Man's Pokemon Chat App So Successful It's Bankrupting Him?!?

[Stryder721]

Being a beta tester for the beloved application Pokemon Go, Jonathan Zarra decided to make an application to add a feature that the game did not have inside of it! GoChat was released July fourth, a day before Pokemon Go was released, and decided to post it on reddit where it in turn got downloaded ten thousand times. Zerra noted "Chat would be a critical tool to have inside of a location based game." Within five days however the app is approaching the million users mark and the app servers taking 600 requests per second and the cost of the app's upkeep may drive the man into being bankrupt.

 

The servers were hit so hard that user most of the morning time could not register for new accounts and if you logged in loading a message would just make the app crash. As of monday an estimated 7.5 million people downloaded the Pokemon Go app suggesting atleast a third had downloaded the chat app to go along with the game.

 

Quote

"This is a feature that really should be there," Zarra says. "Especially in a location-based game — this just makes sense." Within five days, Zarra’s free app is approaching 1 million users and hitting servers with 600 requests per second. It may also drive Zarra bankrupt. <--Taken from The Verge's News Article.

 

^Screenshots of the application! (Courtesy of The Verge)

 

Zarra resists adding ads into the app saying "I hate ads"(Thank you kind sir!) and avoids adding a price on the app in fear of attracting legal action from the Pokemon Go team. The cost for new servers to keep the chat app going is estimated to be around 4 thousand dollars, and the creator of the chat app also brought in a contractor to help keep the servers going and help keep the timeouts and server downtime as small as possible.

 

Zarra however is super excited about the outcome of the app saying "he has never built a mobile app before the GoChat application". The application is so helpful that one user messaged Zarra saying he had met a girl through the app and was planning on taking her on a date. While Zarra may be struggling with the financials for the GoChat application, his biggest concern is getting the servers back online.

 

Want to download the application, links are posted here

Ios: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chat-for-pokemon-go-gochat/id1129553203?mt=8&ref=producthunt

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.parse.gochat&hl=en

 

Source 1: http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/11/12153370/gochat-pokemon-go-chat-app-jonathan-zarra-interview

**Will update the story with information from other sources when another one becomes available**

 

 

[Nineshadow]

I maybe would have given some kind of care if Nintendo didn't think the entire world resumed to just the US.

[forthe48]

2 minutes ago, Nineshadow said:

I maybe would have given some kind of care if Nintendo didn't think the entire world resumed to just the US.

It's a staggered launch. The servers already can't handle the areas it's currently opened up to, so just wait until it launches in further areas.

[Nineshadow]

1 minute ago, forthe48 said:

It's a staggered launch. The servers already can't handle the areas it's currently opened up to, so just wait until it launches in further areas.

Exactly...

[Centurius]

3 minutes ago, Nineshadow said:

I maybe would have given some kind of care if Nintendo didn't think the entire world resumed to just the US.

Yes, because a staggered release that allows people in certain regions to play is so much worse than weeks of downtime where nobody can play.

[Nineshadow]

9 minutes ago, Centurius said:

Yes, because a staggered release that allows people in certain regions to play is so much worse than weeks of downtime where nobody can play.

No. I meant Nintendo should have waited a little longer before releasing the game.

[Centurius]

26 minutes ago, Nineshadow said:

No. I meant Nintendo should have waited a little longer before releasing the game.

That would have done precisely nothing, they'd still need to figure out how many servers would be needed for the unexpectedly high global interest.

 

[Stryder721]

3 minutes ago, Centurius said:

That would have done precisely nothing, they'd still need to figure out how many servers would be needed for the unexpectedly high global interest.

Does that mean we are technically DDOS'ing them? Lol

[Trik'Stari]

41 minutes ago, Nineshadow said:

I maybe would have given some kind of care if Nintendo didn't think the entire world resumed to just the US.

And Japan^

[Centurius]

2 minutes ago, Stryder721 said:

Does that mean we are technically DDOS'ing them? Lol

Yes. 

[ivan134]

Nintendo is going to be swimming in money because of Pokemon go

[RagnarokDel]

1 hour ago, Nineshadow said:

No. I meant Nintendo should have waited a little longer before releasing the game.

Yes, they could have totally planned for 10 million people to install the game in the first 72 hours.

[LucidMew]

7 hours ago, Nineshadow said:

I maybe would have given some kind of care if Nintendo didn't think the entire world resumed to just the US.

Now Japan can wallow in jealousy for every time they got a Pokémon release before the rest of the world. Literally every release before X and Y, had Japan first, sometimes by MONTHS. And let's not forget all the exclusive events that [insert region of choice] gets for some stupid reason. 

[GreezyJeezy]

7 hours ago, Stryder721 said:

Does that mean we are technically DDOS'ing them? Lol

yes, just like if popular person on twitches posts a link and all the viewers click it at the same the sites goes offline. samething as ddosing just all those real users are bots in a ddos 

[Stryder721]

1 hour ago, GreezyJeezy said:

yes, just like if popular person on twitches posts a link and all the viewers click it at the same the sites goes offline. samething as ddosing just all those real users are bots in a ddos 

I was meaning my reply to be purely entertaining. DDos'ing is a serious issue that happens to many people (myself included) but i try to lighten the mood. It's nothing against you also, i just wanted to clearify before the whole wave of comments comes in repeating what you said there. 

[Uberfish]

Report on an app that is overloaded and costing the creator too much money, promote said app so it becomes more overloaded. Are you trolling?

[Stryder721]

No I only linked the apps so if people wanted to download it they can. No trolling here 

[spartaman64]

25 minutes ago, Uberfish said:

Report on an app that is overloaded and costing the creator too much money, promote said app so it becomes more overloaded. Are you trolling?

well apparently the creator almost doesnt mind getting driven to bankrupt and wants more people on so he is getting more servers lol

[Misanthrope]

16 hours ago, forthe48 said:

It's a staggered launch. The servers already can't handle the areas it's currently opened up to, so just wait until it launches in further areas.

So Nintendo can't handle the server load and Nintendo didn't even provide a proper chat functionality within the app. 

 

All in all a full fucking botch. Given their track with online services and stuff this is the number of people that should be surprised: 0