Pokémon Go! (Into Private Territory to Catch a Snorlax)

It's probably fair to say that Pokémon Go won't be as impressive as it looks in this trailer, and it only features the original 150 (151?), but it's certainly a bold new direction, so let's have a thread on it.

Free to play with microtransactions, you say? NINTENDOOOOOOO!

Sadly the F2P+microtransactions was probably going to be the way of things. The idea of going out and finding monsters in the real world didn't appeal with The Denpa Men... I'm probably not going to get this, either.

This will probably make Ninty a boatload of money, but due to the nature of F2P microtransaction-laden games, I can't see me spending too much time with this.

Having said that, it's certainly generated a fair bit of buzz.

Almost everyone in work has been talking about it, I could see all of us trading and battling on lunch.

Humph, typical small time smart phone trash.




This insightful remark was brought to you straight from Athrun888's brain pre-tact editing.

I just can't hide my contempt for cheap smart phone experiences, and this looks bang on mark to be just such one. There are plenty of fantastic Pokemon spin offs, and the main series of course is eternally great, this just seems a redundant waste of time used to placate those who can't be stuffed to buy a 3DS and get the proper experience. I won't deny if I had a smartphone I'd probably check it out if it's free, but aside from that I have no time for this. Or smartphone games in general.

Not going to lie, the trailer was super hype mind you.

I really like the look of it and I expect it'll be fun.
Also, this being Nintendo, I'm sure there will be ways to avoid spending money.
Only having the first gen makes sense as this is aimed at our generation. I'm sure we'll see more if its successful.

I feel I should point out that this is actually Pokemon Company and their ethics are very different from Nintendo.  Nintendo may co-own Pokemon but things are a bit stranger than one might think and not everything relating to the series is their choice.  Pokemon is not part of Nintendo's Youtube partnership program (and I wouldn't be surprised if it's why Smash is also excluded), their Amiibo's only work with Smash, and Shuffle's rampant use of free to play practices.


In fact every game with the Nintendo brand I can think of that uses notorious free to play practices is in fact Pokemon now that I think about it, both Shuffle and Rumble.  Fire Emblem has a bit of it as well, but keeps it exclusively for extra content so gets off the hook.  

I'd normally give a Nintendo game a free pass, but I suspect this is less a Nintendo game and more a Pokemon Company game like Shuffle. If Nintendo are Malcom Turnbull then The Pokemon Company is Tony Abbott. As such I have no free passes available for grabs, only skeptism previously earned.

The whole pokemon company/ Nintendo thing always confused me, but that went a little way to explaining. Makes sense pokemon is the first to go off Nintendo machines.

That said, I am still 100% hype based on the trailer.

...I'd be very careful in getting anything based on that trailer. It projects obviously CGI Mewtwos and Charizards into the air, Pokéballs into hands, has thousands of people crowding around a Mewtwo battle... These aren't going to happen in the real game. I only found myself able to deduce the most basic mechanics (catch/trade/play/group battles) from that trailer, Drunka, so I'm curious as to what hyped you about it.

Well... that! Pokemon catching, trading and battling on my phone all the time with what will almost definitely be a lot more people than I tend to bump into with their 3DS on them.

The social aspect, huh. Fair enough.

You forget who you're talking to :p
Also, I was well into the digivices one would wear on their belt and have a little digimon pal and bump into enemies as the pedometer counted steps... I love games and things like that which really let me imagine it's all real. That tie to the real world is what always made digimon better escapism than pokemon for me.

I can only agree with Drunka, loads that have been talking about this game in work don't own a 3DS or plan to then the ones that do rarely bring to work but we've got a smartphone. It might be a basic game but everyone in work will be able to uses it or if I go into town or whatever.

Pokemon Go is going to take us down dark roads.

I'm feeling something akin to the darkest form of videogame elitism about this one...

Surprised at all the negativity, I think it sounds great.

It's being developed by Ninatic Labs who are the creators of Ingress (i.e. the augmented-reality location-based game, which is the perfect pedigree for a game of this kind), and who are notably against the trend of microtransactions and paywalls. From wikipedia:

"Niantic has notably taken an alternative approach to monetization, veering away from more traditional mobile application development standards such as ad placements and In-App Purchasables. "

In ingress they make money from companies paying for their shops/businesses to be node locations, which encourages players to visit them. I imagine pokemon go would be perfectly suited for going down the same route. You can just imagine mcdonalds running a promotion where if you go to mcdonalds you can catch X pokemon, or something similar with any company.

JayMoyles wrote:

Pokemon Go is going to take us down dark roads.

How did I know it would be Diglett?

OrangeRakoon wrote:

Surprised at all the negativity, I think it sounds great.

Yay! The Power of Positivity!
Everything you said is very promising.

I'll agree with OR: that sounds pretty fantastic. Ah but wait:

Nintendo Life wrote:

Unsurprisingly this will be free-to-play but with microtransactions...

Serebii confirms in-app. purchases. I'm maintaining my scepticism for now.

That a mock-up or a real image? Either way it's hilarious.

I don't think Pokemon Go will go that far. There'll certainly be microtransactions, but I don't think they'll be that explicit with them.

It's a mock-up, fortunately...

Yeah... given the way Shuffle and (I assume) Rumble World have been, there will be a way to play the game reasonably well without ever spending a penny/cent on it. If that mock-up proves true, Nintendo will be in for more stick than a blackjack tournament.

JayMoyles wrote:

I don't think Pokemon Go will go that far. There'll certainly be microtransactions, but I don't think they'll be that explicit with them.

Maybe, maybe not. I've heard the mobile version of Shuffle has got a bit scummy with event pokemon, that kyogre event they had recently requires two hearts per go rather than the single heart we on the 3ds have to shell out from what I heard.