Hacker News Reader

Comment by fs111 | Hacker News Reader

I don't think this is giving any answer. Sure the brand is important, but the big thing is that you get the idea of the game really quick. Ingress on the other hand always seemed to complicated for a casual game to me. Pokemon Go is a hit because you can casually start playing it and have fun w/o devoting a ton of time to it. There is no complicated and dark story.

Also, if you look at Ingress, you always needed an invite to play, so when I finally got one everybody playing it was already so advanced that I could not see the fun in playing it.

For me it boils down to a few points:

* Pokemon Go is super simple to get started with

* The rules are easy to grasp

* You can play it casually

* It is light-hearted

View on HN

> Ingress on the other hand always seemed to complicated for a casual game to me.

Pokemon has a clearly defined goal which even the most casual player will easily understand: Catch all the Pokemons.

But in Ingress there is no universal goal which you _have_ to reach. It is open ended and you can do whatever you want to do. You can try to make tons of small fields, you can try to make very large fields, you can specialize in missions, ...

In order to really understand Ingress and all its different gamestyles you have to invest some time or you need a good mentor who teaches you all the basics.

Also Pokemon Go in it's current form is just a single player game in a multi player world. In contrast, Ingress is a true multi player game because there is much more player interaction due to attacking and defending portals.

I downloaded Ingress yesterday because apparently Pokemon Go pokemon spawn locations are based on data from the Ingress map that was collected over the years. Ingress is sooooooooo complicated it's a major turn off for everyone who wants to play casually.

Much appriciated with comments and I believe you are touching some important points. And yeah I could have concluded it much more, but it was a matter of time to experiment with this new article platform which im linking to. So its two things in one post actually.

Ingress is also really bad if you're surrounded by higher-level players; there may be nothing for you to do in your area.

Pokemon Go is not actually all that tied to a specific location. You need a few Pokestops nearby, but as long as the Pokemon spawn frequently enough around you you can play.

Correct on all points.

100% regarding Ingress, I tried so many times, and gave up.

Also the Field Trip app uses the same data if people want to find interesting things without Pokemon stuff.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com