I bet Niantic wished they’d created a Pokemon game four years ago instead of labouring on Ingress all that time. Pokemon Go was released last week in the US and has already spawned many a meme on Facebook. It apparently has more concurrent players than concurrent Twitter users.
My first, in the wild exposure to it was today when I saw some teenagers talking about it over lunch at a cafe.
Then some twenty-somethings arrived looking at their phone screens and shouting something about the game. In a daze they walked around with heads bent.
A short time later we walked past a group of kids, still in school uniform but with eyes firmly glued to phones.
Anyway, it was months after I started playing Ingress that I saw another person playing the game. Pokemon Go is already much bigger. Hopefully they’ll be able to keep the game interesting. My sone was never interested in Ingress, but he’s already asking about the new game. I don’t know which game will be better once Pokemon Go receives a few updates. It took ages for Ingress to be fleshed out so I expect much more from them.
I haven’t tried it because my phone is broken. Boo. I had the device on a table, swiped up the screen and the display suddenly went almost all flashy green. I rebooted but now the screen won’t respond to any key presses. It better be covered by warranty as I only bought it a few months ago!
Pokemon Go is partially successful due to Ingress though. All of the Pokestops and Gyms are Ingress points. So yeah, it’s a better game but it’s building upon the success of Ingress. 🙂