Pokemon Go has its largest active player base since Summer 2016, revenue up 174% year over year

Wollan · Jun 27, 2018

Game has received some big updates since my 100km in 2016.
Now: Bonus XP based on local weather, Raid functionality, Friends list, a main Quest, more goals and aspects being tracked, some new aspects to the creatures (Dark/Light?) and new ones as well.

Took some photos:

AgeEighty · Jun 27, 2018

The gaming community seems convinced that no one plays this game anymore because it dropped out of the news. But I still know tons of people who play it actively.

I'm one of them.

kaisere · Jun 27, 2018

Andri said:
While i agree that people do spend lots of money on Go, i cant agree with your second argument.
Its far from predatory, its quite easy to have lots of balls all the time, especially now with the Friends/Gifts system, since you can get up to 20 gifts per day, and these contain all the consumables you could ever need unless you play Go like 10h a day.

I really wish I could play the version of this game that fans do, where they never have to worry about money or any problems with the game, because my experience has been very different. You have to do a lot of walking in Pokestop-dense areas to get a significant number of balls, I play very casually and have run out of balls while catching multiple times. It's very frustrating trying to catch a Pikachu and it eats 10 pokeballs. You can also pay for items that make it easier to catch things that expire even if you fail once. It's hardly player-friendly.

Skittzo · Jun 27, 2018

kaisere said:
I really wish I could play the version of this game that fans do, where they never have to worry about money or any problems with the game, because my experience has been very different. You have to do a lot of walking in Pokestop-dense areas to get a significant number of balls, I play very casually and have run out of balls while catching multiple times. It's very frustrating trying to catch a Pikachu and it eats 10 pokeballs. You can also pay for items that make it easier to catch things that expire even if you fail once. It's hardly player-friendly.

I live in an area with 3 Pokestops and a gym. All it really takes is walking around those stops for about ~15 minutes to build up your item reserves to a pretty healthy level. Even moreso if it's your 7th day of a Pokestop streak.

And AFAIK you cannot buy berries with money, I'm not sure where you heard that. The only things you can pay for are:

Regular Pokeballs
Lucky Eggs (2x exp for 30 minutes)
Incubators
Lure Modules
Incense
Potions
Revives
Premium Raid Passes

You can't buy any type of berry or any of the higher tier balls.

jstevenson · Jun 27, 2018

the game is the best it has ever been. Really fun and frequently changing and adding events to keep you coming back

Haruko · Jun 27, 2018

skittzo0413 said:
I live in an area with 3 Pokestops and a gym. All it really takes is walking around those stops for about ~15 minutes to build up your item reserves to a pretty healthy level. Even moreso if it's your 7th day of a Pokestop streak.

And AFAIK you cannot buy berries with money, I'm not sure where you heard that. The only things you can pay for are:

Regular Pokeballs
Lucky Eggs (2x exp for 30 minutes)
Incubators
Lure Modules
Incense
Potions
Revives
Premium Raid Passes

You can't buy any type of berry or any of the higher tier balls.

You can get berries/better balls/etc sometimes in gift boxes, which they offer during big events usually. Personally I don't really use Razz/Nanab anymore, and I have plenty of Pinap now thanks to Friend gifts.

Skittzo · Jun 27, 2018

Haruko said:
You can get berries/better balls/etc sometimes in gift boxes, which they offer during big events usually. Personally I don't really use Razz/Nanab anymore, and I have plenty of Pinap now thanks to Friend gifts.

Ah I've never actually checked what was in those. Good to know, thanks.

Still, the only thing I really see the use in spending coins for is lucky eggs or incubators. And you can get 50 coins a day in-game, so if you're really a stickler for not paying then you can get by pretty easily.

Haruko · Jun 27, 2018

skittzo0413 said:
Ah I've never actually checked what was in those. Good to know, thanks.

Still, the only thing I really see the use in spending coins for is lucky eggs or incubators. And you can get 50 coins a day in-game, so if you're really a stickler for not paying then you can get by pretty easily.

Agreed. I try to hold out for gift boxes that contain incubators and/or lucky eggs, but otherwise I spend most of my coins on increasing bag/storage space.

