“Augmented Reality, I choose you!”: Some reasons behind Pokémon GO’s success

For those not familiar with the gaming industry, once upon a time, there were three companies dominating the gaming platforms (consoles): Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.

The last one, although having a passionate fan base and classic characters — recognized even by those who do not live in this playful universe — unfortunately have been suffering for a while, since their recent corporate initiatives caused nothing but frustration.

Let’s see what the numbers say:

Zooming in the last month, however, a new peak is encouraging — temporarily — the fans and investors of the Super Mario and Sonic's company:

This single peak on the right, which corresponds to an increase of “only” $ 7 billion to the company's value (the highest since the 80's), is the result of one single launch, or, better saying, pre-launch (for now only available in Australia, New Zealand and USA).

The new hype and the new reason why a lot of people will be running on the street looking at their phones is called POKEMON GO. A game that unites the real world and the virtual reality through an Augmented Reality application and which Nintendo owns 1/3 of the project.

Roughly saying, for those who have not read anything on the subject, players use the camera and GPS of their mobile phones to find Pokemons ‘hidden’ the (real) world and capture them to play with other players. It is the transposition of the cartoon (Pokemon) narrative design to an active viewer, not main character of this story.

Hmmm, tell me more about it …

Looking from a financial point of view, there's a strong doubt whether Nintendo's opening beyond their own consoles will save the Japanese company or Pokemon Go is just a “a nine-day wonder".

But for those who are interested in the narrative point, this app is the closest initiative for an Augmented Reality massification. Ok, the functionality itself is not new; but until now, only we have seen with similar initiatives were video cases with some people using the augmented reality in an apathetic way and more because of the curiosity than by any continuous ease the application could offer. The RA has always been ‘something cool’, but still drew more attention because of the technology itself that by simplifying processes and benefits (although in entertainment) which could offer.

Pokemon Go blended in a totally immersive way the playful activity (hunting Pokemons) with the usual daily life of these players. Or, from another point of view, it included the game in an existing physical activity rather than creating it because of the game (remember Kinect and Wii, which had its heyday and today lie down on dusty boxes).

Im not sure if I read it at Update or Die or Brainstorm#9 (I'll leave the two links here, great sites) about the fact that Pokemon Go can become the “tipping point” (the time when major changes take place) in relation to Augmented Reality as it brings it in a simple, immersive and transparent manner.

Augmenting the Reality

Augmented reality has an incredibly untapped potential to catalyze the information flow in real time and, along with the IOT (Internet of Things), automate life processes by adding more content / information for decision-making of those processes that require (or want to) be conducted by individuals.

For example, when you do not want to leave your car if driving alone:

We do not need extremes hanging augmented content in absolutely every trigger (“thing”) of the real world, making it looks like a giant pinball machine (like in this amazing video from Keiichi Matsuda, Hyper-Reality), but surely to connect human senses to the information universe available in ‘the network’ can greatly facilitate any decision making process or tasks you have to do in your regular life.

A.R. without mobile phones, believe it, is possible!

Personally, I believe that in a not too distant future, the idea that we had to hold a black box to view augmented reality elements will sound like this 1912 prediction on phone calls future:

The technology is even more fascinating when invisible, or better saying, when ubiquitous. Problems' solution should be linked to the transparency of technological devices that made it possible.

The (late) Google Glass conceptually delivered just that, the inclusion of additional virtual data helping in everyday tasks. However, I think it came too soon in a world that is still shaping its real and virtual coexistence.

Could Pikachu alone accelerate this migration? H umm… I would say that it's too much work for a Pokémon (or a bunch of them!) itself. But as the creators of digital solutions put the humanistic aspect of a solution ahead the devices that process make it possible, we'll be able to further augment the potential of Augmented Reality.