The fever for the Pokemon has not only returned, but has manifested itself unequivocally taken the streets of those countries that add to the phenomenon "Pokemon GO".The reason? An elaborate mixture of elements of nostalgia, a very interesting and fun use of technology, the inevitable factor of collecting and, above all, the unquestionable charisma of Pikachu and company.
However, this social phenomenon does not The day began when millions of users from all over the world gave them to download the fashion app on their smartphone.We have to go back to the second half of the 90s to ask ourselves the big question: how is it possible that two decades later Pokemon is on top once again?
It is too early to determine if Pokemon GO is a passing fad or has arrived to stay, since it was only two weeks ago that it was launched in the United States and in Spain it does not even take one.However, Nintendo, the parent company of The Pokemon Company, has doubled its value on the stock exchange and is already signing million-dollar contracts with multinationals.The game has turned society upside down and that's a fact.
Let's start from the base: Pokemon...What is it?
The most pragmatic way to define Pokemon is to qualify it as a license based on collecting and improving some curious creatures that live throughout the world, and that has broken all the Nintendo sales forecasts since its debut in the Japanese Game Boy in 1996.
However, it would be unfair to stay at that point.Pokemon has 19 movies, very soon his television series will reach 20 seasons on the air, and his merchandising is as varied and colorful as the pocket monsters themselves.In fact, even the first editions of the original games continue to inspire people of all ages, social classes and beliefs: from the last blows of the so-called Generation X to the millennials themselves.
Precisely, and at the end of this year, the seventh generation of games will arrive to the current Nintendo notebook with the editions of Pokemon Sol and Pokemon Luna, which means new territories to explore, new mechanics to discover and new Pokemon to capture.
Paradoxically, the Pokemon series of games is not aimed at a specific age range , although it has traditionally been associated with a youth audience.In fact, persistent generations of players have continued to play over the years while new user remittances have been have been adding with their first portable console.Who does not recognize at this point of the game to Pikachu?
The fireproof Pikachu 20, years later
The exit of Pokemon GO in 2016 It is not a product of chance.The Pokemon brand celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, starting from the fact that the first editions of the original games went commercially to the Japanese market in February 1996, although it took us three years and a few more months to play Pokemon in the Spanish Game Boy.
On the occasion of the celebration, Nintendo has a road map with all kinds of releases related to the license, including new animated productions, special reissues of the card game, events by everyone and a huge batch of games for all their systems.It should not be forgotten that Nintendo has recently made the leap to mobile phones.
The announcements and media presence of Pokemon has been especially intense during this year and Pokemon GO has not only managed to channel the nostalgic factor of all those who have ever played, but has managed to offer them a unique opportunity: to become Pokemon Trainers in reality, or rather thanks to Augmented Reality technology, so if, to achieve this, Nintendo has had to take a giant step internally./p>
A project cooked from Google and Nostalgia
It all started with a tug of war between Nintendo's shareholders and the top executives of the company after the commercial results of the latest consoles of the Japanese company.Finally, in March 2015, the rumored jump of the Great N to the mobile would be a reality, and with it the official arrival of its famous characters to the devices more used and extended around the world.
Nintendo's dome resisted everything it could to launch its licenses on devices that were not made by themselves, however, that was a promotional opportunity that could not be avoided for a longer time.In fact, along with the announcement of the arrival of The Great N to the mobile, it was announced that they would continue to develop consoles and, in fact, they were already designing their next game system.
But before this new address of the legendary company was announced, Google itself made a joke that would become the idea of the million dollars.In fact, it may be that the idea of a billion, even if it is early to make accounts.
On April 1, 2014, the company based in Mountain View launches its traditional April Fools innocent taking advantage of the tiron of its Google Maps and YouTube portals and the hook of the Nintendo pocket monsters.This way, a supposed new update was presented for the Google geolocation service, Pokemon Challenge, which would allow you to discover the Pokemon in the real world.And the joke was very enjoyable.So much that it finally came true.
