Pokemon Go For It!
If you have been asleep for the last week, or enjoying an overseas holiday, you might not have noticed the phenomena that is Pokemon Go. The game is a joint venture between Nintendo and Niantic, the people behind Ingress, the geo-location augmented reality alien invasion game.
Niantic had a big hit with Ingress, it has been a huge success for them with over 14m downloads. Perhaps more importantly, it's also been a great learning ground too. By taking what they've learned and combining it with the massively popular property that is Pokemon, they have hit upon a winner. A real winner. Here are some stats...
It has launched with no real advertising or fanfare, it was meant to be a soft launch.
Yet was top of the app stores in the countries it was released within a couple of days.
In less than a week it has been installed on over 5% of all Android devices.
Nintendo' share price has gone up by 21.76%.
The app is just below the number of daily active users that twitter has, but will likely outperform twitter in the next few days.
Session times are over 40 minutes, around twice the time people spend in Snapchat
Because the game is location based, you have to get out to play it. It only works on a mobile device. so next time you are out and about, have a look around you and see just how many people are playing this game. This game is invading the real world!
You'll also notice that's it's not just kids either. Plenty of adults are getting stuck in to, clearly demonstrating that games are not just for kids any more. Everyone likes to play.
We've been saying for some time that there is a lot of space for a great geolocation game in Australia. This certainly be the one, but it could also be the pioneer with plenty more to to follow.
If you have a business that has multiple sites, so retailers, food outlets, even B2B businesses with a number of sites, maybe it's time to start thinking about a game for your customers that will help them:
Engage with your brand
Understand your offering better
Know where you are
and for you, it will:
Drive higher levels of visits
Increase sales
Facilitate data collection
and so much more
If you are interested in exploring a geolocation based game, with or without augmented reality, then get in touch while the genre is so popular. Nothing wrong with jumping on this bandwagon!