Gym control and Google Rewards survey money is how I get most of my coins, lol

TheUnseenTheUnheard · Jun 27, 2018

:::PROMO CODE GO TO THE SHOP:::
3 Egg Incubators and 1 Lucky Egg
JJVM4CZM

Theorymon · Jun 27, 2018

TheUnseenTheUnheard said:
:::PROMO CODE GO TO THE SHOP:::
3 Egg Incubators and 1 Lucky Egg
JJVM4CZM

Damn is there no way to use promo codes on the ios version =/

Teeny · Jun 28, 2018

ZiggyPalffyLA said:
How do y'all find people to do raids with? I live in a city with 100k+ people and I don't know anyone else who plays. nor do I ever see groups of people doing raids.

Our messenger group formed out of a Facebook group page as soon as raids became available. We now have the messenger chat and a Discord server and raids are coordinated daily with great success.

You can use The Silph Road's Silph League Player Network to find local Discord and Telegram groups:

https://thesilphroad.com/map#2/51.33/0.48

I think there will be mechanisms for FB and such later on.

ZiggyPalffyLA · Jun 28, 2018

Teeny said:
Our messenger group formed out of a Facebook group page as soon as raids became available. We now have the messenger chat and a Discord server and raids are coordinated daily with great success.

You can use The Silph Road's Silph League Player Network to find local Discord and Telegram groups:

https://thesilphroad.com/map#2/51.33/0.48

I think there will be mechanisms for FB and such later on.

What's Discord

Teeny · Jun 28, 2018

ZiggyPalffyLA said:
What's Discord

It's a great text and voice chat client built largely for gamers but plays host to tonnes of communities.

https://discordapp.com/

A lot of local Pokemon Go communities use Discord because you can use some awesome bots to report and plan timings for raids, report wild spawns, nests and all sorts of other things. There are communities using all kinds of chat clients, though - Telegram, Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp chief among them along with Discord.

The Silph Road is a more technical focused subreddit for Pokemon Go - they have built the league map to help people find communities worldwide. They also have a nest atlas and a trainer card with an event check in system that grants you badges: https://sil.ph/martinwalls That's my card, for example.

They are releasing a native app soon as well.

kaisere · Jun 29, 2018

skittzo0413 said:
I live in an area with 3 Pokestops and a gym. All it really takes is walking around those stops for about ~15 minutes to build up your item reserves to a pretty healthy level. Even moreso if it's your 7th day of a Pokestop streak.

And AFAIK you cannot buy berries with money, I'm not sure where you heard that. The only things you can pay for are:

Regular Pokeballs
Lucky Eggs (2x exp for 30 minutes)
Incubators
Lure Modules
Incense
Potions
Revives
Premium Raid Passes

You can't buy any type of berry or any of the higher tier balls.

Yeah, it definitely takes you longer than 15 minutes if you're starting at a low Pokeball count. You get an average of 2-3 per stop and they reset every 5 minutes. That's not a healthy reserve. The streak stuff is meaningless to me because I'm not playing the game every day, like I said, super casual.

They will definitely sell you berries and ultra balls during events.

The_Inquisitor · Jun 29, 2018

I've been playing actively since about 8 weeks ago after a long great. A lot of the changes are fantastic and now I'm never short of items (in fact I have too many currently).

Skittzo · Jun 29, 2018

kaisere said:
Yeah, it definitely takes you longer than 15 minutes if you're starting at a low Pokeball count. You get an average of 2-3 per stop and they reset every 5 minutes. That's not a healthy reserve. The streak stuff is meaningless to me because I'm not playing the game every day, like I said, super casual.

They will definitely sell you berries and ultra balls during events.

Your first one of the day gets you about 6-7 and a gym that you frequent can get you up to 10 items every 5 minutes. Field research also often gets you Pokeballs, sometimes 5-6 at a time. But anyway if you're playing casually you don't really need more than 10-15 Pokeballs in your reserves unless you're trying to catch every single Pokemon you come across.

And they do not sell berries or ultra balls, they apparently sell mystery boxes on occasion and sometimes those can contain ultra balls along with other things. But there is no way to just buy ultra balls or berries.

Deleted member 35204 · Jun 29, 2018

I couldn't get on the bandwagon when the game launched because my phone wasn't supported, since the announcement i started playing it got to like level 15, finished all the pokéballs i had and just stopped playing it.

GulAtiCa · Jun 29, 2018

LeleSocho said:
I couldn't get on the bandwagon when the game launched because my phone wasn't supported, since the announcement i started playing it got to like level 15, finished all the pokéballs i had and just stopped playing it.

