Developer Niantic had projections for what the server load would be for the game at launch. An 'assuming the worst possible scenario' representing the reality it was releasing a highly built up spinoff from a revered franchise in its twentieth commemoration year - was that request may hit five times the volume of the group's objective take-up.
The truth was a dumbfounding 50 times the normal activity, within 24 hours of dispatch or launch. The outcome? Brought down servers and a disappointing experience for players, pretty much as Pokémon Go was detonating into an obvious summer wonder.
"The disadvantage is that it was so firmly accepted, it caused us issues," Mike Quigley, Niantic's head promoting officer, tells WIRED. "Likely no second thoughts, since we didn't figure it to have that sort of accomplishment, yet looking back, in the event that we could have expected that, then postponing [the launch] a couple of weeks knowing it would have maintained a strategic distance from those server blackouts, obviously we would have needed. Nobody saw that coming, we concede that."
We are now only ONE WEEK away from the launch of Pokemon Sun & Moon! RT if you can't wait any longer!! pic.twitter.com/4uvWNVlXBN
— Pokémon Sun and Moon (@PokeSunMoon) November 11, 2016
WIRED ran into Quigley as he went through London while in transit to Portugal's Web Summit, before making a route for Rome for the fourth commemoration festivities of Niantic's other, longer-running enlarged reality game Ingress. An occasion called Via Noir will welcome more than 4,000 players to the boulevards of the Italian cash-flow to top off the science fiction game's year.
Only 10 more days until the release of Pokémon Sun and Moon!! RT if you're ready to explore Alola!! pic.twitter.com/9VU0Q4On0B — Pokémon Sun and Moon (@7thGenPokemon) November 8, 2016
Going ahead, Niantic aims to keep supporting both Pokémon Go and Ingress ("Obviously, Pokémon Go openly is getting a great deal of the consideration since it's the new thing", Quigley says), and expand on the essentials of both titles.
