"My take on the direction of updates and why they benefit most of Pokemon Go's players"

#PokemonGO: I had considered posting this on /r/pokemongo, but I think I'd be wasting my time - this sub always seems more rational, so I'm hoping this will create some discussion.I, like most people here, have read a lot of rage today about how Niantic are destroying something that could have been truly great. That their priorities are completely out of whack, and that they're clearly more interested in rinsing players for cash right now than they are in making an entertaining game that will last. Many people have expressed utter disbelief that the developers of Pokemon Go could be so blind to the wishes of its players.The assertion I'd like to put to these people is that neither this sub nor /r/pokemongo are representative of the majority of people playing. There are a lot of voices on reddit, and three quarters of a million is an impressive number of subscribers. So it's easy to forget that this game has daily active user numbers dwarfing the community here, and exceeding anything that has come before it. Based on a peak of 26m in the US alone, we're likely talking about 50-100m worldwide.But whether or not all these people subscribe, and whether or not they even know reddit exists, they want the same thing as us, right? They want to play hot and cold with the footprints and track down that Bulbasaur just like we do, right?Well, maybe, but I'm going to say probably not. Not because these players wouldn't enjoy that element of the gameplay, but because most of them don't know it exists anyway. I've just got back from a walk in my local park, packed full of players aged anywhere between 5 and 80, and nobody was talking about what a travesty it is that the nearby list can't be used actively anymore. They were just walking, calling out Pokemon that popped up, looking at their phones when they buzzed and laughing together when they caught something new or interesting.What these players do want, however, is a game that works. A game that connects smoothly, responds consistently when they tap on things, and doesn't hang in the middle of the capture flow. Did you know that there are a number of users out there who don't know that you can force close an app? A friend of mine, 29 years old, gamer but not usually a mobile gamer, was switching her iPhone off and back on every time she encountered the 'pokeball stops shaking' issue. Imagine for a minute that everyone had to go through that - surely you'd agree that is a bug fix worth prioritizing.To be clear, I'm nowhere near completely happy with how Niantic are handling things - to date I've not seen a sensible argument for their 'policy' on communication with their players, just the excuse that they have no community manager. However, I do believe that they are acting in the interests of the game.Pokemon Go is, and will continue to be, a service game. In order to maximize its revenue potential it needs to retain players, both core and casual, for months and years into the future. To do that it needs to keep changing, reacting and growing. All this will come, but right now the foundations need strengthening. If you don't think the game has anything left for you right now, maybe take a break, we'll let you know when there's stuff to come back for. Until then, try not to feel too hard done by - you may be the hardest hit by the decisions Niantic have made on what to fix, but you've likely also had the most fun so far, too.tl;dr - The ridiculously broad audience of Pokemon Go is comprised mostly of casual players who don't know/care about footsteps. The work going into the game recently is for them, not you. This is a good thing. Discuss.Edit: Thanks so much for all the comments and discussion, everyone! I don't have time to respond to the wave of comments that turned up while I was asleep, so I just want to address some common questions/issues:There's been some comments regarding the shutdown/neutering of Pokevision and similar services. All I've tried to get across is that so far, delaying the fixing of the in-game tracking is a valid decision in favour of fixes that affect more of the audience in a bigger way. If the Pokevision shutdown was an active effort on Niantic's part, I am a little surprised, but I suspect the decision will have been less to do with keeping the game fun and more to do with a legal/policy decision.I appreciate that my opinion is just another opinion. If it helps, I work for a mobile developer as a lead managing live F2P games. On a day-to-day basis I have to make the same sort of decisions prioritising features/fixes that we're discussing. My anecdotes were offered to make a point rather than as data in a very narrow survey.A lot of people have said casual players will leave, or that they don't pay, so don't make the game for them. There is some truth here, the average player just downloading the game to see what all the fuss is about is likely to play less and pay less than a lifelong Pokemon fan. However, there are so many of the less-invested players that getting them sufficiently interested to part with their money is pretty much the number-one priority of a F2P game. Google 'FTUE funnel' or 'retention metrics' to see how obsessed the industry is with these concepts, and with good reason - if people don't stick around, they can't pay. Sorry if this is shocking, but it makes business sense.Eventually however, any further improvement to the very early game experience will become disproportionately costly in development, because all the 'easy' fixes will have been done. At that point it's reasonable to expect that the focus will shift to the mid-game and late-game, since that's where improvements to engagement/monetisation can be made easiest (i.e. feature work for players like us). This may have already happened - we don't know what's coming next. via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2aGUIrY