What Does Pokémon Go Mean for Augmented Reality?
Pokémon Go has more daily users than Pandora, Netflix, Spotify, and Twitter. Why is this game so popular? What does its popularity mean for science and for the future of augmented reality?
Sabrina Stierwalt, PhD
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What Does Pokémon Go Mean for Augmented Reality?
Do you have a Charmander in your collection? How about a Squirtle, a Mewtwo, or a Jigglypuff? What about an elusive Vaporean? If you have no idea what I am talking about, then you must not be one of the estimated 7.5 million people who downloaded the Pokémon Go app in its first week.
Why is this game so popular? What does its popularity mean for science and for the future of augmented reality?
The Popularity of Pokémon Go
It’s still too early to tell whether the instant surge in popularity for the pocket-sized monster collecting app is sustainable. Frequent crashes have turned off some users while others see these minor glitches as the price you pay for playing such a popular game. The developer of the app Niantic was also already forced to address its unnecessary overreach in claiming access to the entire Google account of each of its users.
Despite these issues, the BBC notes that almost 6% of Android users had downloaded Pokémon Go within a week of its release. That’s more daily users than Pandora, Netflix, Spotify, and even Twitter. Players are using the app on average of 43 minutes per day, and there were over 15 million tweets mentioning Pokémon Go in the first week. As Om Malik wrote for the New Yorker, “To say it has spread like wildfire is to exaggerate the power of wildfires.”
The adorable critters are popping up everywhere from funerals to museums and even next to a player’s wife as she gave birth. Real estate brokers are using the presence of Pokémon to raise attendance at their open houses and being within five minutes of a Pokémon Go gym is now listed as an asset for homes on the market along with hardwood floors and open layouts. You can hire a Pokémon trainer on craigslist for a mere $30 per hour and the appearance of a rare Pokémon caused hundreds of players to gather in Central Park to try to catch it.
The high level of interest in the game is likely due to a combination of factors, a perfect popularity storm of different appeals to our human nature. For those of us over the age of 20, Pokémon Go piques our sense of nostalgia. Nintendo first came out with a version of the game in 1996 with the television series, movies, and playing cards surging in popularity a few years later. So people were already fans when the new app hit the market on July 5th.
The adorable monsters give the game an approachability that attracts a range of audiences, including younger children as well as gamers and nongamers alike. Also encouraging players to continue engaging with the app is the opportunity to collect rewards as they progress to new levels in the form of Pokéballs and potions. Studies show that gamers are more likely to engage with apps that have rewards even though those rewards have only a virtual existence.
Also, as the tagline “Gotta Catch ‘Em All!” suggests, we inherently like to collect and categorize things. Filling out our collections provides us with a sense of accomplishment and we can take this particular collection with us everywhere that we go. The task of finding many of the monsters is easy enough that the goal is attainable, but the large variety of Pokémon as well as the existence of more elusive species maintain our interest. The original game had 151 monster species but the series of sequels have increased that number to over 700.
What Is Augmented Reality?
Likely the main reason for the app’s popularity, however, is its use of so-called augmented reality. Augmented reality involves overlaying computer-generated images onto our real world surroundings sometimes by, in the case of Pokémon Go, using the GPS tracker in your smartphone. An augmented reality is distinctly different from a virtual reality which replaces the real world with a completely computer-generated version.
Thus by tapping into the use of augmented reality, Pokémon Go becomes a more active endeavor. Players are exploring their, albeit augmented, surroundings and doing it in groups. Game play is similar to geocaching, a neighborhood hunt for hidden treasure, except with virtual instead of physical rewards.
How Pokémon Go Helps Science
The inspiration to explore our natural surroundings, even in an altered form and with the aid of technology, may also prove to have huge implications for science by inspiring the next generation of biologists or geologists. The creator of the original Pokémon, Satoshi Tajiri, credits his childhood interest in collecting insects with the inspiration for his game. He has stated that with the urbanization of his hometown of Tokyo in the late 70s, those insects became harder and harder to find, so he was forced to create his own world in which to do his collecting.
Already people are posting under the hastag #PokeBlitz to ask scientists for help with identifying real animals, insects, and plant life discovered while playing Pokémon Go. The hastag was started by Morgan Jackson, an insect taxonomist and PhD candidate at the University of Guelph and comes from the term bioblitz where citizen scientists are asked to quickly categorize as many species as possible in a certain location.
Thus the app, with its fictional monsters, is serving as an introduction to the world of biodiversity. If you think about it, playing Pokémon Go is not all that different from bird watching. Imagine if you could aim your smartphone at a bird you had never seen before and have a description appear?
The Future of Augmented Reality
Although the continued popularity of Pokémon Go is still uncertain, usage show no sign of slowing down so that the app may represent only the beginning of our interest in augmented reality. For the app itself, one can imagine the inclusion of more user-generated content like customized avatars to appeal to our desire to create online profiles for ourselves as we do through other social media venues like Facebook and Twitter. With more information about your location beyond your orientation and GPS coordinates, the app could allow you to find that Pokémon sitting on top of your bookshelf instead of just out in the open.
But our smartphones are not even designed to be ideal augmented reality machines, nor are our cellular networks completely up to the challenge, so imagine what we could do with some improvement in those areas.
Augmented reality could help us visualize purchases before we make them, from clothes, to furniture, to upgrades on our cars. We could use augmented reality to overlay blueprints on construction sites or to map out underground pipe systems so that they aren’t damaged by future excavations.
Apps are already being developed to use augmented reality to serve as a three-dimensional guidebook to allow do-it-yourself automotive repair. Imagine opening up your car’s hood and having arrows appear to show you exactly where your spark plugs are with a list of instructions on how to change them.
Augmented reality may also be able to improve the way we interact with our GPS to navigate. One company is working on creating navigation overlays so that you don’t have to take your eyes off the road to glance at the directions.
And of course, the world of sports already uses augmented reality to varying degrees, including the first down line and the glowing hockey puck. Many teams are already looking for ways to use augmented or virtual reality to aid in training and one day we may be able to purchase “front row seats” at a virtual center court.
What would you do with augmented reality?
Until next time, this is Sabrina Stierwalt with Ask Science’s Quick and Dirty Tips for helping you make sense of science. You can become a fan of Ask Science on Facebook or follow me on Twitter, where I’m @QDTeinstein. You can also send me an email with your thoughts on what you would do with augmented reality at everydayeinstein@quickanddirtytips.comcreate new email.
Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.
