1. 4 The Malta Independent | Friday 22 July 2016
News
Experts take a look into the technical makings of
augmented reality gaming and Pokémon GO
The obsessive
following which
Pokémon GO has
achieved in just over
two weeks is
nothing short of
incredible. That
being said, there
have been a number
of safety issues
raised in terms of
car crashes and
people walking into
dangerous areas
and venues just to
catch one of the
beloved Pokémon.
Mathias Mallia
writes
This week saw the first death at-
tributed to the game in the form
of a shooting in Guatemala after
players allegedly broke into a
home to catch a Pokémon.
The Malta Independent spoke to
two experts in the field of gam-
ing to see what makes the game
tick and why it has such an ob-
sessed following. Ingo Mesche,
the director of VRTRON Ltd
(http://www.vrtron.com/) and the
owner of AV Technologies Ltd
and Jade Pecorella, a game de-
signer for Yggdrasil Gaming
Ltd. (http://yggdrasilgaming.com/)
shared their expertise.
When asked what goes into
creating augmented reality
games like Pokémon GO and
why it has caused such a global
boom, both the professionals
agreed that a lot of planning and
research had to go into it. “There
was once a student ‘John Hanke’
who is now CEO of Pokémon
GO developer Niantic Inc. It
took him 20 years to develop
the technology one can find now
in Pokémon GO today,” Mr
Mesche said.
“Before Pokémon GO was born
he was founder of the com-
pany ‘keyhole’ which was later
bought by Google. John Hanke
then ran the Google ‘GEO’ team
creating Google Maps and
Google Street View, at that time
he set up part of his team that
would later create Pokémon GO.
In 2015, John raised $25 million
from Google, Nintendo, the
Pokémon Company and other in-
vestors to grow a 40+ team to
develop and launch Pokémon
GO.”
Ms Pecorella was just as direct
with “A lot of planning! And
quite frankly with an Intellectual
Property like one of Pokémon,
having it accessible on your
phone is just like mixing hazel-
nuts and cocoa.” She elaborated
that “Pokémon has been around
for over 20 years, with the ad-
vantages of being able to revisit
a childhood favourite or experi-
encing the world of the adorable
wacky monsters for the first time
on your own smartphone is an
overwhelming experience and
opportunity to introduce dis-
missed technology to players.”
Considering the viral boom
which the game has created on
all forms of media and every cor-
ner of the globe, Mr Mesche’s
continued from where Ms
Pecorella left off. “The Pokémon
company have a multi-billion
dollar franchise. Nearly every-
thing that is labelled under the
Pokémon brand is successful.
Pokémon has a huge fan-base all
over the world with millions of
individuals hungry for every-
thing new about their beloved
Pokémon.”
“In the fictional Pokémon uni-
verse a ‘trainer’ has to search
and collect Pokémon species in
the Pokémon world. It was a ge-
nius stroke to combine this, up to
now fictional task, with our real
world through “GPS Location
based Gaming”. Now Poké-
mon can be found in our real
world. The combination of an el-
ement which was up to now fic-
tional for Pokémon enthusiasts
became reality and that trans-
lates very well to smartphones.”
Ms Pecorella looks at the
whole success as being a by-
product of the new social ele-
ment which the game
introduced. “Though it has al-
ways remained stuck on social
media hubs the challenge of how
to bring gaming into the ‘home’
into a non-introvert experience
has been on every game devel-
oper’s head for decades. With
the introduction of Pokémon
GO, it is now about walking
around with friends, catching
Pokémon, discovering your
country behind the usually four
walls at your local hangout.
On a more technical note, this
newsroom asked the two profes-
sionals how a company gains
revenue from such a game. Mr
Mesche replied by explaining
the average model which most
smartphone games follow.
“Most smartphone games
nowadays generate revenue
through a business model called
‘Freemium’. That means that
the game is free-to-play and the
player can pay via micro-trans-
actions within the game to access
additional content. In-game
items can be purely cosmetic, en-
hance the power of the player, or
accelerate progression speed. All
those micro transactions by mil-
lions of players worldwide add
up to millions of US dollars.”
Ms Pecorella then spoke more
about the game in question:
“They have treated it with great
care, there is no aggressive mon-
etisation slapped in your face all
the time as we see in others apps
which use full on 30 second
videos, or cruelly planned full
screen banners or ‘feel bad’ 0.99c
requests, there is none of that in
Pokémon GO.
“It has a very clean user inter-
face where they’ve chosen to ig-
nore the norm of keeping the
shop in the top right of the screen
preferring to keep it hidden
within a menu. A player is able
to purchase poke coins with real
world money which a player can
then exchange into poke balls, in-
cense, incubators and even lucky
eggs to enhance their game play.
You can extend your play session
with more poke balls, which
means more time in game, more
achievements, more rewards,
and more vitality shared across
the media.”
On a personal note, TMI also
asked Mr Mesche and Ms
Pecorella whether they or their
companies have worked on any
augmented reality or virtual re-
ality games. Mr Mesche started
with a definite yes answer before
giving examples.
“Here at VRTRON we have a
long history in developing games
including AR and VR games.
One to mention was the Game
‘Elite CommandAR’ which we
developed for the Hong Kong-
based Toy manufacturer
‘WowWee’. At the ’New York
toy fair 2010’, we won the ‘best of
the show and innovation’ award
with our developments in AR /
VR, combining the virtual with
the real world. Currently we are
developing the VR game ‘gr-
ACE’ which is a multiplayer on-
line shooter. We are also working
on several other exciting AR and
VR projects, one of them being
‘Languinis 2’.”
Mr Mesche also pointed out that
Pokémon GO, although referred
to as an AR game, technically
isn’t one as it is more a ‘location-
based game’ than anything else.
“The AR part is really just as
basic and simple as can be.”
Although Ms Pecorella has
been involved in exploring AR
techniques, she is bound by se-
crecy by her company’s policies
from giving any more particular
details.
Finally, this newsroom asked
the two what the future of gam-
ing is according to them, and one
thing which characterised their
answers was excitement. “It will
still take a bit of time for wide
spread consumer augmented /
virtual reality to catch on,” Mr
Mesche said, “but in the next
few years AR/VR headsets and
systems will become a common
sight. Augmented/virtual real-
ity is going to be a market which
is said to hit $150 billion by 2020.
It will change everything, not
just the way we play games, but
gaming will be a huge part of it.”
Ms Pecorella could hardly con-
tain her excitement going into
the merits of AR and VR:
“Google translate already have a
feature using AR which allows
you to point your camera at text
in one language and it can trans-
late into another language. The
major benefit that AR has over
VR is that as it is one of the main
driving pillars for VR to be com-
pletely immersed into another
“world” it also disconnects you
from reality.
“The comics you read as a child
to the movies you enjoyed as an
adolescent or adult, watching the
infamous Tony Stark manoeuvre
his plans across a digital plan was
never something at hand. AR in-
troduced this, and it’s all from the
comfort of your smartphone with-
out breaking bank on accessories
and add-ons to experience it.
“And as much as I’m dying to
jump into the latest Resident Evil
in a VR headset, with the success
of Pokémon and the light bulbs
going off every F2P studios
heads, is VR a fad and
AR the way to go? Or
will someone jump on
the mixed reality (MR) and cre-
ate an astronomical impact?”
Ingo Mesche Jade Pecorella
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