I think this is important to ask because I think a lot of people have a lot of...
...weird expectations and misunderstandings for Miitomo and the nature of mobile apps in general. Weird enough to make me think that a lot of people here may be a bit out of touch with how these kinds of apps work or why people like using them. So I just wanted to know what the usage was like on VGC. I check each one of these apps multiple times a day. Likely a combined at least 100 times a day. And most people who use smart phones are like this.
I can see the potential in Miitomo because I can see how this fits in with the way I interact with those apps, but obviously if constantly using social media is boring to you, you won't get it.
I also see a lot of people saying that this isn't a game, which becomes immediately clear is false as soon as you see the app. At least, it's obviously not "just an app" or whatever, because Miitomo doesn't function, at all, like a traditional comunication app. At least not in execution. It might not have a win state or a fail state, but it is definitely a game. Maybe it's a "communication game," much in the same way that something like Telephone is, but it's definitely a game. It's obvious now that it's a game. Even without the Pachinko minigame, it's a game.
I think the last wierd thing about the reactions to Miitomo is sort of the intent people are going into when playing it. They'll go into is and play for maybe 20 minutes and then say "it's neat and all, but I don't really see myself playing this long term," because you're not really doing it right. You wouldn't go into Instagram the first day it came out and say "yeah it's cool, but I'm probably not using this thing much longer." That's not how these things work. You're not meant to hardcore play this type of thing. It's just something you open up and check when you're bored for a couple minutes.
It just happens to be that many people are constantly bored so they're constantly checking. The Miitomo questions are the equivalent of something coming up on your news feed. You just boot the app, check to see what's new, like or comment on what you want, and then close it. Sometimes you get push notifications for whatever reason, but it's a time wasting app. That's what these apps are good for. Miitomo is just another one of those.
It's something that only makes sense when you have a LOT of friends to connect with. Imagine if you only had 15 Facebook friends who only had 15 facebook friends and on and on. Obviously Facebook would be super boring. But most people have hundreds. Many have over 1000. That's how Facebook thrives, and that's how Miitomo will. When millions of people are playing and millions of people are connected. When you have 70+ friends on Miitomo, that's what it's built for. That's when it hits it's stride. Just like every other app of this ilk, that revolves around social interaction.
And that's obvious to someone like me who wastes a lot of time using these apps every day, but I dunno, it feels like a lot of people aren't understanding how people are going to use this thing.
I mean, Gamexplain just released a 25 minute gameplay video for this thing lmao what?
