So, Pokemon Go and the unfair advantage
Unfair advantage means something that your company can do that is non-replicable, even if competition does everything else right.
And Niantic has that.
Let's go back a little. Imagine you have an amazing idea for a an AR (augmented reality) game. You persuade other people about it, make the game a reality, make sure that the game has a lot of player interaction, release it...and it flops. Nobody plays it. Player interaction is useless then and lots and lots of development time has been lost if the player density is too small. (this is also why niantic has been careful about putting such features in for such a long time)
Where's the problem?
The problem is the target group.
The people who care about specific qualities of the gameplay aren't the ones who'll be running around outside with friends. At least most of them aren't. Those are only going to bitch if things are missing, but if they are not, they aren't going to be playing the game anyways.
The other group, the ones who are going to run around and make strange motions with their phones to catch GPS are the ones who care about other things. Like familiarity. This group is already small and introducing and forcing a new IP on them is diluting them even further. "Sure", you say, "but ingress was played by lots of people!" and it was. And some still play it. It was also the first game that tried this whole "outside gaming" thing and pogo numbers make their numbers seem miniscule still.
The thing is, you need a well executed concept on a theme that fits it, the theme and IP has to be already popular among more casual gamers and initially you have to ignore player interaction, purely because of dev time. Oh and the game has to be more fun than "At least it makes me go on a walk"
I am going to pass over "well executed" regarding PoGo, but it certainly nails all the other things. Catching Pokes checks a weird collection syndrome people have, there are hidden stats to keep track off, some minor player interaction, amazing theme and IP that draws on a lot of nostalgia.
Therefore, I think that there are only a few competitors that could tap into this market (and hard to say if it's even worth doing so, now that pogo is there): WoW (or blizzard stuff in general, overwatch is huge these days, wouldn't wonder if some weird real life interaction app appears suddenly), League, Fortnite... and that's pretty much it.
I am not saying any other competitor doesn't have a chance. I am saying that the chances are just stacked against them.
And Niantic has that.
Let's go back a little. Imagine you have an amazing idea for a an AR (augmented reality) game. You persuade other people about it, make the game a reality, make sure that the game has a lot of player interaction, release it...and it flops. Nobody plays it. Player interaction is useless then and lots and lots of development time has been lost if the player density is too small. (this is also why niantic has been careful about putting such features in for such a long time)
Where's the problem?
The problem is the target group.
The people who care about specific qualities of the gameplay aren't the ones who'll be running around outside with friends. At least most of them aren't. Those are only going to bitch if things are missing, but if they are not, they aren't going to be playing the game anyways.
The other group, the ones who are going to run around and make strange motions with their phones to catch GPS are the ones who care about other things. Like familiarity. This group is already small and introducing and forcing a new IP on them is diluting them even further. "Sure", you say, "but ingress was played by lots of people!" and it was. And some still play it. It was also the first game that tried this whole "outside gaming" thing and pogo numbers make their numbers seem miniscule still.
The thing is, you need a well executed concept on a theme that fits it, the theme and IP has to be already popular among more casual gamers and initially you have to ignore player interaction, purely because of dev time. Oh and the game has to be more fun than "At least it makes me go on a walk"
I am going to pass over "well executed" regarding PoGo, but it certainly nails all the other things. Catching Pokes checks a weird collection syndrome people have, there are hidden stats to keep track off, some minor player interaction, amazing theme and IP that draws on a lot of nostalgia.
Therefore, I think that there are only a few competitors that could tap into this market (and hard to say if it's even worth doing so, now that pogo is there): WoW (or blizzard stuff in general, overwatch is huge these days, wouldn't wonder if some weird real life interaction app appears suddenly), League, Fortnite... and that's pretty much it.
I am not saying any other competitor doesn't have a chance. I am saying that the chances are just stacked against them.
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