Instead of continuing to look for Pokemon Go’s replacement, Niantic should concentrate all of its efforts on what it already has. Do you recall that wonderful summer when everyone was playing Pokemon Go? Sorry to make you feel a little dated, but that was seven years ago. By the conclusion of that summer, many people had stopped playing, but many more hadn’t. The mobile game continues to be a major revenue generator for Niantic, bringing in billions for the company every year.
When a game generates that much revenue year after year, the studio in charge will obviously be working diligently to determine why. After they accomplish that, they can use the secret recipe for more projects. The issue with Pokemon Go is that the secret formula cannot be used for anything else, and Niantic must quit attempting to create the next Pokemon Go.
In its efforts to capture the magic of Pokemon Go, Niantic has acquired some fairly significant intellectual property rights. Of course, every other production company, television show, and franchise on the planet wants a piece of that action. Harry Potter was the first, but it has since teamed with the NBA and even Marvel attempted to partake. But Marvel’s Pokemon Go-style game will never be released because Niantic let over 200 staff go before it even had a release date.
With each subsequent attempt to create the successor to Pokemon Go, Niantic has had decreasingly more success. Wizards Unite was shut down after nearly 2.5 years of operation, NBA All-World’s tenure will end in September after only 8 months, and Marvel’s World Of Heroes, well, we covered that. However, Pokemon Go continues to grow, and its developers must be able to understand why this is the case.
I’ve wanted to be able to venture outside and catch genuine Pokemon ever since I first played Pokemon Blue. I believed that the games I played at the time—and for the ensuing 20 years—were the closest we would ever get. Niantic then revealed Pokemon Go. a game that allows you to go outside and capture Pokemon. a dream that had been out of reach for millions of us for 20 years. Despite the fact that some of them didn’t stick around for long, lapsed fans came back.
You know what no one has ever even dared to dream of? Finding magical traces in the world or exploring your area in search of renowned basketball players to… befriend? Sorry, but I’m not completely sure what NBA All-World’s purpose is. It should go without saying that trying to paint basketball and the Wizarding World with the same Pokemon Go paint would have failed. Although many of us have fantasized about attending Hogwarts, competing in the NBA, or even experiencing what it’s like to be a superhero, none of those desires can be fulfilled via the Pokemon Go system.
The bottle of lightning With Pokemon Go, Niantic successfully demonstrated that individuals could go for a walk while carrying a game based on their favorite IP in their pocket. It’s because the IP the game was based on had as its central premise traveling the globe in search of exotic animals and trying to capture them all. That appears to be Niantic’s core misunderstanding in this situation. It’s what you have to do in that game, not what the game is built on. It’s beneficial to capture Pokemon in the real world. It feels unusual to wander around looking for superheroes, but not in a good way.
Having said that, Niantic might have finally realized this and teamed up with a series that will probably be successful. Hunter of monsters. Even though two games have already been canceled this year, Monster Hunter Now will still debut in September. In this game, which is extremely reminiscent of Pokemon, you hunt monsters. This might actually work because of how similar it is to Pokemon. That is, unless Niantic anticipates Pokemon Go will continue to enjoy the same level of popularity and financial success. Monster Hunter is a game that the method can be effectively applied to, but it won’t make the company billions of dollars.
My concern is that Niantic will have high expectations for Monster Hunter Now, and that it will ultimately fail, like practically everything that has come before it. It should definitely outperform Wizards Unite and Niantic’s previous failed initiatives, so maybe then it has a shot. Following that, Niantic would be wise to concentrate more of its efforts on Pokemon Go as opposed to attempting to predict what the potential successor to Pokemon Go would be.
