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After community backlash, Pokémon GO reinstates a COVID safety and accessibility feature
Pokémon GO announced yesterday that it will permanently keep an in-game feature that made the game easier to play while social distancing. Introduced at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the feature doubled the interaction radius around key augmented reality landmarks that are essential to gameplay. Though Niantic — parent company to Pokémon GO — removed the feature earlier this month, it chose to permanently reinstate it after weeks of community- and creator-led backlash.
Pre-pandemic, Pokémon GO players needed to be within 40 meters of a PokéStop or Gym to interact with it, but with the now-permanent change, the radius is expanded to 80 meters. Incidentally, players with disabilities found that this feature made the game more accessible to people with limited mobility. As one of the first mainstream AR mobile games, Pokémon GO is virtually unplayable if you’re unable to travel to real-world landmarks like PokéStops and Gyms — so allowing users to interact with these landmarks from farther away (for example, if a wheelchair-user can’t journey off of a paved sidewalk) opened the game up to new players.
Because Pokémon GO has long positioned itself as a game that encourages real-world exploration, worldwide lockdowns posed a unique challenge for Niantic. But by making some small changes — like expanding the interaction radius by just 40 meters, increasing Pokémon spawns and making it easier to obtain more PokéBalls — the game became easier to play from home.
These changes didn’t break the game or contradict its adventurous spirit, which made the rollback of a well-loved upgrade confusing for players, especially in light of the spreading Delta variant. From a financial standpoint, the app thrived during the pandemic. In 2020, Pokémon GO had its best-earning year since its launch in 2016, earning over $1 billion. According to app analytics firm Sensor Tower, this upward trend continued for Pokémon GO in the first half of 2021, with $642 million. This marked a 34% increase in consumer spending compared to the first half of 2020, when it made $479 million.
Dear @NianticLabs your community needs you to address the recent in-game changes to #PokemonGO. #HearUsNiantic we love this game and the communities we’ve built together. This game thrives on inclusivity and diversity. Show us you understand that. pic.twitter.com/1N6EAaM5m2
— ZoëTwoDots
(@_ZoeTwoDots) August 5, 2021
After Niantic reduced the interaction radius, Pokémon GO content creators and community members worked together to write an open letter to Niantic, which caused the hashtag #HearUsNiantic to trend on Twitter. The letter expressed that the increased radius made the game safer, more accessible and less intrusive.
Some players organized a boycott of the game on August 5th, which was referred to as “Pokémon No Day.” That same day, Niantic issued a response letter addressed to the Pokémon GO community.
“Encouraging people to explore, exercise and safely play together in person remains Niantic’s mission. The health and wellbeing of players is our top priority,” Niantic’s statement read. The company formed an “inter cross-functional team” to address these concerns and invited prominent Pokémon GO content creators to share community feedback. While expanding the interaction radius is the first result of the task force, Pokémon GO tweeted that it will share more findings on September 1.
TechCrunch asked Niantic why it initially chose to rebuke these gameplay updates despite positive community feedback, increased revenue and an ongoing pandemic, but Niantic declined to comment.
Despite players’ visible negative response on social media, Sensor Tower told TechCrunch that it didn’t see any change in consumer spending or active users for Pokémon GO around the time of the in-game strike. However, there was a significant uptick in negative App Store reviews.
Though the wider interaction radius is now reinstated, some players remain frustrated, since community leaders had previously provided this feedback in June after Niantic announced its plans to roll back these changes.
“Why did it have to take this giant community movement for any of our feedback to be heard?” said creator ZoëTwoDots in a YouTube video.
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Pokémon Unite is coming to iOS and Android on September 22
During today’s Pokémon Presents livestream, The Pokémon Company announced that Pokémon Unite will become available for iOS and Android on September 22. The strategic battle game came out for Nintendo Switch in late July, but its arrival on mobile devices will expand the game’s potential user base.
