![]() ![]() During that time He's worked on a total of ten separate free-to-play games across five different platforms reaching over 50 million users. He started working on traditional games, but has been focussed on the free-to-play business model since 2006 - an extremely long time by western standards. ![]() I have not played a second session since the first 20 minutes and I still log into Pokemon Go a few days a week (please don't judge!).īen is a 15-year veteran of the games industry - he's worked as a senior executive, studio head, project lead, creative director and game designer at companies like DeNA, EA, Sony and Lionhead. It doesn't have the simple charm of just throwing a colourful ball at a cute monster. In an age where less means more, it requires the user to learn way too much too quickly. I agree the tutorial is very clunky and it's very hard to pick up. As mentioned above, Pokemon remains relevant with its popular TCGs, movies, cartoons, etcetera.Īs for the game itself, the retention data is somewhat surprising (68 per cent D1, 30 per cent D7 in Brazil - source: AppAnnie). Parents will gladly take their kids for a stroll to catch some pokemon as family bonding time. The Pokemon audience targeted younger and this allowed the game to become a family event. There’s also no mainstream relevancy on the IP as the last Potter movie came out eight years ago and Fantastic Beasts does not count. The motivation to walk around to catch the mythical beasts they liked 10 to 15 years ago is minimal at best. Kenneth Wongģ) In regards to the Potter IP itself, even though it is a global phenomenon, the target audience who were hooked on the novels and movies are in their mid-20s. Unfortunately though, I think this will only happen after dozens of smaller studios try high risk, highly innovative approaches.Īs a player I’m quite excited to see what happens in the space, but as an IP holder I have to say I’m quite sceptical about the near-term potential for IP to utilise location-based gameplay unless we see more variety in proven gameplay experiences. Simply rehashing the Pokemon Go experience isn’t going to work. I certainly do think it’s possible that we’ll see another gameplay experience that uses location in a completely different way and hits it out of the park, but I think this will be something quite innovative and surprising. It’s usually a pretty good ‘IP Play’ to take a successful game, make a few tweaks/improvements and release it with a different IP, but I don’t think this approach is easy or even possible with a location-based game. Getting people to regularly, well, go outside is simply a very high bar. I think there is good reason to be very skeptical about location-based games and big IP. Pokemon, on the other hand, was - at the launch of Go - on most platforms with other interactive media and decades of Nintendo games and trading card games had chiselled the path for the mobile launch, making the onboarding extremely easy for Pokemon Go.Īll-in-all I think Harry Potter: Wizards Unite didn’t fail on a single specific thing but ended up failing on most parameters. Pottermore is also a rather closed ecosystem and it’s tightly controlled, which limits reach and knowledge of the brand. The Harry Potter IP, though the Fantastic Beasts spinoff it still rolling, isn’t at a high point and the timing feels rather forced. Other than the gameplay, I think there are some important factors to consider about the IP itself and the timing. It took about half a second to ‘recharge’ in Pokemon Go after an awkward throw. And when failing a spell, it takes about 10 seconds to let the player know they failed, when they knew the second they perform it. In terms of input mechanics each spell has a different pattern which isn’t a meaningful choice for the player. ![]() The game also has a midcore-esque feel to it, which I think scares a lot of the more casual players away. I would bet a tonne of players churn before level two for the disappointment in story alone. Far from, “here’s a ball, throw it!”, it’s instant disengagement. The story isn’t compelling because the player is learning a tonne of new lore, rather than playing. ![]() The game takes place after the movies end and the Wizarding World is in trouble, but the characters from the books are thrown in there for some reason. The storyline isn’t something the player can relate to knowing the franchise. Looking at the first five minutes of gameplay, it quickly becomes clear why this game isn’t doing well. ![]()
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