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Pokemon...seriously?

It's a freemium game. You can play for free, but you can buy gems to make it easier. But as with all of these games, the amount you can actually do for free becomes smaller and smaller and the amount that you need to actually "win" becomes more and more expensive, until you simply cannot be competitive unless you throw a ton of money into the game. That's how they make their money. Nothing in the world is free.

You know, it actually isn't so bad in this one, and it doesn't get any worse as you move up. If anything, it actually gets easier -- almost too easy.

You can earn coins by taking over a gym. And you can take over a gym even if you have weaker Pokemon than whoever's holding it. As long as you type-match and have a fairly long line-up, you can take over a gym with a pair of 1,000 CP Pokemon even if none of yours are higher than 400 CP. You just might need 6 of them (and that's not hard to achieve).

You get free revives, potions, and pokeballs at Pokestops. You get lures, lucky eggs, and incense at some level-ups. You have an infinitely reusable egg hatcher.

And really, if you want to get rare, very high CP Pokemon, the only way to do that is to hatch eggs. You can't buy eggs, and you can't hatch them faster by paying. You can only hatch them by walking.

The emphasis really is on walking. That's the only way to catch or hatch Pokemon, it's the only way to battle at gyms, etc. You can pay for the other items, but when I have, like, a dozen pokestops in a 2 block radius and I cover that track pretty much every single day... why?

I think this one's actually ok. It's not a game that stops you every 10 minutes where you can either pay or wait an hour or grind for 10 hours. There's really no point where you either have to stop having fun, or pay. But, they do need to make money -- especially for their desperately needed server upgrades -- so they do let you buy that stuff too. And I think they've done it right.
 
You know, it actually isn't so bad in this one, and it doesn't get any worse as you move up. If anything, it actually gets easier -- almost too easy.

You can earn coins by taking over a gym. And you can take over a gym even if you have weaker Pokemon than whoever's holding it. As long as you type-match and have a fairly long line-up, you can take over a gym with a pair of 1,000 CP Pokemon even if none of yours are higher than 400 CP. You just might need 6 of them (and that's not hard to achieve).

You get free revives, potions, and pokeballs at Pokestops. You get lures, lucky eggs, and incense at some level-ups. You have an infinitely reusable egg hatcher.

And really, if you want to get rare, very high CP Pokemon, the only way to do that is to hatch eggs. You can't buy eggs, and you can't hatch them faster by paying. You can only hatch them by walking.

The emphasis really is on walking. That's the only way to catch or hatch Pokemon, it's the only way to battle at gyms, etc. You can pay for the other items, but when I have, like, a dozen pokestops in a 2 block radius and I cover that track pretty much every single day... why?

I think this one's actually ok. It's not a game that stops you every 10 minutes where you can either pay or wait an hour or grind for 10 hours. There's really no point where you either have to stop having fun, or pay. But, they do need to make money -- especially for their desperately needed server upgrades -- so they do let you buy that stuff too. And I think they've done it right.

You have to remember, this is just the beginning. It just came out. You don't know what's going to happen 2 months or 6 months down the line. You don't know what's going to happen when they introduce more Pokemon. Right now, you're in the "free drug" phase, where they're just trying to get people interested and once they get a bunch of people addicted and once they have tons of people hooked, they may very well add things to make more money. I'm not saying they definitely will, just that's how the "freemium" model works.
 
You have to remember, this is just the beginning. It just came out. You don't know what's going to happen 2 months or 6 months down the line. You don't know what's going to happen when they introduce more Pokemon. Right now, you're in the "free drug" phase, where they're just trying to get people interested and once they get a bunch of people addicted and once they have tons of people hooked, they may very well add things to make more money. I'm not saying they definitely will, just that's how the "freemium" model works.

You mean they design tech that's addictive for profit? How outrageous of you to speak the truth!
 
You mean they design tech that's addictive for profit? How outrageous of you to speak the truth!

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, just that people need to be aware of it and those who are prone to addictive behaviors probably need to avoid this, and most similar games. These games are designed to prey upon that behavior.
 
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, just that people need to be aware of it and those who are prone to addictive behaviors probably need to avoid this, and most similar games. These games are designed to prey upon that behavior.

Of course. All tech is designed to be desirable, it's whether the creators were thinking about how they could physically trap weak minded people. Even Steve Jobs after playing with the first Apple smartphone said, "This will be popular and sell." He knew he had the next electronic opioid for the masses.
 
Of course. All tech is designed to be desirable, it's whether the creators were thinking about how they could physically trap weak minded people. Even Steve Jobs after playing with the first Apple smartphone said, "This will be popular and sell." He knew he had the next electronic opioid for the masses.