Spin some Pokestops? Add some people from the OT to your friend list and get free gifts which will get you new pokeballs too.

apocat · Jun 29, 2018

This is my gaming guilty pleasure. It's not a great game by any means, but I still play on my way to and from work everyday just to kill time. I don't take it too seriously, and am not a social player at all, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't find it fun at times.

Deleted member 35204 · Jun 29, 2018

GulAtiCa said:
Spin some Pokestops? Add some people from the OT to your friend list and get free gifts which will get you new pokeballs too.

Pokéstop give max 4-5 Pokéballs i don't want to grind them, i will add people though since i always played alone up until now.

Naner · Jun 29, 2018

I certainly played a lot of it this week. It's actually pretty good now.

GulAtiCa · Jun 29, 2018

LeleSocho said:
Pokéstop give max 4-5 Pokéballs i don't want to grind them, i will add people though since i always played alone up until now.

Gifting will help a lot. Yeah, I understand about not wanting to grind. What might help is finding a cluster of Pokestops in your area and just spinning a few of them, could help a lot.

https://www.pokemongomap.info/

Use the above link to find pokestops/gyms in your area. This will be useful for anyone actually. Since bots don't exist anymore, it can be a little outdated, but still very good resource.

kaisere · Jun 30, 2018

skittzo0413 said:
Your first one of the day gets you about 6-7 and a gym that you frequent can get you up to 10 items every 5 minutes. Field research also often gets you Pokeballs, sometimes 5-6 at a time. But anyway if you're playing casually you don't really need more than 10-15 Pokeballs in your reserves unless you're trying to catch every single Pokemon you come across.

And they do not sell berries or ultra balls, they apparently sell mystery boxes on occasion and sometimes those can contain ultra balls along with other things. But there is no way to just buy ultra balls or berries.

Sure, or if you're catching 1-2 remotely powerful Pokemon and they eat your Pokeballs up. I wasn't kidding when I said Pikachu ate 10 Pokeballs from me the last time I tried to catch them. Field Research is hit or miss, I've been sitting on catching a certain type that I've encountered very little of. But yeah, I guess that I don't need that much, except when I have very many times needed that much.

And again, yes they do, in those very crates you're talking about. I misspoke on berries though, got them mixed up on something else.

Teeny · Jun 30, 2018

kaisere said:
Sure, or if you're catching 1-2 remotely powerful Pokemon and they eat your Pokeballs up. I wasn't kidding when I said Pikachu ate 10 Pokeballs from me the last time I tried to catch them. Field Research is hit or miss, I've been sitting on catching a certain type that I've encountered very little of. But yeah, I guess that I don't need that much, except when I have very many times needed that much.

And again, yes they do, in those very crates you're talking about. I misspoke on berries though, got them mixed up on something else.

If you're having trouble catching Pokemon such as Pikachu, then you need to maximise your resource usage and practice throwing differently to apply bonuses and increase capture rate.

Learn when to use Razz Berries to increase capture rate and when to not waste them.

Learn to throw curve balls. This is seriously important; a normal Pokeball thrown in a curve has a better catch rate than a Great Ball thrown straight.

Learn to throw accurately to consistently get at least Great throws if not Excellent.

In terms of research tasks, sometimes it's better to bin those with poor rewards or ones you know you will struggle to complete. Of course, if you are in a low density area, you might not be able to replace them with more appropriate tasks.

Deleted member 37917 · Jun 30, 2018

I live in Tokyo and I've seen a resurgence of people playing in the street, in public transportation, or on their freaking bikes (Japanese people are more often than not horrible at driving cars or bicycles to begin with, and love to distract themselves with anything they can find while doing so.)

Surface · Jun 30, 2018

If I dident have a wife and kids, I would have been out playing this alot! With family no time..

Wollan · Jun 30, 2018

I will end buying Pokémon Let's Go won't I.

Deleted member 1726 · Jun 30, 2018

Pokemon Lets Go is going to fuel so many muggings

Wasn't it pretty bad with people getting their phones robbed? Now peeps going to get their Switch's robbed

Zafir · Jun 30, 2018

I've been playing it again over the past few days since I've been out and about. They've definitely improved it since launch but it hasnt fixed some of my issues. For example past 20 levelling still takes a decade but max CP is still tied to levels(unless im missing something) so you don't stand a chance against some longer standing players. To level up you are pushed into capturing a lot, even stuff you don't strictly need but unless you're near an abundance of stops or gyms youll run out. Plus theres still vast built up areas (not even rural) with no stops or gyms in sight.

