I have been reading a lot about players wandering onto federal property, or on private land. I’ve heard of Pokemon being caught in hospitals, back offices/ server rooms of stores, restaraunt kitchens, etc. Since it’s based off Google Maps, one would think that they could at least keep it out of federal property and places like hospitals. What could be done to stop this?
My question is the opposite: when will some buttmunch @ Nintendo decide to hound somebody, say their hated mother in law, by placing valuable Pokemon at their house?
I foresee Congressional hearings on the Pokemon Go “issue”. I don’t know what that issue will be, but I fully expect some grandstanding, gerrymandered grandfather to call one.
I’d think it would be relatively easy- since they’re already using GPS information to identify gyms and other in-game locations. Why not just mark out places like Arlington National Cemetery as somewhere that there are no Pokemon? And let businesses / locations add themselves to the list somehow.
You could charge businesses to be PG locations, right? Say you’re a club and pay $400 to have a special Pokemon show up @ 11pm, attracting only those who see it (hawt gurlz).
Yep.
Small thing, but Nintendo has very little to do with the game, especially the development. The Pokémon Company is one third owned by Nintendo, but the game itself was written by Niantic.
More to the point, the server architecture and the game data (pokestop locations, based on Ingress portals) are all Niantic’s. Nintendo’s involvement is in the Pokémon-specific content, like the graphics of the Pokémon, but beyond that they’re primarily responsible for holding their hand out so they get their share of the game’s revenues.
You can fix your own device so this doesn’t happen to you. The switch is usually on the side.
They licensed the Pokemon stuff to Niantic, which is what allowed an otherwise lame game to be really popular. If it wasn’t Pokemon, but some stuff Niantic dreamed up themselves, I guarantee the game wouldn’t be nearly so popular.
It’s a whole lot more than just holding their hand out to get a chunk of the profit.
The lame aspect is the Go implementation, or Pokemon in general?
Their active responsibility is to make sure nothing bad happens to their intellectual property. After development, that’s probably a very small staff watching the social media world making sure Pokémon and its franchise characteristics are being represented accurately and positively in this product. I’m pretty sure they have no technical responsibility in the implementation.
Their moral responsibility is so debatable it’s not worth even mentioning here.
Their fiduciary responsibility is to hold out their hand and rake in the sweet, sweet [del]Pokebucks[/del] revenues. And I assure you, that’s what they’re primarily interested in.
The technical glitches may begin to cast Pokémon Co./Nintendo in a bad light, at which point (A) the crack PR team springs into action to make sure blame is correctly and publicly laid at Niantic’s feet, and (B) harass Niantic to stop making Nintendo look bad.
I mean that if the game was exactly the same, but rather than Pokemon, you were wandering around capturing some other creatures that Niantic’s creative team made up, it wouldn’t be nearly as popular, and would probably be considered kind of silly.
Basically what I’m saying is that it’s the popularity and strength of the Pokemon brand and world that make the game popular, not the actual game itself, absent the Nintendo intellectual property.
It’s a fine game, don’t get me wrong. But it’s the combination of the game combined with Nintendo’s IP that conjoin to make it so popular, not anything inherent in the game itself, absent the Pokemon stuff. It’s the Pokemon stuff that make the game popular, not the other way around; Nintendo’s contribution is arguably more important for the game’s success than any other single element.
I’ll accept that analysis, and springboard off it to point out that most of the current perceived failings are from Niantic’s contribution: server availability, spotty or illogical geocache/portal/gym-or-pokestop citing, that kind of thing.
Pokémon Co. gave the game its huge visibility, and (in that sense) earns its revenue. As a consequence, it might wind up getting blamed for its partner’s problems in actually executing the thing.
In other words, Ingress, which is a very similar game that Niantic made first (and used to establish the GPS data for this game). While it has apparently had a moderate amount of popularity, I’d never heard of it before this, personally. It was certainly nowhere near the level of phenomenon as this.
This. The issue has always been there, but it’s only noticeable now that there are so many people playing. That, combined with the more “childish” nature of Pokemon, has started to cause a lot of friction. I would hope Niantic has a system in place to block off certain areas by request. If they don’t, they might want to build one fast.
True. Substitute “Niantic” for “Nintendo” in my above quote, it’s still an issue.
And I don’t think Nintendo will be able to wash it’s hands of any Congressional/regulatory Pokemon Go™ hand-wringing - you think the Congress, as currently adverse to facts as they are, gives a crap about the legal niceties between the two companies? “I’m taking Nintendo to task” plays a lot better in Peoria than “I’m taking Nintendo’s officially licensed supplier, Niantic, to task”. 
Nintendo definitely has a stake in this game, but it’s more complicated than you may think. The decision to partner with Alphabet subsidiary Niantic was The Pokemon Company’s decision, a company that is only about 1/3 owned by Nintendo. Nintendo’s mobile model (including games like Miitomo and the upcoming Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem mobile games) are all with a completely different mobile game developer.
Sure. Visibility has its risks. And its rewards, thus the payoff being so high compared to the technical contribution.
That’s why I hope (in a sane world) someone in Nintendo/Pokémon Co. is [del]pressuring[/del] liaising with Niantic to make. these. issues. go. away. Nintendo isn’t going to get away with redirection if some kid trespasses into a high-security reserve and gets shot by an overzealous rent-a-cop.
I wasn’t actually aware of that, but yes, exactly!
I had been wanting to play Ingress as I had heard good things, but it has always been Android only.