And you have people who absolutely have to get the next iPhone the second it comes out, whether they can afford it or not. You have people who play MMOs to the point of exhaustion because they are completely addicted to them. You have people who have gone bankrupt with these online games because they can't help themselves. All of these online games have "whales" that spend thousands and thousands of dollars buying everything they can and that's by design. These games are made specifically to attract those kinds of people. It's part of their business model and Pokemon Go is no exception. The creators are not doing this out of the goodness of their heart. They are doing it to make money. Giving away the software is like giving away crack. It's free until they hook you, but somewhere, there is going to be a place to enter your credit card number and there will be people, probably lots and lots of people, who won't be able to refuse.
 
And you have people who absolutely have to get the next iPhone the second it comes out, whether they can afford it or not. You have people who play MMOs to the point of exhaustion because they are completely addicted to them. You have people who have gone bankrupt with these online games because they can't help themselves. All of these online games have "whales" that spend thousands and thousands of dollars buying everything they can and that's by design. These games are made specifically to attract those kinds of people. It's part of their business model and Pokemon Go is no exception. The creators are not doing this out of the goodness of their heart. They are doing it to make money. Giving away the software is like giving away crack. It's free until they hook you, but somewhere, there is going to be a place to enter your credit card number and there will be people, probably lots and lots of people, who won't be able to refuse.


So, you're saying that evil exists to teach us the difference between good? That's makes evil the servant of good?
 
You have to remember, this is just the beginning. It just came out. You don't know what's going to happen 2 months or 6 months down the line. You don't know what's going to happen when they introduce more Pokemon. Right now, you're in the "free drug" phase, where they're just trying to get people interested and once they get a bunch of people addicted and once they have tons of people hooked, they may very well add things to make more money. I'm not saying they definitely will, just that's how the "freemium" model works.

All the ones I've seen have a level/timer aspect, even at launch. Never seen anything like that before, but ok.

While that is certainly possible, Niantic seems to be taking other routes to revenue apart from just freemium -- several of them, both on the tech side and the business partnership side. That's the interesting thing about this: the player isn't the only person involved.

They might add more things for pay eventually, that's true. But I don't see any way they could impose a pay gate on any of the most central aspects of the game; they happen in real time, and you can't pause them. And if they wanted to do that, they wouldn't have built the game in a way that makes that physically impossible.

There are many, many examples of well-done freemium games that don't bleed or inhibit the player, that have stayed that way ever since launch. They are not all evil conspiracies. Sometimes they're just people who like making interesting games, who also like making a living. Honestly, just sounds to me like you want to see some kind of conspiracy for some reason and actually have no idea how the game works at all. :shrug:

Pokemon Go isn't the first by any means. Half my favorite smartphone games are freemium, some of which I've played on and off for a couple years, and I don't pay for any of them unless I feel like donating for whatever I think the game is worth.

Not all freemium games work the same. Some are awful, others are quite good. And in the case of Pokemon Go, I honestly don't even see how it would be possible to put pay gates in places where a player couldn't avoid them. The thing they'd be paying for would no longer exist by the time they were done dealing with the pay gate. That's just not doable.

Niantic probably realizes that, which is why they're exploring other avenues for advancing their revenue.
 
Not all freemium games work the same. Some are awful, others are quite good. And in the case of Pokemon Go, I honestly don't even see how it would be possible to put pay gates in places where a player couldn't avoid them. The thing they'd be paying for would no longer exist by the time they were done dealing with the pay gate. That's just not doable.

Niantic probably realizes that, which is why they're exploring other avenues for advancing their revenue.

Oh, I can, quite easily. People can pay for rarer Pokemon to appear, or for more Pokemon to appear. Right now they're restricting legendaries only to special events, I don't think it's too much to think that they might start selling legendaries to people who can't go to said events. It would be very easy for them to sell something that makes rare Pokemon more common for an hour or so.

Not saying they will, just that it's extremely simple to see how they could.
 
Oh, I can, quite easily. People can pay for rarer Pokemon to appear, or for more Pokemon to appear. Right now they're restricting legendaries only to special events, I don't think it's too much to think that they might start selling legendaries to people who can't go to said events. It would be very easy for them to sell something that makes rare Pokemon more common for an hour or so.

Not saying they will, just that it's extremely simple to see how they could.


You've worked in Silicon Valley haven't you? I wouldn't be surprised if you helped -id Software- develop 'Quake.'
 
You've worked in Silicon Valley haven't you? I wouldn't be surprised if you helped -id Software- develop 'Quake.'

Nope, I just know game development and this stuff is ridiculously commonplace.
 
Oh, I can, quite easily. People can pay for rarer Pokemon to appear, or for more Pokemon to appear. Right now they're restricting legendaries only to special events, I don't think it's too much to think that they might start selling legendaries to people who can't go to said events. It would be very easy for them to sell something that makes rare Pokemon more common for an hour or so.

Not saying they will, just that it's extremely simple to see how they could.

Ok, so this tells me you definitely haven't played the game.

You know, you actually can make more Pokemon appear, in two ways. One is incense. You get them when you start, and once every few level-ups, or you can pay.