The new pokemon and extra content has been nice though. Still not managed to do a raid due to lack of people mind.

Teeny · Jul 1, 2018

Zafir said:
I've been playing it again over the past few days since I've been out and about. They've definitely improved it since launch but it hasnt fixed some of my issues. For example past 20 levelling still takes a decade but max CP is still tied to levels(unless im missing something) so you don't stand a chance against some longer standing players. To level up you are pushed into capturing a lot, even stuff you don't strictly need but unless you're near an abundance of stops or gyms youll run out. Plus theres still vast built up areas (not even rural) with no stops or gyms in sight.

The new pokemon and extra content has been nice though. Still not managed to do a raid due to lack of people mind.

If you are talking about taking on people in gyms, a defending Pokemon's CP decays over time. If you are having trouble, look for gyms with low motivation and they will be easier to take out. Having the right Pokemon also helps (ie Machamps for Blissey and Tyranitar are essential or Hariyamas if you dont have them).

You need to catch a lot of stuff you don't need, yes. It differs from the main games in that way because catching multiples is how you accrue the currency required to power up your and evolve your Pokemon. If you are light on resources, it is tough :(

I posted it previously, but if you are interested in teaming up with other people for raids, check out The Silph Road's league map for local communities on Discord and Telegram.

GulAtiCa · Jul 1, 2018

Zafir said:
For example past 20 levelling still takes a decade

Heh. Wait till you get to level 30, that's when XP system really goes nuts.

But honestly, unlike even 1 year ago, gaining 1 million XP is rather easy these days. Raids + Double XP events (kinda like the one were about to enter now) makes gaining 40,000 XP per T5 raid with double xp event + lucky egg on. Even without raids, XP gain is easy with 7 day streaks, community days which alternates back and forth of having stardust or xp bonus normally.

Zafir · Jul 1, 2018

GulAtiCa said:
Heh. Wait till you get to level 30, that's when XP system really goes nuts.

But honestly, unlike even 1 year ago, gaining 1 million XP is rather easy these days. Raids + Double XP events (kinda like the one were about to enter now) makes gaining 40,000 XP per T5 raid with double xp event + lucky egg on. Even without raids, XP gain is easy with 7 day streaks, community days which alternates back and forth of having stardust or xp bonus normally.

Teeny said:
If you are talking about taking on people in gyms, a defending Pokemon's CP decays over time. If you are having trouble, look for gyms with low motivation and they will be easier to take out. Having the right Pokemon also helps (ie Machamps for Blissey and Tyranitar are essential or Hariyamas if you dont have them).

You need to catch a lot of stuff you don't need, yes. It differs from the main games in that way because catching multiples is how you accrue the currency required to power up your and evolve your Pokemon. If you are light on resources, it is tough :(

I posted it previously, but if you are interested in teaming up with other people for raids, check out The Silph Road's league map for local communities on Discord and Telegram.

Fair enough. My issue is that I just don't really enjoy it enough to go through that effort of finding and meeting up with groups. Even back when I played it at launch, It's always been something that I'll play when I'm going somewhere for other reasons but I'm not going out of my way for it.

Either way there's still fun to be had playing the game in this more casual way especially now it's going to link up with the Switch game, just sucks that I'll likely never participate in any raids. It's nice to know you can still acquire decent xp without raids though.

SegFault · Jul 1, 2018

they've done a good job reacting to and updating it to be more game like. kind of a shame it took so long but i'm definitely back on that train now after getting the original 142 you could get in your region.

Twentieth · Jul 1, 2018

Zafir said:
I've been playing it again over the past few days since I've been out and about. They've definitely improved it since launch but it hasnt fixed some of my issues. For example past 20 levelling still takes a decade but max CP is still tied to levels(unless im missing something) so you don't stand a chance against some longer standing players. To level up you are pushed into capturing a lot, even stuff you don't strictly need but unless you're near an abundance of stops or gyms youll run out. Plus theres still vast built up areas (not even rural) with no stops or gyms in sight.

The new pokemon and extra content has been nice though. Still not managed to do a raid due to lack of people mind.

I'm not sure max CP being tied to trainer lvl is an issue. I'm level 28 and can take out any Pokémon in gyms and even Tier 2 raids by myself.

entrydenied · Jul 2, 2018

Daffy Duck said:
Pokemon Lets Go is going to fuel so many muggings

Wasn't it pretty bad with people getting their phones robbed? Now peeps going to get their Switch's robbed

You don't need to bring your Switch out to pkay Let's Go though...It's not an AR game like Go.

