A couple of weeks ago we began to witness a rare phenomenon: gamers young and old started going outside, and it was all because of the release of a new Pokemon game for iOS and Android devices. The game is advertised as a location-based augmented reality mobile app (what a mouthful) that allows you to traverse the real world and capture your very own Pokemon. And while it's a novel idea for both a new mobile phone app and a re-imagining of the beloved series, most reviews have been giving it around a 7/10, which seems about a point and a half short of what you might expect from a game that's breaking records left and right, so what's the deal?
Half of Pokemon Go's success has to do with the history of the series (nine minute YouTube video). Here's the takeaway from that video: "Pokemon more so than virtually any other video game franchise in existence has managed to completely transcend the realms of being just a video game series, becoming a world wide phenomenon pretty much overnight ... After two whole decades the unbridled popularity of this RPG (role playing game) series has stood strong, arguably without a single misstep." And while the unprecedented success of the series does indeed have a lot to do with great game design and smart choices on where to take the franchise, most of the success from here on out has to do with nostalgia more than anything else. Plastering the Pokemon logo on anything will nearly guarantee its success at this point because the franchise already has everyone's trust. So a Pokemon phone app couldn't fail.
The next half of the game's success is due to Nintendo's absence when it comes to making games for anything other than their own hardware. Prior to recent events, Nintendo has done some outlandish experimenting in the video game industry. The two best examples of this that come to mind would be fully embracing motion controls with the Wii, an amazing success story, and their lesser known attempt at VR (virtual reality) with the Nintendo Virtual Boy that came a couple decades too early. These gimmicks are almost always a hit or miss for consumers, but what makes Nintendo so awesome is their ability to fully embrace their own unique hardware and give their fans entirely new ways to experience the juggernaut franchises of Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon. But this philosophy has always come with the sad expectation that Nintendo games will only ever come on Nintendo platforms. That is until Pokemon Go broke that rule. The widespread nature of the smartphone market has led to so many developers from almost every industry to make themselves available through a phone application, and Nintendo has kept itself out of that market for way too long.
The rapid success of Pokemon Go is due to a mix of the long-awaited arrival of a Nintendo app, the absolutely enormous following that Pokemon has accrued, and the fact that almost everyone has a smartphone or tablet at this point. So when people wonder why this game is such a big deal, it should be noted that it was literally impossible for this game to not be a big deal.
