about 12 new Pokemon in my 3 days there. When I returned to Tucson I missed the Nearby functionality. It is now available in Tucson as of a week or so ago. It makes the game so much better.
I visited San Francisco last weekend and was able to try out the new tracking feature. It was fun at first because it was new, but at the Fisherman's Wharf all i saw was multiple tentacools and multiple psyducks. It's not like sightings where it limits a sighting to one pidgey even if there are multiple. It'll show multiple of one Pokémon and push out the rest. I would suggest allowing the option of hiding duplicates and also the option to filter out Pokémon. The filter could be a list of Pokémon or by rarity. I would also suggest two different tabs: one for sightings and one for nearby. Since one shows Pokémon at pokestops and the other shows Pokémon in the wild, I'd like the ability to see both. And don't make them all on one screen as it is now. Showing 6 at pokestops and 3 in the wild doesn't allow me to see if a Dragonite is nearby in the wild if there are more than 3 types other than Dragonite nearby.
I'd like them to release the feature where I can buy a Pokemon Go Plus
I'm still playing. The halloween event brought me back in, and now that I have a few Pokemon over 2,000 CP I'm having a bit more fun with Gyms too. Just a couple weeks ago my strongest Pokemon were 5 Vaporeons around 1,500. Now I have a Snorlax, Vaporeon, Flareon, and Exeggutor over 2,000 thanks to the increased spawns, and I'm very close to getting Charizard and Arcanine.
I'm ready for Gen II and beyond. I'm also glad to hear the Nearby feature is almost ready to make a return. I get their noble idea was to get people moving around more so than catching Pokemon. I only have time to play before work, during my lunch break or if I'm catching the bus home. And its limited time. So walking around aimlessly is just not an option (unless its a family day out and we are doing some walking already). I want to be able to quickly look, see what Pokemon are nearby and hopefully have a chance to catch it and then move on.
The last update messes up my daughter's and my game. In my game I have issues connecting the Go Plus, I get periodically a "Pokemon Go has stopped working." error message when trying to link my Plus.
As for my daughter, is even worse. Her GPS is now all messed up to the point that her character is shown up to three blocks away from our location and the character is constantly running around which makes it nearly impossible to battle Gyms and collect items in Pokestops.
@Setery10 Just to pick up on Link506's point, tracking was a feature including in the game when most people downloaded it & without SOME tracking there are pokémon which are impossible to catch. I've been on 141 out of a possible 142 pokémon for two months. Please remember that a pokémon on your "nearby list" can be around 15 minutes fast walk in any direction and pokémon only stick around 14 tops. I know a ship tonne of people who have got towards the end of their pokédexs & just given up.
Then if you specifically want to talk core features, where are trading and battling? They're the foundation of Pokémon & were in the beta test. Niantic have had the time to translate & release the game in dozens of new territories, you'd have thought they'd try and finish it at some point.
Niantic just seem to be incapable of planning ahead properly... they keep adding or changing things in the game that have clearly not been properly thought through, and all it's doing is giving them more things to fix, which they seem to be giving higher priority than the bigger problems that they've had from the start.
It's almost as if it's just an attempt to distract us from the bigger problem with a load of smaller problems.
Just look at the gyms... they've had two updates that have attempted to improve them, but they're ultimately no better than when they started... it was difficult to hold a gym before, so they made it easier to level them up... but that only made them difficult to take, so they adjusted the exp gain/loss when training/attacking... and now they're difficult to hold again.
They might as well have just undone their first change for all the good it done... but they'd rather waste more time on this (which we can easily put up with as it is) rather than fixing the actual problems (which players are constantly demanding to be fixed).
I think Niantic is too focused on making us play the game a certain way by shutting down tracking sights when we have had no option to track anything. It was so much fun when the mapping sites were around--my friends would spot a rare Pokemon on the map and we would contact each other about it and there would be a fun mad dash to catch it. Now nobody plays it after we lost that type of gameplay. Niantic would rather have us wander aimlessly in the dark until we run into anything decent to catch--but why should they bother? Didn't they make 200 million during the Halloween event?
@meltendo I agree with you, the game had so much more social interaction when you could form groups & hunt down pokémon together on the trackers. It seems to me that they're releasing these small updates to keep people playing when all they needed to do was allow a 3rd party tracking site to stay up.
@DanteSolablood @meltendo it was so much fun not being able to ever log on and I'm sure Niantic would have loved adding servers just to support competing trackers as more and more of them sprung up. Also players would really enjoy the increasing in-game pressures to spend more money to support all those servers. /sarcasm
Not denying you had fun. Just not sure why you think it's such a simple solution and it wasn't necessary to stop. Supporting those kinds of numbers is not something many companies ever get right. That's not because it's simple.
Ah, those were the days. I literally could not see someone walking with phone in hand and not be convinced they were playing pokemon, regardless of age or appearance. I went to a "lure party" event in a green space in the middle of my city one weekend. I don't think there was a single person in the park not playing it, and if there were, they were probably bemused as to why no one was looking where they were going.
Never stopped playing since day 1. And the potential possibility to transfer to Pokemon Sun and Moon just kept my interest more.
@aaronsullivan The logging issue only happened prior to the official UK release & not more than a couple of weeks in, in fact the lag issues had been fixed for a good while prior to the in-game tracker being removed... which also makes me question the term "competing trackers". Pokémon has no tracking system to compete with. Some pokémon are simply impossible to find right now.
I don't expect Niantic to support dozens of third party sites accessing the servers anyway, but if they were to allow one such as Fastpokémap which did 90% of the tracking work externally from the server, then they could keep the game fun without effecting how it runs.. Fastpokémap was running up until last week & the servers were not straining at the edges (especially considering the huge player drop-off since tracking was cut from the game).
As for in-game pressure to spend money... removing the trackers has made many pokémon nearly impossible to find out in the wild & is forcing players like myself that need one/two pokemon to buy incubaters almost daily to hatch them instead... even then you have to get those eggs from particular places to have a chance of those pokémon to be inside.
Anyway, didn't mean for this to be a rant.. but a HUGE amount of the fun has been surgically removed from the game & meanwhile Niantic is concentrating on rolling the game out to new countries instead of taking care of the existing player base IMHO. If you've ever looked at their Twitter, it blindly ignores/removes any negative posts & loop posts "Pokémon Go cured my athletes foot" stories. No actual support to be found.
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