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Pokemon Go could have won a design award but it did not. |
| Why did Pokemon Go did not win a design award and why it could have won, here are a few reasons. First of all, a little disclaimer; they did not join or apply to a design award, at least I do not know about it, what I mean about Pokemon Go being a non award winning product is to highlight some issues with the application. I play Pokemon Go, I am indeed a high level player with a lot of money spent for in-game purchases so I know what I am writing about. |
| First of all, Pokemon Go is a great but broken game as of writing the article. Before telling why it does not work, and how it would be soon forgotten, we are obliged to underline a few good things. First of all the biggest value proposition of Pokemon Go is perhaps gamification of walking. This is important; Pokemon Go makes many people walk as they are obliged to hatch eggs. |
| Pokemon Go is a fitness application concealed as a game, it is ingenious for how it makes you walk but I am also pretty sure the developers were not thinking at all about making people walk, so while I do not think that it is a genius way to make people walk, it was not the intended function, intended function was to earn money, and I think they are not earning enough money from it, the distributors are earning more money than the creators. |
| Pokemon Go is a health application, it keeps you fit as it urges you to move forward. It ensures that you get your daily exercise, you need to walk to hatch those eggs, so that is really nice. Indeed, it is the best gamification for walking but unfortunately after a point it gets boring. Once you start getting same and same pokemons with less and less experience (same experience but less important towards progression due) you find yourself asking yourself, what you are doing and whether should you do it or not. |
| Pokemon Go is a travel application. It is a great application to use in a city where you go for the first time as it helps you discover little gems and small, unimportant yet funky landmarks in those cities, it also helps you discover more the city you live in, you check new streets, places where you have not been but this comes at an expense; you risk yourself in getting into strange neighbourhoods and while you might be okay, a kid playing the game could be in real risk. |
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| Designated meeting points do not make sense, it is usually religious establishments, graffiti and (mostly) ugly sculptures. This is not monetizeable but also not safe; designated spots should have been café, restaurant, bar, supermarkets and other commercial locations where people regularly visit; since these places would be more crowded they would be safer, but it would also be easier to meet people and it would also contribute to commerce. |
| Pokemon Go is expensive. It is marketed as a free game but if you live in a rural area, you quickly run out of pokeballs, and the only way to get them is from the shop. Pokeballs are expensive, you need them even if you live in a city as especially considering that; while you just start, you catch a monster with one or two balls, when you level up, you can spend ten or more balls to catch a single Pokémon, which is frustrating as it is your well earned money being spent for nothing. |
| Pokemon Go is not rewarding after a while; when you level up, the game becomes boring, all the fun goes away and it is only the obsession to become the best keeps you going. You quickly realize that many people; majority of the people who have installed it, will stop playing once they reach a certain level; they will not play because it will not make any more sense. The game is easy to learn, easy to master, and after a while it does not offer anything new. |
| Pokemon Go is not the game that invented augmented reality gaming, but it made it popular for sure. Pokemon Go did not invent location based gaming, but it made it popular as well. So Pokemon Go does not bring anything to the table; there are no new innovations. The game also seems and feels underdeveloped and too simple, the game does not unlock complexity for expert players; for example World of Warcraft, unlocks many complexities and new possibilities as you progress, that makes it a good game |
| Pokemon Go is not a good game. It freezes, it crashes, servers are down a lot, it hangs, it is full of technical glitches, and considering the very limited functionality it has this is unacceptable; the developers might say; well we did a free game so do not complain, but many hardcore players do spend money, they buy pokeballs, inventory space, incubators; so when you pay for a game you want it to work, Pokemon Go does not work. |
| Pokemon Go does not offer customer service and their terms and agreements are terrible. For example about 25 percent of consumables we used the first two weeks just get wasted because of disconnectivity, when we wrote these issues to the company by submitting a form as well as emailing, we did not get a reply, refund, an apology or anything else, it really sucks, they take your money and do not care about you, that is not okay. |
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| Pokemon Go is very fun when you first start it, and then when you reach a high level it becomes really boring and feels you are just grinding, grinding, grinding, and all the fun is gone; you keep catching the same pokemons, they get harder to catch, you spend pokeballs and money, and most sad of all, you know that since it gets more boring, causal players would stop playing and the game will lose its value of connecting people, it will truly be a fad. Pokemon Go will be a fad. |
| Pokemon Go does not make sense for the weight of monsters and that is completely okay, except that; if it does not make sense; if it does not affect anything, why do you have it? If it is to please people, it does not; it just pisses fans off; because it simply does not make sense; a little fish 200 kg and a huge dragon 5 grams? People are not stupid, and they do not want to feel stupid either. |
| Pokemon Go is bugged. Currently when I am writing this article, the map where you find the Pokemon does not work, furthermore, the distance meter to find the pokemons do not work; which takes away the discovery function of the game; since warmer colder function is gone you do not walk searching for Pokémons and you discover less locations. With the discovery aspect gone, you feel sad and lost. |
| Pokemon Go encourages cheating; people who cheat via location hacks, third party apps for locating pokemons etc level up without getting any punishment. There are many cheaters, and when there are cheaters, you lose the last obsession of being the best; I do not want to be the best of a game where a majority of hard core players are cheating, it is just sad, cold place with competitive fellows owning gyms. |
| Pokemon Go is cruel. The Pokemons are exchanged by candy, as if this candy is made of these Pokemons, it just does not feel good, sure it is all digital and everything but instead of giving to professor and getting a candy, (for some cruel animal experimentation) maybe they could say; the pokemon found a new family, people who care and love it, and the new owners give a candy. |
| Pokemon Go could be saved if new pokemons are introduced, if the levelling up and higher level gaming is fixed, if number of pokestops are increased and if the game, if more servers are introduced, however none of these will happen timely, once bugs are fixed, the causal people will be gone, the fad will be over, the game will die slowly but surely. If any changes shall be made, they should be made today. |
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| Pokemon Go developers do not read online forums or boards, some websites offer tons of ideas to improve the game, there are genius suggestions, if I were leading the team, I would have implemented ten maybe twenty of those ideas, but no one cares them and it is sad to see this negligence, I think good companies are those who try to satisfy the needs of consumers to offer them the best products that work. |
| All this being said, I will keep playing a few more months, once many people stop playing, once the pokegyms start feeling a cold, boring space, once pokestops are no longer attractive and or until the changes are made, I would most likely quit and spend my money and time elsewhere, and I really want to play Pokemon Go because I actually use it as an excuse to make exercise, I think it is a really great gamification of walking. |
| So my overall impression of Pokemon Go: What a pity. It is a great game at first that you truly enjoy as it makes you discover, travel, meet people, and exercise, yet it gets boring and meaningless once you level up and you know that people will stop playing or giving attention to it very soon as it lacks the ability to keep people playing and paying. |
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This article was added on Saturday, 30th of July, 2016 at 10.12 am by author 