For users already playing on Nintendo Switch, fear not — the game allows cross-platform play, which means you can play on your Switch, then pick up where you left off on mobile. All users can play together regardless of which device they’re using, and it’s not necessary to have a Switch to get the mobile game. Pokémon Unite is free-to-start with microtransactions — you can purchase in-game currency to get certain items or Pokémon.
The presentation also unveiled new gameplay footage and feature news for upcoming Nintendo Switch releases: Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl (November 19, 2021), remakes of the Nintendo DS games from 2006 and Pokémon Legends: Arceus (January 28, 2022), the first open-world RPG in the Pokémon universe.
Image Credits: Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl
Like previous main series game remakes, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will expand upon the original games’ foundation and introduce features that appeared in later games, like Following Pokémon, Secret Bases and — very importantly — changing your trainer’s outfit. The game will also include re-designed features from its original release, like designing Poké Ball capsules and competing in Pokémon Contests.
But for the first time in a Pokémon Game, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will introduce a new aspect of gameplay called the Sinnoh Underground. Players can collect statues of Pokémon for their Secret Base, and depending on which statues are on display, different Pokémon will appear in Pokémon Hideaways within the Sinnoh Underground. To commemorate the 15-year-old games’ remakes, on November 5, 2021, Nintendo will release a “Dialga and Palkia Edition” of the Nintendo Switch Lite, which features the legendary Pokémon in gold and silver on a grey console.
Then, the Pokémon Company shared more information about Pokémon Legends: Arceus, a first-of-its-kind release for the iconic franchise. Fans have compared its open-world design to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which is the fourth-best-selling Nintendo Switch game with 23.2 million copies sold, but others say it’s more similar to Monster Hunter. The new game introduces the Hisui Region (an ancient version of the Sinnoh Region), along with new Pokémon like a grandpa-esque Growlithe, and an evolution of Basculin called Basculegion, which can evolve when “possessed by the souls of other Basculin from their school that could not withstand the harsh journey upstream”… Yes, this is a children’s franchise.
Nightmare-inducing new Pokémon aside, the livestream revealed more information about how exactly this new type of Pokémon game will work.
Like standard Pokémon games, players will set out on a mission to complete a Pokédex, but rather than training to become “the best like no one ever was,” they will be part of an expedition team, conducting survey work to learn more about the nature of Pokémon and the secrets they hold. In between field assignments, players can heal their party, craft items, and buy supplies at outposts (ancient Pokémon Centers?). Pokémon Legends: Arceus will also introduce a new battle style — like Pokémon Unite, it won’t simply repurpose the turn-based gameplay we’ve been accustomed to since the first Pokémon games were released in 1998.
Anyway, these games seem promising, but just try your best not to think about Basculegion.
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How Niantic evolved Pokémon GO for the year no one could go anywhere
Pokémon GO was created to encourage players to explore the world while coordinating impromptu large group gatherings — activities we’ve all been encouraged to avoid since the pandemic began.
And yet, analysts estimate that 2020 was Pokémon GO’s highest-earning year yet.
By twisting some knobs and tweaking variables, Pokémon GO became much easier to play without leaving the house.
Niantic’s approach to 2020 was full of carefully considered changes, and I’ve highlighted many of their key decisions below.
Consider this something of an addendum to the Niantic EC-1 I wrote last year, where I outlined things like the company’s beginnings as a side project within Google, how Pokémon Go began as an April Fools’ joke and the company’s aim to build the platform that powers the AR headsets of the future.
Hit the brakes
On a press call outlining an update Niantic shipped in November, the company put it on no uncertain terms: the roadmap they’d followed over the last ten-or-so months was not the one they started the year with. Their original roadmap included a handful of new features that have yet to see the light of day. They declined to say what those features were of course (presumably because they still hope to launch them once the world is less broken) — but they just didn’t make sense to release right now.
Instead, as any potential end date for the pandemic slipped further into the horizon, the team refocused in Q1 2020 on figuring out ways to adapt what already worked and adjust existing gameplay to let players do more while going out less.
