The Phenomenon: Pokemon Go and Augmented Reality

On Friday, the most popular mobile game in the world is barely three days old, and it is already everywhere. Pokemon Go, the augmented reality game from Niantic, launched on Wednesday in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, and it has become a cultural event: millions of people walking through parks, streets, and parking lots, phones in hand, hunting for virtual creatures. The launch is the July 2016 story, and the story is the lesson: the technology that has been waiting for its moment for decades finally found its killer app, and the killer app was a game about catching monsters.

The Phenomenon is the subject of this article: what Pokemon Go is, how it works, why it exploded so fast, and what it means for the future of augmented reality. The game was released on July 6, and the servers have been struggling to keep up ever since. This is the story of the phenomenon, and the story is about the moment the digital world spilled into the physical one.

1. The Game

Pokemon Go is a mobile game that puts the world of Pokemon on top of the real world. The game uses the GPS in the player's phone to place the player on a real map, and the map is covered with PokeStops, real world landmarks where players collect items, and gyms, where players battle. The Pokemon themselves appear on the screen as the player walks around, and the game's augmented reality mode shows them on the phone's camera feed, standing in the middle of a real street or a real park.

The game is free to play, and the simplicity is the genius. The player walks, the phone buzzes, a creature appears, and the player throws a virtual ball to catch it. The game turns the ordinary walk into an adventure, and the adventure is the point. The game was built on the technology that Niantic had developed for its earlier game, Ingress, and the technology had been waiting for a game that everyone wanted to play. The game is the hook, and the hook is the world.

2. The Team

The team behind the game was the team that had been preparing for this moment for years. Niantic was founded by John Hanke, a former Google executive, and the company had been part of Google before spinning out with investment from Google, Nintendo, and the Pokemon Company. The company's first game, Ingress, had mapped the world's landmarks and built the database that Pokemon Go uses, and the database was the foundation of the new game.

The partnership was the other half of the story. Nintendo and the Pokemon Company brought the characters and the brand, the most valuable entertainment property in the world, and Niantic brought the location technology. The combination was the reason the game worked: the technology had been built, and the characters made everyone want to use it. The team was the preparation, and the preparation was the launch.

3. The Explosion

The explosion happened in days, and the explosion was the fastest the industry had seen. The game shot to the top of the app stores within hours of its launch, and the download counts went from zero to millions in the first days. The demand was so intense that the servers buckled, and players spent the first days staring at error messages while the team scrambled to add capacity. The outages were the proof of the demand, and the demand was the story.

The explosion was driven by word of mouth, and the word of mouth was the game itself. The players who caught a rare Pokemon took screenshots, and the screenshots spread on social media, and the spread brought more players. The game became the thing that everyone was talking about, and the talking was the marketing. The explosion was the launch, and the launch was the phenomenon.

4. The Walking

The most remarkable part of the phenomenon was the walking, and the walking was the point of the game. The game rewards movement: the eggs hatch after the player walks a certain distance, the Pokemon appear at different places, and the PokeStops require the player to be close to the landmark. The game took people who had spent years staring at screens and put them on their feet, and the streets filled with players.

The walking created the scenes that defined the week. Parks filled with players at night, groups of strangers compared their catches, and the game became a social event that happened in the real world. The game was the first mass-market product that made the real world the game board, and the real world responded by showing up. The walking was the miracle, and the miracle was the movement.

5. The Money

The money was already moving, and the movement was the market's verdict. Nintendo, the company that owned a stake in the Pokemon Company, saw its shares climb sharply in the days after the launch, and the climb added billions to the company's market value. The stock market was pricing the phenomenon before the revenue had even been counted, and the pricing was the signal that the game was more than a fad.

The money was also in the game itself. Pokemon Go was free, and the game made money from in-app purchases, the items that made the hunting easier, and the business model was the standard of the mobile industry. The game was also the proof that location-based advertising had a future: the businesses near PokeStops were already seeing the foot traffic. The money was the confirmation, and the confirmation was the business.

6. The Technology

The technology was the quiet part of the story, and the technology was the part that mattered. Augmented reality had been promising for decades, and the promise had always been the same: digital information overlaid on the physical world. Pokemon Go delivered the promise at a scale that no product had reached, and it delivered it with technology that was already in everyone's pocket: a phone, a camera, and a GPS.

The technology worked because it was simple, and the simplicity was the design. The game did not try to do too much; it put a creature on the screen and a map on the phone, and the combination was enough. The technology was the foundation of the phenomenon, and the foundation was the future: the same tools that made the game would make the next generations of maps, shopping, and work. The technology was the beginning, and the beginning was visible.

7. The Questions

The questions were already being asked, and the questions were the shadow of the phenomenon. The privacy questions came first: the game knew where the players were, and the knowledge was the product. The safety questions came second: the players walked into traffic, and the game had to tell them to look where they were going. The business questions came third: the virtual PokeStops were at real businesses, and the businesses wanted a say.

The questions were the growing pains of a new medium, and the pains were the proof of the growth. Every technology that changes how people move through the world raises the same questions, and the questions take time to answer. The questions were not the end of the story; they were the next chapter. The questions were the responsibility, and the responsibility was the future.

8. The Lesson

The lesson of the phenomenon is about the moment when a technology stops being a promise and becomes a product. Augmented reality had been demonstrated, debated, and dismissed for decades, and the dismissal was always the same: no one could find the application that everyone wanted. Pokemon Go found the application, and the application was a game, and the game was the door that opened the whole field.

The lesson for builders is that the killer app is often the simple one. The game did not use the most advanced augmented reality, and it did not need to: it used the phone, the camera, and the GPS, and it gave people a reason to look at the world differently. The lesson is also about the power of the brand: the technology had existed, and the characters made it irresistible. The phenomenon is the July 2016 story, and the story is the lesson: the digital world spilled into the physical one, and the spill was a flood. The game is three days old, and the future is just beginning. The companies that will build on the moment are the ones that study why it worked: the game made the familiar new, and the newness made people move. Every technology that can turn the ordinary world into a game board is now on the table, and the table is the opportunity. The game will be studied as the case of the augmented reality breakout, and the case will be taught in every product school. The phenomenon also proved the oldest rule of the industry: the product that people love spreads itself. The love was the growth engine, and the engine was running at full speed. The streets are full, and the streets are the proof.

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