- An Epic change of traditional gaming industry
Niantic is the leading company that uses real-world AR technology on mobile games, and it successfully launched Pokémon Go, Ingress and Harry Potter Wizards United. The mission is to use emerging technology (Machine learning and computer vision) to enrich player’s experiences as human beings in the physical world. (Niantic, 2020) To my understanding, the core value is about creating non-profitable benefits and financial benefits. Importantly, non-profitable benefits are the key reason to shift the ways people play games from indoor gaming platforms to outdoor AR mobile games. This refers to digital transformation as it enables new ways of conducting businesses that replace the established models.
Five reasons of why Niantic has been working on AR mobile games.
There are five reasons which can explain why Niantic is confident of releasing its AR mobile games into the market. Firstly, mobile users have been growing rapidly due to popularisation of smartphones. Secondly, practicability of the internet allows mobile games more accessible. Thirdly, AR technology has become more sophisticated. Fourthly, AR mobile games are still not becoming the main segment in the gaming industry. Finally, Niantic is creating new ways of making AR mobile games stand out.
This blog is going to address the launch of Pokémon Go as the key definition regarding how Niantic has changed traditional gaming industry with its digital business model. This is because Pokémon Go has become the most popular AR mobile game and has remained its first position for three years. According to data collected from Niantic, the app downloads has reached to more than 1 billion. (Niantic, 2020)
You can click this link (https://nianticlabs.com/business/) to access more information about Niantic’s success with AR mobile games.
The video above is really good to watch, but if any of you cannot open it for some reasons, here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3Y0JmZj54M
Pokémon Go
“Pokémon Go” is an ‘Planet Scale AR-featured mobile game’ in which its AR technology is much more advanced with occlusion technology. Although it is free to download, if players want to do raids, hatching eggs or buying trainer clothing and other items in the game, then they need to purchase Poke coins by using real money. This is how the company eventually generated an estimated $894 million in gross player spending in 2019. (Steinberg,2020) The idea of this is associated with freemium model because players need to pay for extras in order to get rare or special Pokemon. Significantly, this game has interactive features between Pokemon and trainers, such as Buddy adventure, AR Snapshot mode, and online Battle. AR snapshot allows players taking pics of pokemon and sharing it with the company and other players on Instagram. It encourages people to have more engagement on social media platforms. Accordingly, it fits in the concept of SMAC. For example, it allows people using Facebook and Gmail to be Pokémon Go account, so that the company can interact with targeted customers and collect valuable information from feedback on facebook easily. Also, it was also leveraging the Google Cloud Platform. The way it works is to help employees focusing on customers rather than sink time into managing and securing servers and infrastructure. (Niantic, 2020) Moreover, the firm also can interact with customers on Twitter for news and events update, it is beneficial of maintaining customer’s loyalty. Before the company decide game features, there is always a trial commencing in certain period of time. For instance, ‘Spotlight Hour’ activity on the game happens every week in order to see how players reflect this new feature. By doing that, customers helps us to make feasible decisions for the sake of long-term sustainability. The company also can use customer’s data to seek for potential opportunities, then the decision will motivate strategic changes positively. Therefore, this is how Niantic uses its digital business model.
By the way, Players can transfer Pokemon from Pokemon Go to other relevant games, such as Let’s Go Pikachu and Let’s Go Eevee on Switch platform. This can make Pokemon Go even more competitive and compatible.
My Story with Pokemon Go and relevant figures
In my experience, I have been playing it since it was launched in 2016, and this game was completely blowing my mind when I saw huge crowds of people playing outside at its first debut. 70% of players feel motivated to walk more. (Niantic 2020) At that time, I made lots of friends and shared my stories. 47% of players feel motivated to connect with others in 2019. (Niantic, 2020) The nature of this game is to gather people together and build local communities for the sake of social interaction, as well as, inspiring people to do exercise and explore new places. There are 91% players have visited a location because of Pokemon go partnerships. (Niantic, 2020) When playing this game outside, it encourages people to learn things from a new place where they visited. For instance, museums, libraries and historical architectures. According to Niantic, 98% players learned about a location because it served as a PokeStop. (Niantic, 2020) Those factors are belonging to non-profitable benefits and can be defined as the core value of Niantic’s digital business model. (exercise, exploration and social interaction)
Since Niantic applied its digital business model into its products and services, it basically contributes tourism development and local economy, this is because the company will be holding events in different countries every year. There is an interesting point is that the company also has engaged with environmental protection, it encourages 17,000 players across 41 countries to pick up 145 tons of trash while playing the game. (Niantic, 2020)
On the other hand, Pokemon Go also stimulates people to be Youtuber. For instance, Mystic7 channel has 1.9 million subscribers and Trainer Tips has almost 1 million subscribers. The company has been working with them on advertising.
Challenges
Even Niantic has been successful, but there are still some challengers they need to face, such as Anti-cheating (Hacking apps like iSpoofer as players can teleport anywhere to catch Pokemon without walking) Another challenge is that Players need to pay for lots of money on getting rare and special Pokemon, this is not friendly for those with low monthly salaries. Furthermore, except Pokemon Go, Niantic somehow has failed on exploiting other AR games. Finally, there is a limitation of playing Niantic’s mobile games due to bad weather conditions.
References:
Accenture Strategy. (2018) Operate like a disruptor . Retrieved March 06, 2020 from https://www.accenture.com/t00010101T000000Z__w__/gb-en/_acnmedia/PDF-72/Accenture-Strategy-Operate-Like-Disruptor-Executive-Summary.pdf#zoom=50
Favis, E. (2019) 17,000 Pokemon go players collect 145 tons of trash for earth day. Retrieved March 06, 2020 from https://www.gameinformer.com/2019/05/05/17000-pokemon-go-players-collect-145-tons-of-trash-for-earth-day
Niantic. (2020) Leveraging the Google Cloud Platform. Retrieved March 06, 2020 from https://nianticlabs.com/blog/googlecloud/
Pokemon Go. (2020) Retrieved March 06, 2020 from https://www.pokemongo.com/en-gb/
Steinberg, N. (2020) Pokemon go set profit record in 2019 that trounced its launch in 2016. Retrieved March 06, 2020 from https://screenrant.com/pokemon-go-profit-record-2019/
Niantic. (2020) Real world impact. Retrieved March 06, 2020 fromhttps://nianticlabs.com/social-impact/
Niantic. (2020) Retrieved March 06, 2020 from https://nianticlabs.com
Statt, N. (2019) Pokemon go is getting a live AR Multiplayer feature called buddy adventure. Retrieved March 06, 2020 from https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/6/20950615/niantic-pokemon-go-live-multiplayer-ar-augmented-reality-buddy-adventure
Frank, A. (2019) Pokemon go AR snapshot: how to take pics of Pokemon (and find Smeargle). Retrieved March 06, 2020 from https://www.polygon.com/guides/2019/3/4/18241355/pokemon-go-ar-snapshot-how-to-take-pictures
WMware. (2019, May 6) 20 Questions with Niantic CEO John Hanke [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX7fZ14YB08
IGN. (2018, Nov 16) How to transfer Pokemon from Go on iPhone to Let’s Go on Nintendo Switch (Pikachu And Eevee) [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOuGTic_4nA
Niantic. (2018, Jun 28) Codename: Niantic Occlusion-Real World AR Occlusion featuring Pikachu and Eevee [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZrmPTPgY3I
AP Archive. (2016, Nov 16) Pokemon Go’s Success attributed to social interaction [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3Y0JmZj54M
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