Turning the dials
As its name indicates, GO was never meant to be played while sitting at home. John Hanke’s initial vision for Niantic was focused around finding ways to get people outside and playing together; from its very first prototype, Niantic had players running around a city to take over its virtual equivalent block by block. They’d spent nearly a decade building up a database of real-world locations that would act as in-game points meant to encourage exploration and wandering. Years of development effort went into turning Pokémon GO into more and more of a social game, requiring teamwork and sometimes even flash mob-like meetups for its biggest challenges.
Now it all needed to work from the player’s couch.
The earliest changes were those that were easiest for Niantic to make on-the-fly, but they had dramatic impacts on the way the game actually works.
Some of the changes:
- Doubling the players “radius” for interacting with in-game gyms, landmarks that players can temporarily take over for their in-game team, earning occupants a bit of in-game currency based on how long they maintain control. This change let more gym battles happen from the couch.
- Increasing spawn points, generally upping the number of Pokémon you could find at home dramatically.
- Increasing “incense” effectiveness, which allowed players to use a premium item to encourage even more Pokémon to pop up at home. Niantic phased this change out in October, then quietly reintroduced it in late November. Incense would also last twice as long, making it cheaper for players to use.
- Allowing steps taken indoors (read: on treadmills) to count toward in-game distance challenges.
- Players would no longer need to walk long distances to earn entry into the online player-versus-player battle system.
- Your “buddy” Pokémon (a specially designated Pokémon that you can level up Tamagotchi-style for bonus perks) would now bring you more gifts of items you’d need to play. Pre-pandemic, getting these items meant wandering to the nearby “Pokéstop” landmarks.
By twisting some knobs and tweaking variables, Pokémon GO became much easier to play without leaving the house — but, importantly, these changes avoided anything that might break the game while being just as easy to reverse once it became safe to do so.
GO Fest goes virtual
Like this, just … online. Image Credits: Greg Kumparak
Thrown by Niantic every year since 2017, GO Fest is meant to be an ultra-concentrated version of the Pokémon GO experience. Thousands of players cram into one park, coming together to tackle challenges and capture previously unreleased Pokémon.
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Niantic will make Pokémon GO more stay-at-home friendly with remote raids
Pokémon GO was built to be played outside, with friends, as you wandered around and explored interesting landmarks around you — or, you know, the exact opposite of what we’re supposed to be doing right now.
Niantic has been working on transitioning the game into something that can still be played from your couch (Pokémon StayTheHellAtHome, if you will), and today it detailed one of the bigger upcoming changes: remote raids.
Raids, first introduced in 2017, allow players to band together to take down massive, super-strong and often quite rare Pokémon. If the group wins, everyone gets the chance to catch the Pokémon.
Up until this point, raiding meant going to a specific location at a specific time to meet with up to 19 other players. That idea… doesn’t really work anymore. Thus, remote raids!
Here’s how it’ll work:
- Once the change goes live in the coming days, you’ll be able to join any raid you can see on your “nearby” screen. You won’t actually have to go to the location, just be close enough for the game to show it to you (a few blocks away, generally.)
- For achievements/tasks/etc., remote raids will count the same as standard raids.
- Taking part in a remote raid will require a remote raid pass which, of course, will be a premium item. They’ll cost 100 Pokécoins each when bought individually, or about a dollar.
- At first, remote raiders will be just as strong as those actually on-site. It sounds like as the need for remote raids goes away (that is, presumably, once shelter-in-place orders are eventually relaxed), remote raiders will still be welcome but won’t do as much damage as those on location.
- Eventually, Niantic says they’ll allow you to invite friends to raids regardless of where they are. Need an assist from a friend who is miles away? Hop into the raid, then invite them.
Niantic also mentioned that they’ll be giving each player one daily stay-at-home-centric “Field Research” task, and that Buddy Pokémon will now bring you item-packed gift boxes to send to friends rather than requiring you to visit Pokéstops. Items, meanwhile, will now be stackable in their duration. Know you want incense drawing Pokémon to your location for the next two hours but don’t want to have to remember to fire one off every 30 minutes? Trigger four at once, and they’ll stack.
