Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2016 August 7

= August 7 =

How Pokémon Go became extremely popular?
How did this video game for smartphones became a craze (fad, trend)? What is the motive and the science behind the marketing of Pokémon Go that caused it to became ultra-popular with consumers? WJetChao (talk) 05:31, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
 * There may have been an element of luck, or reasons only evident in hindsight. There used to be an old advertising/marketing adage along the lines of: "Only half of all advertising works, but no-one knows which half." Possibly the science of marketing has advanced since those days, but any marketing campaign must always operate in competition with all the other marketing going on, since there are limits to everybody's discretionary time and money. Maybe Pokémon Go struck lucky by appearing at a time when by random chance there were comparatively few other compelling fads being marketed.
 * If the marketers do know how they succeeded in this instance, they will likely not reveal the reasons (to their competitors) in the hope of repeating the success with something else. {The poster formerly known as 81.81.230.195} 2.123.26.60 (talk) 09:04, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I believe it was one of the Lever Brothers who used to say that about advertising. Britmax (talk) 17:05, 7 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Drivers were insufficiently distracted by simply texting. They wanted to elevate the risk. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:16, 7 August 2016 (UTC)


 * The game Pokémon Go is based on didn't do well, so we can assume it wasn't necessarily the gameplay.
 * Pokémon was extremely popular about 15 years ago and didn't exactly disappear. Most first and second generation players have smart phone which they carry with them most of the time, but many of them have stopped carrying Gameboys (most of them probably don't even have the right kind of Gameboy).  These players finally have a Pokémon game they can easily play during their lunch break and after work.  If you understand just how popular Pokémon was and is (even ignoring Pokémon Go), that alone explains why it's successful by the company's standards.
 * Pokémon Go only has the original 151 Pokémon. That only mildly annoys some of the later generation players, but it's a huge draw for first generation players (*raises hand*).
 * The game is also free to play. This brings in first and second generation players who don't want to spend money as well as really young players who can't spend money, without scaring off the players inbetween who have money but aren't bogged down with being an "grown-up."
 * The game has gotten a lot of news coverage for some clearly stupid reasons, which was effectively lots of free advertising. Even my readily-brainwashed and technologically-retarded Granddad (who is voting for whichever candidate he sees on TV last before the election and who can't even be trusted with a digital watch, much less a smartphone) wasn't exactly sure how Pokémon Go could have anything to do with finding a dead body, but he did remember (for five minutes) that Pokémon Go is some sort of game the kids might like.
 * Taking this all together, it's safe to assume that if you take a juggernaut game franchise that is both currently popular and has a major nostalgia factor, make it available to the largest audience possible (in terms of platform and price), and then get the news to talk about it more than anything except a Presidential election, people might play it.
 * The real question is "how did Pokémon become popular?" That's the X factor here.  Pokémon Go's success is just a natural consequence (if aided by a few good decisions).  Ian.thomson (talk) 17:38, 7 August 2016 (UTC)


 * This looks like it may contain some useful information for your research. -- Jayron 32 15:34, 8 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Um... that's a terrible source. They don't seem to know anything. Among other things they say that the game "has garnered total revenue of up to USD 7.5 billion in just two days for the stocks of Nintendo". I guess they read this story (but not this one) and are a little unclear about the difference between market cap and revenue.
 * The web site is "a provider of accelerated learning destination for anyone looking to make a mark in the Big Data Analytics industry". I don't get the impression that they employ the best and brightest. -- BenRG (talk) 06:31, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, at least I tried to find a reference. This is the "reference desk"; though some people treat it as a "Tell people what I think I know without any references at all" desk.  You are correct that it isn't the highest quality source.  But it is a reference.  This looks like it might be better source.  This also may be some leads to some more scholarly results. -- Jayron 32 18:02, 9 August 2016 (UTC)