What ends up happening is that people who have more free time to walk around benefit more from people who only have a few hours in the evening to move around, but time throughout the day to look at the app. I was able to generate enough energy during the day and with a bit of coordination, controlled a good portion of Birmingham, AL for a while, but I realized that there were players who had practically all day to drive around and hit portals.
I suspect that Pokemon GO will suffer from this as well, where people who have more free time will end up ruining the game for people playing casually. It sounds stupid, but consider the scenario:
A new player joins the game. He has a job and a life, and can only spend about 90 minutes a day walking around. Luckily there is a few portals near his work and home so he works those for a few days. Then he starts getting the long-range support items, and can help defend portals across town. Eventually, he's strong enough to start solo-ing portals and defend some of his own portals, only for him to walk a few blocks and get a push notification that somebody just nuked the whole area. One user singlehandedly attacked several dozen portals in fifteen minutes, all across town.
It's so annoying. I played through it for a while, but eventually had a great evening spoiled by drivers, and I remember being so frustrated that I just uninstalled the game right there on the spot, and walked home in a sullen mood for the next hour.
I really want Pokemon GO to be better than that.
