“Pokemon GO” is popular, but is this the right approach to commercializing AR?

A mobile game called "Pokemon Go" has become popular in Europe and the United States. In order to play the game, homebodies who never go out have taken to the streets. Many diet enthusiasts also regard playing this game as a good way to lose weight.

In addition to receiving rave reviews in Australia and North America, in China, where the game has not yet been launched, the #PokemanGo# topic has been read more than 200 million times on Weibo , and some fans even took the risk of turning on virtual positioning just to experience it first.

You can't help but ask, what kind of game is this that has such great magic?

It was jointly developed by veteran game maker Nintendo and game company Niantic. Its biggest highlight is the combination of AR (augmented reality) technology and Pokemon character settings.

Specifically, when you open the game and enable the map and positioning functions, the game will overlay Pikachu, Squirtle and other Pokémons on the real-time camera footage. These Pokémons may be hidden in any corner, and you need to walk around with your phone to find and catch them.

What's even more interesting is that there are traces of the locations where the Pokémon appear. For example, Squirtle and Magikarp may be easier to find by the river, and Pikachu may be squatting on the TV... In addition to collecting Pokémon, players can also follow the instructions to go to specific treasure spots to find Poké Balls and monster eggs. When the collected Pokémon reach a certain number, they can participate in competitions and PK with other players.

Some people commented that this was a "childhood killer", while others were surprised that it was high-tech and lamented that AR came to them so unexpectedly.

AR technology is easier to popularize

In fact, AR is not a new technology. This technology has been applied in many fields such as toys, home decoration, and military. For example, if you point your mobile phone camera at the children's toy cards on the market, the image on the card will appear three-dimensional on the screen: if there is a horse on the card, the horse will run; if there is an airplane, the airplane will take off and land. Using IKEA's official app, you can also see what a virtual furniture will look like when placed in your home.

In other words, as long as you turn on your phone, download the corresponding application, and use props, you can see the AR effect.

In addition to the application in the field of mobile software, technology giants have also been trying to develop AR technology into new products. In April 2012, Google launched Google Project Glass, a pair of smart glasses with augmented reality functions, but it was suspended after three years. Three days after Google announced the suspension of the glasses project, Microsoft immediately released the HoloLens holographic glasses.

The successive giants have proved that the AR field has great development prospects. According to market research company Digi-Capital, by 2020, the market size of AR will reach 120 billion US dollars, far higher than VR's 30 billion US dollars.

However, it is also quite difficult to design an AR hardware product that meets the public's expectations. Apple , known for its innovative ability , has acquired a series of startups in the AR field in the past few years and accumulated many related patents, but it still remains silent amid the restlessness of giants such as Google, Microsoft, and Facebook .

"Mature AR products need to solve many technical problems, such as computer vision, spatial positioning, motion tracking, etc.," said Sun Li, CEO of Shadowchuang Technology. "It may take another 10 years for VR to reach the consumer end, and AR will be even further away."

The company announced last week the launch of three AR smart glasses and released a holographic helmet, halo, similar to Microsoft Hololens. The binocular AR smart glasses that Sina Technology experienced on site still have a lot of room for improvement in terms of product design, field of view, and human-computer interaction.

Due to the technical bottlenecks, it will take some time for mature AR devices to appear. However, AR applications will come faster than VR. "Smartphones are hardware platforms that can easily realize AR effects, while VR requires redesigning hardware," said a researcher in the VR/AR industry. "This also means that in terms of technology or software, we will usher in the spring of AR applications."

Are mobile games the right approach to AR commercialization?

Previously, the industry focused more on AR technology in the medical, military, training and other industries. More and more people are beginning to realize that this technology can not only be used in industry applications, but also occupy a place in mass entertainment. The popularity of "Pokemon GO" may point the way for the large-scale commercialization of AR technology.

In addition to the popularity of the game and the continuous income it has generated, Nintendo's stock price soared last Friday after the launch of Pokémon GO. Some securities analysts changed their previous views: they originally thought that the commercial prospects of Pokémon GO were mediocre, but the market reaction far exceeded expectations.

Niantic, which focuses on AR applications, can also breathe a sigh of relief. Before launching Pokémon GO, the company had already launched a game called Ingress, which also combined AR with geographic location, allowing players to occupy, defend and rob virtual energy sources or bases in the real world, and gained millions of users in Europe and the United States.

Because of the popularity and huge commercial prospects of mobile games, Niantic has always chosen games as one of its exploration directions, especially choosing to cooperate with Nintendo. "Pokemon GO" became popular overnight, finally bringing the company from obscurity to the public eye.

However, the subsequent development of this game may also face obstacles. According to media reports, some players have protested that this game consumes a lot of power, requires a high network speed, and consumes a lot of data.

In fact, this also reflects to a certain extent that there are still problems in the application of AR technology on mobile phones. In addition to power consumption and data consumption, achieving AR effects also requires high performance of mobile phones. Because AR superimposes virtual scenes on real images, if you want the position to be appropriate, the mobile phone needs to run computer vision algorithms, which has requirements for the imaging quality of the camera and the mobile phone processing chip. In Pokeman Go, water elves generally appear in places with water because when running the game, the mobile phone has already recognized the captured scene to a certain extent.

"Given that mobile phone hardware has not yet achieved ideal results, perhaps many users are just downloading and trying out the game for the sake of trying something new. Whether Pokeman Go will become a phenomenal game remains to be seen," the researcher said.

Even if the mobile game "Pokemon GO" can make AR games popular and even make the concept of AR accepted by the public, it is still a long way from the day when AR is truly popular. The final AR product may be a normal pair of glasses, but there are still countless technical problems to be solved on the way to realizing this product.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.