Look around at your world… does it look a little different now?

What will be the Next Pokemon Go?

Following this freight train of success, I’ve given a lot of thought to which elements of this game are responsible for its total domination, and where we’ll see the next breakout success like this.

My observations:

1. It is about the AR, but not in the way you’re thinking
2. There are 3 core elements that dictate this game’s success
3. There are only a few opportunities in the game space (but plenty of non-starters)

1. Two Types of Augmented Reality

First of all, Pokemon Go does NOT mean that “AR” is now a thing for mobile gaming—but a lot of games studios are sure gonna take a swing and a miss at this!

Why am I so sure of this? Because of the two types of Augmented Reality involved in Pokemon Go:

• Type One AR: The little camera trick where you can see a Pokemon in your actual environment.

~~While this is a pretty effective viral mechanism, it’s not why people play the game. In fact, look over the shoulders of players on the street and you’ll find that most have this mode disabled.~~

• Type Two AR: The way the game world is physically mapped to the real world.

~~Pokestops and Pokegyms are places in the real world. People wander around and discover the joy of truely being the player. Their humdrum reality takes on new depth and meaning with the assistance of this game layer. They can actually progress and win in real life. ~~

So here’s the rub: Type One is easily copyable but has little to do with the game’s success. Type Two, however, is almost impossible to emulate and everything behind this game’s success.

2. The Three Key Ingredients

When I say you can’t emulate the Pokemon Type Two AR, of course you can slap a game world onto the real world and call it a Type Two AR game. Just ask the makers of Pokemon Go, they did so three years ago with previous game, Ingress! But while that game was no flop, it was no world-wide sensation either. As they found with Ingress, original IP is simply not compelling enough to get people off their butts.

The value of the Pokemon IP cannot be understated — that is what makes the game wildfire.

To make another Pokemon Go you need:

1. Something everyone knows about — Pokemon is one of the most successful gaming franchises of all time AND most successful animated TV shows of all time.
2. With a direct and unlimited mapping onto our world — there’s nothing about a street in the pokemon universe that’s any different from a street in our world. That world perfectly, extensibly folds into ours.
3. And a core mechanic of exploration — the original game was built around exploring, which compels plays to get into the world.

The primary value of the game is in mapping a well known (and well-loved!), fantasy universe onto our humdrum, real universe. That reality augmentation cannot be effectively emulated without these ingredients.

The Next Pokemon Go

This begs the question: what are other franchises and IP that are incredibly well-known, map directly to our world, and encourage exploration?

1. Star Wars or Star Trek — Excessively strong brand awareness, and some obvious exploration mechanics, but you can’t augment our cities with “outer space.”
   VERY NOPE
2. Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones — Both of these universes put too much emphasis on their internally-established geography. You can’t extensibly map Middle Earth to your surrounding area, so there’s no direct augmentation available.
   UNFORTUNATELY NOT
3. Disney Princesses—Great awareness and decent world-mapping, but nothing exploration-based. The game designers would have to do a lot of work to build prompts that get users out of their homes, and it’s unlikely to feel natural.
   UNLIKELY
4. Superman, X-Men, Wonder Woman, et al — (exactly the same as #3)
   UNLIKELY
5. Super Mario — Well-known enough, and really great open ended mapping available, and some sense of exploration involved. But the true core Mario mechanic is “Jumping”… how do you build that into a real-world game? (One thing’s for sure, if AR Mario became a thing, pogo sticks would sure make a comeback 😂😂😂)
   POSSIBLE, WITH SOME FINESSE
6. Harry Potter — Jackpot. This franchise is augmented reality! The main conceit of HP is that we all live in a dual world, but as muggles, we can’t see it. Imagine that your phone gave you access to the Magic world? Every grocery store also sells potions ingredients; Dicks Sporting Goods has broomsticks; Barnes & Nobel has your Dark Arts textbooks — but only when viewed through this app on your phone. And the brand awareness/nostalgia factor? I dare you to find someone who doesn’t know Harry Potter. The only thing they’d need to do is build out enough in-game progression systems to keep people engaged.
   INDEED!!
7. …. what do you think? Any ideas??

Thanks to the Yammer Product team, who embarked on a teardown of this game with me, and to Ben Seck, who lent a ready ear to my ideas here.

I’m definitely looking forward to the next 18 months in mobile gaming.