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This company has never been able to move on from being the Pokemon Go company, and they never will. I applaud them for their AR vision but unfortunately for all

This company has never been able to move on from being the Pokemon Go company, and they never will. I applaud them for their AR vision but unfortunately for all of us they got lucky with PGo and can’t replicate. And a string of hits is prerequisite to being able to pull of an AR platform like they dream of.

Pulcinella 4y ago
Honestly it’s not even an AR game (unless you count GPS location based gaming as AR). Anyone who plays PoGo turns off the AR mode after about 5 minutes and only turns it on for taking pictures of their Pokémon running around the park/house/pool/etc. Despite what Niantic thinks, they don’t really have much of an AR vision besides reskinning Ingress/Pokémon Go. They aren’t an AR company, they are a “makes money with a license for the insanely popular Pokemon franchise” company.
- whywhywhywhy 4y ago
  This is more a case that AR fundamentally sucks through a phone screen. If Apple manage to ship their glasses the AR stuff will actually make sense, until then AR features on phones are just a prototyping tool.
  - cykros 4y ago
    Microsoft did it pretty well with Minecraft Earth, from a UX point of view anyway. From a "managing finite system resources" point of view, it was a spectacular failure, which is why the game failed. Even the top notch hardware was turned into a fast-dying hand warmer by that game.
tootie 4y ago
It was a clever gimmick but didn't really enhance the gameplay much beyond novelty. I think the fact that it's been 6 years and no one has topped it or even replicated it says that AR is just not happening. At least not on a phone.
- cykros 4y ago
  In fairness, when they started Ingress, Google Glass was in Beta testing. We all KNEW it was just around the corner. The videos of being able to SEE the portals in the real world had us drooling. And then...it never happened. Microsoft used AR fantastically in Minecraft Earth, I might add. The thing that killed this attempt was the fact that the game didn't run well on any currently existing hardware (I had a Pixel 5 and could watch the battery drain in real time...nevermind feeling like I should be wearing gloves to combat the heat). When doing an adventure in ME, if skeletons were shooting at you, you dodged by ACTUALLY DODGING, which was definitely a novel experience (and made for looking like a total fool in the park...but hey, you're playing Minecraft in the park). It feels like at some point, this sort of thing is inevitable, but the hardware may be what is ultimately holding things back for now. Niantic's attempts at visual AR haven't been nearly as interesting -- not sure if this is just knowing that the hardware wouldn't hold up, or not having the vision to implement it. They used to at least have the interest in immersive alternate reality gaming that tied in nicely, but that seems to be a long gone thing of the past.

Pulcinella 4y ago

Honestly it’s not even an AR game (unless you count GPS location based gaming as AR). Anyone who plays PoGo turns off the AR mode after about 5 minutes and only turns it on for taking pictures of their Pokémon running around the park/house/pool/etc. Despite what Niantic thinks, they don’t really have much of an AR vision besides reskinning Ingress/Pokémon Go. They aren’t an AR company, they are a “makes money with a license for the insanely popular Pokemon franchise” company.

whywhywhywhy 4y ago
This is more a case that AR fundamentally sucks through a phone screen. If Apple manage to ship their glasses the AR stuff will actually make sense, until then AR features on phones are just a prototyping tool.
- cykros 4y ago
  Microsoft did it pretty well with Minecraft Earth, from a UX point of view anyway. From a "managing finite system resources" point of view, it was a spectacular failure, which is why the game failed. Even the top notch hardware was turned into a fast-dying hand warmer by that game.

tootie 4y ago

It was a clever gimmick but didn't really enhance the gameplay much beyond novelty. I think the fact that it's been 6 years and no one has topped it or even replicated it says that AR is just not happening. At least not on a phone.

cykros 4y ago
In fairness, when they started Ingress, Google Glass was in Beta testing. We all KNEW it was just around the corner. The videos of being able to SEE the portals in the real world had us drooling. And then...it never happened. Microsoft used AR fantastically in Minecraft Earth, I might add. The thing that killed this attempt was the fact that the game didn't run well on any currently existing hardware (I had a Pixel 5 and could watch the battery drain in real time...nevermind feeling like I should be wearing gloves to combat the heat). When doing an adventure in ME, if skeletons were shooting at you, you dodged by ACTUALLY DODGING, which was definitely a novel experience (and made for looking like a total fool in the park...but hey, you're playing Minecraft in the park). It feels like at some point, this sort of thing is inevitable, but the hardware may be what is ultimately holding things back for now. Niantic's attempts at visual AR haven't been nearly as interesting -- not sure if this is just knowing that the hardware wouldn't hold up, or not having the vision to implement it. They used to at least have the interest in immersive alternate reality gaming that tied in nicely, but that seems to be a long gone thing of the past.