Hacker News Reader

Comment by tvanantwerp | Hacker News Reader

I started Ingress thinking it would be fun, good exercise, and force me to explore my city more. Instead, I stared into my phone until I arrived at a Zipcar parking spot which, through whatever agreement existed between Google and Zipcar, was a point of interest in the game.

I quit, and I've never been tempted to play again. Just going for a walk without my phone is much nicer.

View on HN

I actually started to track down where you live to find what city you're talking about. I was going to find that portal and prove to you that the fact it's a Zipcar parking spot is a pure accident; there are lots of portals at commercial spaces (bars, restaurants) submitted by users because there is something special and important to local culture about them, and no one is making any deals.

In the middle of my search I stumbled upon this:

http://www.zipcar.com/press/releases/googleingress

http://www.zipcar.com/ingressplayers

I didn't knew about it before. I'm not sure what to think about it. Maybe it's fair that they did it; I need to read more. But I'm getting worried.

The moment they'll try to monetize players will be the moment this game will die. People will leave with a bad taste in their mouths. I'll leave with a bad taste. Someone will step up, make a similar game. But it won't be the same anymore. It won't be The Game.

So dear NIA, please don't screw up what you created. Don't sacrifice the game to Moloch for a quick buck.

I wonder how else they could monetize this game that would not leave a bad taste in the player's mouth though. It is a free game after all and so far there's no banner ads or any sort of direct monetization happening within the app itself.

Since they need to pay for the servers and the app's development, what would be the best way to sustainably develop this app while also not turn off players by charging some money in some way?

I was under the impression that Ingress data would be used to augment/improve google's maps and location information.

You can get some nice gear too if you buy Hint brand flavored water!

I suspect the same applies to most things one can do with or without a phone.

Native advertising strikes again!

The 20th century word, "dishonesty", is so much less cool-sounding.

Actually, the 20th century had a few different words for it, like "advertorial", "product placement", etc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com