But the other way you can do it is to stick a lure at a pokestop, which you get through the same methods as an incense. And you know what happens then?

They light up like a pink Christmas tree and EVERYONE who goes anywhere near that pokestop gets a boost on how many Pokemon they catch. There's a guy a floor above my partner who's at level bazillion or something, and he just sticks lures on the pokestops in their building every night.

That seems a bit counter-intuitive if their goal is just to bleed people.

And actually, the best way to get rare Pokemon is to hatch eggs. Which you can only do by walking. Which is free.

And further, none of those things are central to the mechanics of the game. The freemium going on in Pokemon Go is about as central as it is in Plague, which is to say, not much. And unlike Plague, it would be quite difficult to insert it into the central mechanics since, like I said, they happen in real time.

And frankly, it makes a ton of sense for their freemium to be relatively subtle when they have so many ways of making way more money, with a game based on landmarks, interaction, and notification.
 
Ok, so this tells me you definitely haven't played the game.

You know, you actually can make more Pokemon appear, in two ways. One is incense. You get them when you start, and once every few level-ups, or you can pay.

But the other way you can do it is to stick a lure at a pokestop, which you get through the same methods as an incense. And you know what happens then?

They light up like a pink Christmas tree and EVERYONE who goes anywhere near that pokestop gets a boost on how many Pokemon they catch. There's a guy a floor above my partner who's at level bazillion or something, and he just sticks lures on the pokestops in their building every night.

That seems a bit counter-intuitive if their goal is just to bleed people.

And actually, the best way to get rare Pokemon is to hatch eggs. Which you can only do by walking. Which is free.

And further, none of those things are central to the mechanics of the game. The freemium going on in Pokemon Go is about as central as it is in Plague, which is to say, not much. And unlike Plague, it would be quite difficult to insert it into the central mechanics since, like I said, they happen in real time.

And frankly, it makes a ton of sense for their freemium to be relatively subtle when they have so many ways of making way more money, with a game based on landmarks, interaction, and notification.


Every potential evil holds an opposite and equal good, so what is the good of this game?
 
Ok, so this tells me you definitely haven't played the game.

Nope, no interest, but my kids do.

You know, you actually can make more Pokemon appear, in two ways. One is incense. You get them when you start, and once every few level-ups, or you can pay.

And you don't seem to understand that I'm talking about what may happen IN THE FUTURE.

But the other way you can do it is to stick a lure at a pokestop, which you get through the same methods as an incense. And you know what happens then?

They light up like a pink Christmas tree and EVERYONE who goes anywhere near that pokestop gets a boost on how many Pokemon they catch. There's a guy a floor above my partner who's at level bazillion or something, and he just sticks lures on the pokestops in their building every night.

And how much money does that cost him in this "free" game?

That seems a bit counter-intuitive if their goal is just to bleed people.

The goal of every business, everywhere, is to make money.

And actually, the best way to get rare Pokemon is to hatch eggs. Which you can only do by walking. Which is free.

At the moment. Maybe not always. We'll have to wait and see.
 
Every potential evil holds an opposite and equal good, so what is the good of this game?

To me, that it actually has some kind of connection to reality, and seems to get unlikely groups of people together. We're coming full circle, back to games people play together in the same physical space.
 
To me, that it actually has some kind of connection to reality, and seems to get unlikely groups of people together. We're coming full circle, back to games people play together in the same physical space.


You do see the irony of existence that we destroy ourselves for our own good. Few philosophers ever saw that reality.
 
Nope, no interest, but my kids do.

And you don't seem to understand that I'm talking about what may happen IN THE FUTURE.

And how much money does that cost him in this "free" game?

The goal of every business, everywhere, is to make money.

At the moment. Maybe not always. We'll have to wait and see.

Well, that's about as useless as me saying that in the future, it becomes a rehash of Red/Blue with no pay elements at all. :lol:

The lure? Either none (as I said, you can acquire them through the game) or whatever the price is -- haven't checked. Does that guy upstairs pay? He might do. He also evidently plays a hell of a lot more than I do, so hard to say. Does he have to? Nope.

The goal of every business is to make money. But as I said, Niantic actually has better ways of making money than freemium, which is why they're focusing more on those other ways. Also, some businesses, especially those with creative elements, also care about what they're making and have a simultaneous goal to make things people will enjoy, and thus they avoid abusing their customer base. There's quite a few games like that out there actually. Don't know how you've missed them all.

Is Pokemon Go one such creation? Well, the early signs point to optimism for all the reasons I've given.

At any rate, you saying "this thing that the entire construction of the game makes difficult or impossible to do could totally happen," while technically true however unrealistic, is a completely useless thing to try to have any kind of debate about. You're convinced there's some kind of conspiracy with all freemium games ever created. Well, I've played some pretty big ones for years, and there simply isn't. :shrug:
 
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