Niantic hasn’t given a specific time frame for when remote raids will roll out, saying only that they’re “coming soon.”
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Building long-tail success after a breakout game
For many gamers, Pokémon GO was an exciting fad that ate up their summer and was just another chapter in a franchise. A lot of these people would already treat the game like some sort of nostalgic mid-2010s hit, but the game is minting cash from users at a more expansive rate that ever. A report in Sensor Tower this week estimated that 2019 was Niantic’s best year to date in terms of in-app purchase revenue from Pokémon GO users, noting that the company likely pulled in nearly $900 million according to its estimates.
The rate of user revenue is still lower now than it was following launch, Pokémon GO launched in just a few markets at the beginning of July 2016 and Sensor Tower estimates its revenue reached $832 million in the final six months of that year. But with higher year-over-year totals compared to 2017 and 2018, the estimates do suggest that Niantic’s aggressive updates to gameplay and its in-game social features helped boost revenues.
The truth is, every couple years there’s a new gaming title that accumulates users at a startling pace. What happens after the press cycle churns and the game is left to its own devices is where the great studios prove themselves. Niantic is in a cushy position as its breakout title fills its coffers, but the company still has some soul-searching ahead of it as it simultaneously aims to chase a follow-on hit and a developer platform.
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Pokémon Sword and Shield are getting downloadable expansions this year
If you’ve already completed your Pokédex and battled your way up to become the Champion of Galar, you might’ve figured you were just about done with Pokémon Sword/Shield.
Surprise! More is on the way — for a price, that is.
This morning Nintendo announced that it’s working on not one, but two downloadable expansions for Sword and Shield: The Isle of Armor (arriving June 2020) and The Crown Tundra (coming sometime “in the fall of 2020”). A $30 “Expansion Pass” that’s up for pre-order today gets you both downloads when they arrive.
While this definitely isn’t the first time Nintendo has dabbled with DLC, it is the first time they’ve done so with a main series Pokémon title. Considering that Sword/Shield is one of the best-selling Switch games of all time, it makes sense that Nintendo isn’t quite ready to be done with it.
So what’s new in the expansions?
Each pack will bring new areas to explore, along with new characters, storylines and, of course, Pokémon. Nintendo and GameFreak aren’t getting too specific about how many new Pokémon we’ll see, but do note that the expansions will include brand new monsters, Gigantamax and Galarian forms of existing ‘mon, plus support for an unspecified number of past Pokémon transferable from previous Pokémon titles.
While the expansions won’t ship for a few months, the companies are releasing what they call “a small slice” of the new stuff today via a free update.
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Mobile gaming is a $68.5 billion global business, and investors are buying in
Omer Kaplan
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Omer Kaplan is CMO and co-founder at ironSource.
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By the end of 2019, the global gaming market is estimated to be worth $152 billion, with 45% of that, $68.5 billion, coming directly from mobile games. With this tremendous growth (10.2% YoY to be precise) has come a flurry of investments and acquisitions, everyone wanting a cut of the pie. In fact, over the last 18 months, the global gaming industry has seen $9.6 billion in investments and if investments continue at this current pace, the amount of investment generated in 2018-19 will be higher than the eight previous years combined.
What’s interesting is why everyone is talking about games, and who in the market is responding to this — and how.
The gaming phenomenon
Today, mobile games account for 33% of all app downloads, 74% of consumer spend and 10% of all time spent in-app. It’s predicted that in 2019, 2.4 billion people will play mobile games around the world — that’s almost one-third of the global population. In fact, 50% of mobile app users play games, making this app category as popular as music apps like Spotify and Apple Music, and second only to social media and communications apps in terms of time spent.
