A Discussion of a "Portable PO"

Discussion in 'Development General' started by Fnatyc, Dec 6, 2012.

  1. Fnatyc

    Fnatyc New Member

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    DISCLAIMER: I have no knowledge of designing apps personally but I am greatly interested in PO expanding to the portable PC environment.

    Hi everybody, I was just wondering if we could have a discussion on the simulator as an android app etc. This type of game, I am sure most of you who have used the android app will agree with me here, is most fun to play on a portable device. Currently it is difficult and time consuming for the portable development to occur due to the amount of work that goes into designing an app.

    There are little incentives to develop a PO simulator as an app unfortunately, despite the potential PO has as an app. I'd say PO would develop a lot more interest if it had an "on-par" app version of PO that offers at least the basic experience on online competitive battling such as teambuilding and battles.

    I just thought we could discuss PO as an app on portable platforms, I know this topic has probably been discussed before but in this thread I'd like to propose a few things.

    1. Creating incentive to work on a portable app version
    I understand legal issues are always going to be a problem the moment we mention PO making money however PO doesn't need to 'directly' make money through the play store. Perhaps we can offer paid for tutorials (99c or so) or in-depth pokemon tips through other 3rd party methods. OR we can organise a "fundraiser" every now and again to pay for the development. I'm certain these must be legal as I have seen many 3rd party apps for things such as "tips for skyrim" or "make xxx gold in yyy MMO".

    By putting PO on the market, I understand we will get a lot of clueless "noobs", but with a proper description/presentation of the app, we can help them understand better. Putting PO on the market has some distinct advantages such as increasing the userbase and the awareness of the simulator, this can only be good in the long term. As I understand it at the moment, PO is difficult for people to "discover". Personally I only found out about PO due to gamefaqs "competitive moveset guides". OBVIOUSLY if PO goes to the open market, it would have to be 100% free to avoid nintendo shutting down the app! (but we can potentially organise 3rd party ways to support the developers)

    2. Making this app better in the long term
    The way I see it, people are moving away from desktop pc's and laptops, personally when I am around my desktop or pc, I find little reason to play PO. That's not to mention I am hardly around my desktop PC or even laptop anymore! I understand most of you will not be the same, but I can see a lot of people being in a similar position. The way this game is designed, it really is intended to be used portably (that is, pokemon itself) and the way PO simulates it is essentially the same, that is, ideally used portably.


    Thankyou Mikewando and the rest of the app developer team for the beautiful PO app!


    TL;DR
    I think in the long term, creating a good PO portable experience will be fantastic for the game as it will generate more interest and awareness and PO can eventually become EVEN MORE popular and EVEN MORE self sufficient. I love this game and the most fun I have had on it has been on my phone! I'd love to hear opinions. And it'd be great if we could discuss "portable PO" and how it could be achieved in the future.
     
  2. Lamperi

    Lamperi I see what you did there

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    Unfortunately, the developers of Android version are very busy with their other stuff.
    The current PO android app is not compactible with the latest servers including black&white2 metagame.

    I agree that the app has really potential: someone who has no affiliation to project compiled the source and put his version of the app into appstore last winter! It skyrocketed to number one until it was removed from the store.
     
  3. Fnatyc

    Fnatyc New Member

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    Yes, the fact that they are busy with other things demonstrates the lack of incentive. The developers are limited with what they can do and to get new developers on board, good incentives will be required.

    The lack of compatability is why portable PO has hit a 'hump' recently.

    An idea I had to somehow legally monetize PO would be to offer animated ingame graphics for an extra $xx to support the time and effort that goes into it, or really anything cosmetic that can be considered a "fremium model" for a "not for profit" organisation.

    If PO is merely paying the developers wages, then it can be considered not for profit, much like a charity would still pay the people it employs to make phonecalls etc.
     
  4. Lamperi

    Lamperi I see what you did there

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    The webclient will be the preferred client on android when it gets battles. The development is looking great atm.