Almost five years ago Niantic launched Ingress, first augmented reality mobile game, turning real-world streets, neighborhoods and cities into a global game board, and bringing people together in a shared digital reality. The incentives it created for exploration, exercise, and real-world social interaction helped spawn a global community of fans, united by their shared experience, and laid the foundations for Niantic’s real-world AR gaming platform.
Pokémon GO brought that vision to the world at unprecedented scale and served as a catalyst for the further development of the Niantic platform.
The new Augmented Reality gam is Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Players will learn spells, explore their real world neighborhoods and cities to discover and fight legendary beasts and team up with others to take down powerful enemies. Niantic partners with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, and WB Games San Francisco’s development team to bring this magical and beloved series to life in a brand new way. Harry Potter: Wizards Unite will leverage the full stack of the Niantic Platform while also providing an opportunity to pioneer all new technology and gameplay mechanics.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
Given the huge success of Pokemon I’m surprised it took this long for someone else to have a go.
(My own favourite virtual reality game is Strava.)