Hacker News Reader

Comment by madeofpalk | Hacker News Reader

Pokemon Go has a really interesting mechanic for this - one of the in app purchases you can buy is for a 'Lure' that you can place in your physical area (in game) that attracts Pokemon for all people in the area.

So not only are you helping yourself, you're helping others around you. In our office, we take turns on placing them to help everyone out.

View on HN

Something most people don't know either, you get 10 coins a day for each gym you have a Pokemon set up to defend (up to a maximum of 10 gyms) - giving you up to 100 free coins every day for just playing the game. And since you can't buy anything that you can't just get from a Pokestop either (and they are pretty common even in my suburban area, there's three on the ~15 minute walk to the convenience store down the street) there's little reason to spend money unless you are sitting in your house all day playing instead of actually walking around (which is by design).

Really, the biggest complaint I can see about the game from an IAP standpoint is rural areas get pretty hosed because Ingress (where all of the AR content came from) didn't have many portals in these areas, so there's a lack of gyms and pokestops to actually use for people living there. Hopefully Niantic makes some improvement here, because while Ingress was a game focused on urban exploration and it made sense for that title Pokemon is supposed to be a much more accessible franchise.

> And since you can't buy anything that you can't just get from a Pokestop either

Based on what I've read and my own experience (including a month as a beta tester), this isn't quite accurate. There are a few items that can't be harvested, including incubators, lures, lucky eggs, and backpack upgrades. Those can only be purchased.

Bah, you know what, you're right. Still, 100 coins a day from defending 10 gyms (not hard to do if you are in an urban area) is enough to pick up any item in the store (minus the storage upgrades), at least. Lures are really nice considering they benefit everyone in the area, so if you are nearby a group of players lure trading can be a pretty good deal.

Urban gyms are easier to defend? It seems to me the more people in an area the harder a gym is to defend, especially if you're early in your 21-hour cycle. I was in the last 20 minutes of my cycle today, and the gym at my suburban post office got taken from me about 5 times. The frustrating part is beating the gym and not getting one of mine in to defend it before someone else does.

Didn't mean they were easier to defend, but they are more prevalent. I live in the suburbs and there's only one gym within walking distance, so I'm limited in gyms I can even defend without traveling into the city center.

And not only are you helping others around you, it's also enhancing the social aspect of the game. I saw lots of lures at tourist sites in the city today, and people were naturally crowding around them to catch Pokemon - and talk to everyone else who had crowded there too.

One of the smarter ideas I've seen today - a local pub noticed they were getting increased traffic from players due to being close to both a gym and Pokestop. They mentioned in media interviews that they might permanently fund a lure in the Pokestop as a way to attract more players to the pub & offer them discounts on purchases if they mention the game. That sounds like a potential business model...

It's fascinating to see this game making such a cultural impact in a matter of days, with much more room to grow on both the social and business side of things. It has massive potential to double as a wallet not only for digital goods, but items that can be purchased in the physical world.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com