After the media was all over the amazing, huge, culture-changing impact of all the folk signing up for Pokémon Go, the inevitable next story for the media is how it was all a silly flash in the pan, numbers dropping, people disengaged, on to the next fad.
Not that the numbers themselves (in either direction) are all that surprising, but rather than look at some causes or reasons or even analysis about the sectors where it is (or isn't) shedding players, it's all just Backlash City and coverage as shallow as the awe-filled stories about the game's initial popularity.
Pokémon Go loses its lustre, sheds more than 10 million users
Engagement, downloads, and time spent in the app are fading fast.
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Sounds like it's about time for me to jump in….
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As a Field Tester for PoGo (as well as Niantic's first project, Ingress), the Field Test community was screaming from the rooftops that PoGo wasn't ready for launch. Too many bugs, too many nuanced interactions that needed to be smoothed out or reworked, and critical features missing (trading, anyone? How about a Pokédex?).
This downfall is an immediate consequence of Niantic's knee-jerk reaction at launching ASAP. There are rumors that it was actually pressure from The Pokémon Company that caused a premature launch (tension was visible between Niantic and TPC panelists at a convention that's escaping my mind at the moment), but all of that is pretty much moot at this point.
Moral of the story: Listen to your testers, especially the enthused ones. Pokémon was the epitome of my childhood, and many testers alike, so we wanted this game to be the very best like no other ever was. But just like Ingress taught us: Niantic's gonna do what Niantic's gonna do. :'(
+Derik DaSilva Niantic certainly marches to the beat of its own drummer. Ingress, of course, still goes on today (based on the emails I get, at least). In retrospect, the parts that were missing between Ingress and PoGo that led me to drop the latter a lot faster (glitchy GPS coverage aside) were:
a. Being able to affect the game by suggesting portals (making it into an exploration and catlogging game, which I actually enjoyed).
b. The ability to have quick interactions that felt meaningful. Attacking a portal in Ingress can be done quickly (successful or not), and it was amost always possible to find something that one could attack and change the landscape over. Attacking a gym is a much more difficult proposition, much harder to have any affect on, so less casual of an effort and less approachable for lower-level and/or solo players.