How does Pokemon Go work and how it works has transformed into unexito?
On the technical level, Pokemon Go is the sum of several technologies that have been perfecting for the last decade and that have become very popular thanks to the mobile revolution.
On the one hand, the key element for mechanics is based on geolocation, or in other words ra, so that our terminal knows where we are at all times.Precisely, it is impossible to play Pokemon GO without constantly offering geographical coordinates.Unlike other games or applications, Pokemon GO does not count our steps, but reads at all moment our coordinates.
The merit of having developed the necessary infrastructure so that both the geolocation and the location of the key points of each of the elements of the game we owe it to Ingress, the previous game of the main developer of Pokemon Go, Niantic.Precisely the distribution of Gyms, Poke Stops and several of the in-game elements have been generated thanks to the data collected by Ingress.
However, Ingress I don't reap the success of Pokemon GO by far because the equation needs a hook to be attractive, and seen the results of the game it is impossible to deny the role of the Nintendo pocket monsters so that the experience has become a phenomenon.And this perfected idea of the Google Pokemon Challenge is much more than a social game , is to materialize an idea that has had to a greater or lesser extent anyone who has ever tried the games.
The rest of the magic is due to augmented reality, or in other words, to the technology that allows coexisting digital images and those reflected through a lens or camera in the same device.In this way, and thanks to the huge Google Maps database, we can not only find areas where there is Pokemon, but also live the experience of catching them and make them fight as in games or on the television series, and do it in a fun and surprising way.
The childhood dream of most of the incalculable holders of telephone terminals that make the most of their terminals is a reality: the pokemon exist, they inhabit each other and you can collect them and make them fight.
And what will be the following?
Elexito de Pokemon GO has not gone unnoticed by the rest of developers and many already admit to having started working on their own experiments with geolocation and augmented reality, however, Nintendo has not yet deployed all the possibilities offered by the idea, although many of them have already announced them.
And, although Pokemon GO is only available in about twenty countries, the popularity of the game has exceeded the expectations of Nintendo itself and enjoys an enviable media presence.In fact, in China, where possibly more It will take time to appear the game, a business model has been found that consists of offering Australian IDs and even playable maps based in other cities, having a special one of the Californian city of San Francisco.
But you don't have to go so far to find examples, in Spain the game came out just a week after its launch in the United States, which did not prevent thousands of users from waiting for the official launch to pursue search Ar to your favorite Pokemon with a little ingenuity and a couple of Google searches on how to do it.
The Pokemon Go business model is based on free-to-play, which means that the download is free but there are micropayments in between to obtain extra items, in any case in an optional way.If we want to increase our chances of success, we are still interested in investing a small amount of money at a specific time.However, little by little Pokemon GO has already achieved 3,000 million dollars (and up) only through the Apple store.Nintendo could have found a new and succulent reef thanks to geolocation.
Recently, McDonald's Japanese subsidiary officially made an agreement with The Great N in which, without giving too many economic details, Nintendo would put a Poke Gym Mon in 3,000 of the restaurants of the popular restaurant chain throughout the country of the rising sun.The reason? Pokemon GO players regularly go to these virtual sites and tend to remain an interesting period of time in them.What is the price of taking countless Pokemon fans to your business against the competition options? In fact, it is not unreasonable to think that the idea would extend beyond Japan and we are already talking about new agreements with other companies.
The truth is that Pokemon GO is a phenomenon that has just started and future plans include the exchange of Pokemon, events that make it possible to take on legendary creatures and who knows if we will see new pocket monsters for next year.
It cannot be denied that the sensation of summer opens a whole series of new and interesting commercial, entertainment and technological possibilities, but the most amazing thing is to see how a game that has never gone out of style has managed to connect and make, in an increasingly sedentary world, millions of players take the streets, socialize and live the joint experience.Pokemon GO is not a game for to have children, is the answer to a latent idea but does not manifest from generations of fans that just started.
Images/Nintendo
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