Pokemon Go - Getting lots of Attention

Reserved for modern gaming discussions.
User avatar
ptdebate
Posts: 1072
Joined: April 7th, 2015, 8:39 pm

Re: Pokemon Go - Getting lots of Attention

Postby ptdebate » July 31st, 2016, 1:58 am

scotland wrote:Even if the game is a fad, many AAA games are basically fads too. Today its Overwatch, then Madden, etc.


Just wanted to chime in here on the subjects of mass popularity and the generational divide.

I've seen fifty-somethings at work playing Pokemon DURING meetings. I--age 26--have never downloaded the app. Whatever this is, it defies generational lines. I still feel unmotivated to download this game despite the fact that I have great admiration for the Pokemon series of video games. People who were oblivious to Pokemon before its debut on smartphones seem much more into it than I would ever be.

User avatar
scotland
Posts: 2561
Joined: April 7th, 2015, 7:33 pm

Re: Pokemon Go - Getting lots of Attention

Postby scotland » July 31st, 2016, 7:51 am

ptdebate wrote:Whatever this is, it defies generational lines. I still feel unmotivated to download this game despite the fact that I have great admiration for the Pokemon series of video games. People who were oblivious to Pokemon before its debut on smartphones seem much more into it than I would ever be.


SurveyMonkey has some demographic information.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2016/07/26/more-women-than-men-are-playing-pokemon-go-by-a-lot/#5a6f06274f16. Lets put those annual ESA statistics in here to compare against all video game players.

About 2/3rds of Pokemon Go (PG) players are female. (ESA has 44% overall as female). Average user is a 25 year old white woman, with a college degree, making $90,000 a year. (Hint hint for people looking to meet such people)

PG is an Under 50 thing, with 94%.of players under 50 (73% of gamers are under 50 according to ESA).

About 22% of PG players are under 18, the big group is 46% for young adults age 18-29, and 25% for the 30 - 50 year old. ESA stats are 26% are under 18, 30% 18 - 35, and 17% 36 - 50. Teen and older gamers seem to be playing PG at an expected rate, but 20 somethings much higher rate.

These statistics show PG is skewing heavily female, and definitely towards 20 somethings.

However, it might be both sheer numbers, not rates, and that playing this game is very public and sometimes very obvious that you are noticing, my friend. It does make sense from a nostalgia view, that 20 somethings may have grown up with Pokemon.

ESauce
Posts: 449
Joined: April 8th, 2015, 12:20 pm

Re: Pokemon Go - Getting lots of Attention

Postby ESauce » July 31st, 2016, 8:57 pm

scotland wrote:

SurveyMonkey has some demographic information.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2016/07/26/more-women-than-men-are-playing-pokemon-go-by-a-lot/#5a6f06274f16. Lets put those annual ESA statistics in here to compare against all video game players.

About 2/3rds of Pokemon Go (PG) players are female. (ESA has 44% overall as female). Average user is a 25 year old white woman, with a college degree, making $90,000 a year. (Hint hint for people looking to meet such people)


I don't blame you for saying it, because you're just quoting the forbes article but that is a wildly misleading way to present the surveymonkey data. The average user is not a 26 year old woman making $90,000 a year. The average user is 26, the average user is a female, and the average user makes $90,000 a year; you can't treat those statistics as a group. There could be a single male user who is a billionaire, causing the average salary to bubble up to $90,000. There could be a ton of middle aged women playing it, a ton of children playing and a ton of 26-year-old men playing, causing the median age to be 26. Now I'm not saying that's the case; I can say from observation that it looks like a ton of young women play this game. But I'm darn sure those young women aren't making $90,000 a year on average. It is more likely they're making a bit over the median income for their age group, and there are some very wealthy people playing which is pushing up the mean income. Nothing irks me more than journalists misleading people with poor interpretations of data.

User avatar
scotland
Posts: 2561
Joined: April 7th, 2015, 7:33 pm

Re: Pokemon Go - Getting lots of Attention

Postby scotland » August 1st, 2016, 10:02 am

ESauce wrote: The average user is not a 26 year old woman making $90,000 a year...Nothing irks me more than journalists misleading people with poor interpretations of data.


I was just quoting Forbes, so thanks for understanding. I am not banking on the source ESA or Survey Monkey data either, even before a journalist turns it into a story to begin with. I agree with you to take all these articles with lots of salt.