Deleted member 1726 · Jul 2, 2018

entrydenied said:
You don't need to bring your Switch out to pkay Let's Go though...It's not an AR game like Go.

It's not? Oh well I look silly then lol, I thought it was .

entrydenied · Jul 2, 2018

Daffy Duck said:
It's not? Oh well I look silly then lol, I thought it was .

It just uses the same basic throwing poke balls to catch pokemon mechanics XD. You still catch pokemon in the in-game Kanto world.

Teeny · Jul 2, 2018

Zafir said:
Fair enough. My issue is that I just don't really enjoy it enough to go through that effort of finding and meeting up with groups. Even back when I played it at launch, It's always been something that I'll play when I'm going somewhere for other reasons but I'm not going out of my way for it.

Either way there's still fun to be had playing the game in this more casual way especially now it's going to link up with the Switch game, just sucks that I'll likely never participate in any raids. It's nice to know you can still acquire decent xp without raids though.

That's fair enough, glad you're still having fun. I think I agree in that if I didn't treat it as a social thing, I probably would be bored by now.

Skeleton · Jul 2, 2018

the influx of returning players has made Gyms really really annoying again. Luckily my coins are well stocked up.

My one real complaint is raids are still stupid on harder levels even in big cities a group of players capable of taking out bosses is rare.

Trading is awful, you have to be next to a person, makes 0 sense.

Pokémon · Jul 2, 2018

Yeah the game has become significantly slower in the last few days with longer loading times.

MikeProtagonist · Jul 2, 2018

Skeleton said:
the influx of returning players has made Gyms really really annoying again. Luckily my coins are well stocked up.

My one real complaint is raids are still stupid on harder levels even in big cities a group of players capable of taking out bosses is rare.

Trading is awful, you have to be next to a person, makes 0 sense.

I live in a town of 50,000 and there are probably 10-20 daily raids on Discord. I just went and took down Regice.

It makes sense to have you be nearby, it promotes actually meeting people (and those you are friends with in game) and it discourages "selling" to random people. If there wasn't a distance limit, you'd have people selling the region exclusives across the world on Ebay. You also get a bonus now if the traded Pokemon are caught far away, so it's a good thing to play while you're on vacation across the globe and trade with your friends back home. It actually makes it a bit more reasonable to get region exclusives without opening up a bunch of loopholes.

Chaos17 · Jul 2, 2018

skittzo0413 said:
I got back into it even before Let's Go was announced.

Because I started walking with my infant daughter in the stroller for like 1-2 hours a day. We hatch so many eggs.

Aww, that's cute.
I wish I also had a dog or a child to go on stroll. I don't like to go walk alone q_q

Skittzo · Jul 2, 2018

Daffy Duck said:
It's not? Oh well I look silly then lol, I thought it was .

Nah it's just an HD remake of Pokemon Yellow with wild battles removed and replaced by a Pokemon GO-esque throwing mechanic.

Beyond that major change it's essentially just a remake of Yellow.

Chaos17 said:
Aww, that's cute.
I wish I also had a dog or a child to go on stroll. I don't like to go walk alone q_q

Get a dog then, they're the best!

Pokémon · Jul 2, 2018

skittzo0413 said:
Get a dog then, they're the best!

That's how I got back into Go so can definitely confirm. :p

GulAtiCa · Jul 2, 2018

Skeleton said:
My one real complaint is raids are still stupid on harder levels even in big cities a group of players capable of taking out bosses is rare.

Kyogre and Regice are harder, but honestly shouldn't take more than 8 people per each (easier on Regice). If taking out a Legendary is that hard, I think the issue is with the Players involved. Low levels are def not going to be that helpful honestly, and the more important thing even beyond player levels is the Pokemon used. DO NOT EVER just go in with what is selected. If you are going in with an Aggron or anything else suggested, you will fail. Use Mchamps, fighting, Fire Pokemon, rock pokemon (last resort) for Regice. The Pokemon being suggested is more about defense, and that suggested team usually kinda sucks for damage output sadly.

Skeleton said:
Trading is awful, you have to be next to a person, makes 0 sense.

Makes perfect sense. The idea is to be physical, basically the entire point of the game. Plus, trading anywhere globally would just encourage the spoofer/bot market to explode.

Pokemon Go has its largest active player base since Summer 2016, revenue up 174% year over year

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