Pokemon Go aims to revolutionize the mobile gaming market – the title definitely has the best prerequisites for it.
Monsters Right at Your Doorstep
Who among us hasn’t daydreamed with their two-tone Gameboy or in front of the anime series about Ash Ketchum’s world and thought: “How great would it be if you could catch Pokemon in reality?” Almost 15 years later, this dream is within reach, as “Pokemon Go” is currently being developed, a game where players actually have to move through the world with their smartphones to collect more and more of the little monsters.
In an interview with VentureBeat, Jahn Hanke, the founder of the development company Niantic, said: “The developers are really excited about this new way of playing because nothing like this has been done before. It’s not just a new part of the handheld series. It’s a brand new Pokemon experience that still goes back to the roots of the franchise. It’s about a child who sets out into the world to collect Pokemon. If you took away all the complexity and the stuff we developed around it, then this is the basic concept behind it.”
The developers have learned a lot from the previous game Ingress, which already operated on a similar principle. Here, too, players were forced to leave their four walls and go outside to capture various control points. The whole world was basically the stage between two factions, secured at different points. Only those who were actually “on-site” at a street corner could claim it for their faction.
Above all, Pokemon Go also allows capturing some previously unexplored markets where Nintendo has failed for various reasons. In India or Brazil, Nintendo hardware is hardly affordable for various reasons. Instead, there is a high density of smartphone users there – making it the perfect breeding ground for the game.
Once again, I’m really glad I don’t own a smartphone – otherwise I would probably sink back into the world of little pocket monsters…
