How to Use Pokemon Go to Drive Sales at Your Small Business | Hacker News Reader

How to Use Pokemon Go to Drive Sales at Your Small Business

inc.com

50 pointsprostoalex37 comments

And here I was thinking this article would provide evidence of "insane amounts of sales", but instead it references threads on reddit which are nothing but a couple of 2-sentence comments.

Am I out of touch expecting the author call a real-life business owner who is involved in the pokemon thing?

The cynic in me says this article is just some marketing ploy and does not belong here.

It is actually quite interesting and I imagine could be really useful for a business owner who knows nothing about the game. Unfortunately the clickbait title betrays that.

That was a thought I had the other day. I wonder how long it will be before a business can signup to be a Pokestop.

That would be a really smart strategy for Niantic on the face of things, assuming they charged for it, but second-order effects might be weird / uncomfortable. For example, more and more Pokestops concentrated in higher-income areas, which is already an issue — see https://twitter.com/KendraJames_/status/753212999758934019

Having more low-income gamers wander into my high income neighborhood wouldn't exactly be a bad thing for either of us.

No, it wouldn't, nor would the vice-versa option. But wouldn't it be nice if it were easier for low-income players to participate while going about their daily lives?

Perhaps the solution would be to just have a set amount of pokecenters/points of interest based on population density, and then auction off the spot for X amount of months?

Unless the game's popularity dies down considerably (which it most likely will but we'll have to see, Pokemon is a strong IP after all), that probably wouldn't be sustainable. Every shop that could afford it would have one which would have unwanted effects on both game balance and small businesses (Oh, you just opened up a cafe? Good luck competing against all the ones that already have Pokestops on them).

The disparity between urban/high-income areas and rural/low-income areas is a shame but not surprising. Niantic pulled their location data from Ingress which has a, from what I've seen, generally urban, mid to high income, tech savy playerbase. Crowd-sourced submissions reflect that, as well as the fact that they used cellular activity.

Wow, I didn't even think about this, but yeah, my neighborhood (which is traditionally low-income for the area), has very few pokestops compared to other neighborhoods in the area. Anecdotal, but that's a bummer.

Can someone enlighten me as to how the tweeter equates not having many pokestops in their town to being racist?

They detail their reasoning in their tweet, otherwise I'd suggest you ask them, but I'd suggest that we avoid a speculative discussion about race based on some random person's twitter rant.

Look who she writes for, it is literally her livelihood to make everything that issue.

I found myself enjoying a beer at a bar near my house the other night. Most night's I'd watch a movie, study, or something similar indoors. But it made sense for me to stop and grab a beer if I was going to be sitting there anyway.

Anecdotal evidence to be sure but it was fun on so many levels for me.

EDIT: The bar has a gym, and a stop all in one.

I ate at a restaurant and stopped at a Starbucks last night with a friend because we were playing the game downtown. If it wasn't for that game I would have gone home and cooked dinner and made my own coffee. Once again anecdotal evidence but I wasn't the only person last night doing the same thing.

Across the street from where I live there is a foot bridge to a park I have never gone to in the 20 years I have lived here. Last night I went over there due to the huge amount of pokestops and the gym. I discovered there is a snack bar there that is open to 1:00 in the morning and I bought snacks and managed to catch a high level Arcanine.

There was a crowd of people there catching Pokemon.

I'll probably go back there.

Anecdotally... I live in a city of just under 100k people and the downtown normally has maybe a few dozen people walking around at night and a few hundred more inside the restaurants.

The weekend of Pokemon go there were 300 Pokemon players hanging out downtown. It helps that literally every storefront is a pokestop. I don't know how much business they generated, though.

I am more interested in seeing how Pokemon Go can encourage voter turnout come November.

That will definitely be interesting to see. I know my polling location is a PokeStop, so I might have to sit around and observe a bit on election day this year.

While I'm play PoGo, I'm most enjoying watching the second-order effects: how small and large businesses are reacting to the sudden change, how groups of people are congregating in places and with people they'd never otherwise see, how people who see games in general as juvenile see (or don't see) what's happening around them...

I would bet that AR games is where advertising dollars are going to flow next. Interesting to see the dismissive comments in this thread.

Clickbait dot com

Seriously do not understand this phenomenon

Title is clickbait — the reality of the article is more like "How to Use Pokemon Go to Drive Sales at Your Small Business". Which is still interesting! Just not the topic promised by the current title. Can dang or OP change it?

Thanks, we've updated the title.

At the Gym I go to (a real, physical gym, not a Pokemon gym) we had people--grown adults who worked next door at LinkedIn--wandering around outside looking for monsters.

It's insane how popular this is.

Grown men and women people playing this game is beyond me.

Is there a certain age where you're supposed to stop playing video games?

I'd imagine so. I stopped at around 12. There are much more productive things to do in life than play games on your phone. I'm 25 and I have never downloaded a game for my phone nor have I ever played one. I'm 100% serious.

You sound like the most fun guy at the party.

The funny thing about Pokemon Go is watching 12 year olds walk around with their parents playing Pokemon Go, but they can't play because they don't have smartphones

I'd imagine so. I stopped at around 12. There are much more productive things to do in life than play /music/ on your /piano/. I'm 25 and I have never /purchased/ a /book of sheet music/ for my /piano/ nor have I ever played one. I'm 100% serious.

Yeah, all those amateur piano players are serious losers.

Mmmmh...ever considered that maybe not everything in your life needs to be "productive"?

You have reached your "Adult" stage and now you must squeeze out some babies and do only serious things like paperwork until you die.

Pokemon Go isn't my thing either, but I don't see any reason to not be glad that other people are outside having fun and enjoying something.

Oh. Well not everyone is a gamer and that's fine, but adult gaming is not a new phenomenon and it's not just pokemon, it's a pretty huge industry. I'm sure there is something you do for fun that others might regard as a pointless activity.

Still, I'd be willing to bet that there is a video game out there that you'd thoroughly enjoy (be it mobile, PC, whatever), 13 years is a long time to have never played any games and a lot has happened in the industry; I say this earnestly and not as a judgement, one day when you're feeling open minded, consider taking some gaming recommendations from a gamer friend who knows you well, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Why?

I never understood that attitude.

Underserved market of mobile social gaming for the last 8 years.

Ingress didn't have the catching and collecting aspect of the Pokemon Go skin, only the gym battling aspects via portals.

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