However, the data is still some information beyond the anecdotal information we see ourselves. That's still valuable. For instance, I don't interact much with retired people, so I would be unlikely to ever see how popular the game is in the over 65 set.

Also, given the huge numbers playing the game, an arithmetic average is unlikely to be affected notably by even a few millionaires or other oddities. Even with a small sample size that was unlucky enough to get that millionaire outlier would not be an issue, as a company like Survey Monkey is sophisticated enough to benchmark their survey data to demographic data and mitigate that.

The takeaway that the game is skewing female and 20 something is probably pretty solid.

ESauce
Posts: 449
Joined: April 8th, 2015, 12:20 pm

Re: Pokemon Go - Getting lots of Attention

Postby ESauce » August 1st, 2016, 5:04 pm

Yeah I agree that you can safely assume that the average user is a 20-something female (although plenty of men playing too). If you're looking for a date though you'd be wise to know that 20-something females might not be as rich as that article is saying. You may be splitting the bill. :lol:

User avatar
scotland
Posts: 2561
Joined: April 7th, 2015, 7:33 pm

Re: Pokemon Go - Getting lots of Attention

Postby scotland » August 2nd, 2016, 9:26 am

The game's developer, Niantic, is now in the news both for not communicating with the fanbase, and now for its update to address what is referred to as "The Three Step Glitch". This let's players determine which Pokemon are nearby and how far they are, so that they can focus on catching new Pokemon. The glitch was that all the Pokemon in a radius starting to show up as being at the same distance, which was not very helpful. Was Niantic trying to fix it? They didn't say. Niantic then issued an update that removed the distance metric completely, basically fixing it with an eraser.

Currently in Google Play, the reviews are still very positive, but about 20% are 1 and 2 star reviews. Comments include things like "Fix your game. I'm not going to waste my time if we can't even track pokes we don't have."

A risk with being very popular is that its not a big step to be very unpopular if you make a misstep. The popularity of the game took everyone by surprise, including Niantic. A successful business takes all types of people with different skills - its a team sport. Its possible that the current Niantic team never needed an experienced PR representative before, but their team may need one.

User avatar
scotland
Posts: 2561
Joined: April 7th, 2015, 7:33 pm

Re: Pokemon Go - Getting lots of Attention

Postby scotland » August 8th, 2016, 1:06 pm

The developer has begun to act on requests to remove some locations where playing an AR game is inappropriate. Its by request only, which keeps the burden on those who want to opt out.

User avatar
scotland
Posts: 2561
Joined: April 7th, 2015, 7:33 pm

Re: Pokemon Go - Getting lots of Attention

Postby scotland » January 18th, 2017, 8:56 am

Pokemon Go generated $950 million in revenue in 2016. It was downloaded 500 million times. Wow.

While this is a Niantic game and not a Nintendo game, Pokemon is associated with Nintendo. It might inform Nintendo that their future might be more in casual mobile games.

User avatar
Atarifever
Posts: 461
Joined: April 12th, 2015, 5:55 am

Re: Pokemon Go - Getting lots of Attention

Postby Atarifever » January 20th, 2017, 6:00 am

scotland wrote:Pokemon Go generated $950 million in revenue in 2016. It was downloaded 500 million times. Wow.

While this is a Niantic game and not a Nintendo game, Pokemon is associated with Nintendo. It might inform Nintendo that their future might be more in casual mobile games.

And the Switch forces users to use a smartphone or tablet for their version of "Xbox Live." Coincidence? I'm thinking not. They really, really want you to use a smartphone for Nintendo stuff.

As for Pokémon Go, I read somewhere Nintendo gets something like 33% of the profit there. So that's still one of the biggest games in their catalogue this year, regardless of ownership. I can't wait until Animal Crossing Go hits and finally the whole world is with me and my wife in our utter hatred of raccoon loan sharks.

Good thing they have mobile going now, since the Switch is such a complete garbage fire.

User avatar
Rookie1
Posts: 705
Joined: August 6th, 2015, 7:42 am

Re: Pokemon Go - Getting lots of Attention

Postby Rookie1 » January 25th, 2017, 10:54 am

If I am reading the reports right, Mario Run has made like 3% of the profit that Pokemon has. Wow, and that is one of the biggest franchises in gaming history.

Nintendo has really shown that they arent invincible over the last few years, thats for sure.


Return to “Modern Gaming”