In the U.S., time spent on mobile devices has also officially outpaced that of television — with users spending eight more minutes per day on their mobile devices. By 2021, this number is predicted to increase to more than 30 minutes. Apps are the new prime time, and games have grabbed the lion’s share.
Accessibility is the highest it’s ever been as barriers to entry are virtually non-existent. From casual games to the recent rise of the wildly popular hyper-casual genre of games that are quick to download, easy to play and lend themselves to being played in short sessions throughout the day, games are played by almost every demographic stratum of society. Today, the average age of a mobile gamer is 36.3 (compared with 27.7 in 2014), the gender split is 51% female, 49% male, and one-third of all gamers are between the ages of 36-50 — a far cry from the traditional stereotype of a “gamer.”
With these demographic, geographic and consumption sea-changes in the mobile ecosystem and entertainment landscape, it’s no surprise that the game space is getting increased attention and investment, not just from within the industry, but more recently from traditional financial markets and even governments. Let’s look at how the markets have responded to the rise of gaming.
Image courtesy of David Maung/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Games on games
The first substantial investments in mobile gaming came from those who already had a stake in the industry. Tencent invested $90 million in Pocket Gems and$126 million in Glu Mobile (for a 14.6% stake), gaming powerhouse Supercell invested $5 million in mobile game studio Redemption Games, Boom Fantasy raised $2M million from ESPN and the MLB and Gamelynx raised $1.2 million from several investors — one of which was Riot Games. Most recently, Ubisoft acquired a 70% stake in Green Panda Games to bolster its foot in the hyper-casual gaming market.
Additionally, bigger gaming studios began to acquire smaller ones. Zynga bought Gram Games, Ubisoft acquired Ketchapp, Niantic purchased Seismic Games and Tencent bought Supercell (as well as a 40% stake in Epic Games). And the list goes on.
Wall Street wakes up
Beyond the flurry of investments and acquisitions from within the game industry, games are also generating huge amounts of revenue. Since launch, Pokémon GO has generated $2.3 billion in revenue and Fortnite has amassed some 250 million players. This is catching the attention of more traditional financial institutions, like private equity firms and VCs, which are now looking at a variety of investment options in gaming — not just of gaming studios, but all those who have a stake in or support the industry.
In May 2018, hyper-casual mobile gaming studio Voodoo announced a $200 million investment from Goldman Sachs’ private equity investment arm. For the first time ever, a mobile gaming studio attracted the attention of a venerable old financial institution. The explosion of the hyper-casual genre and the scale its titles are capable of achieving, together with the intensely iterative, data-driven business model afforded by the low production costs of games like this, were catching the attention of investors outside of the gaming world, looking for the next big growth opportunity.
The trend continued. In July 2018, private equity firm KKR bought a $400 million minority stake in AppLovin and now, exactly one year later, Blackstone announced their plan to acquire mobile ad-network Vungle for a reported $750 million. Not only is money going into gaming studios, but investments are being made into companies whose technology supports the mobile gaming space. Traditional investors are finally taking notice of the mobile gaming ecosystem as a whole and the explosive growth it has produced in recent years. This year alone mobile games are expected to generate $55 billion in revenue, so this new wave of investment interest should really come as no surprise.
A woman holds up her cell phone as she plays the Pokemon GO game in Lafayette Park in front of the White House in Washington, DC, July 12, 2016. (Photo: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)
Government intervention
Most recently, governments are realizing the potential and reach of the gaming industry and making their own investment moves. We’re seeing governments establish funds that support local gaming businesses — providing incentives for gaming studios to develop and retain their creatives, technology and employees locally — as well as programs that aim to attract foreign talent.
As uncertainty looms in England surrounding Brexit, France has jumped on the opportunity with “Join the Game.” They’re painting France as an international hub that is already home to many successful gaming studios, and they’re offering tax breaks and plenty of funding options — for everything from R&D to the production of community events. Their website even has an entire page dedicated to “getting settled in France,” in English, with a step-by-step guide on how game developers should prepare for their arrival.
The U.K. Department for International Trade used this year’s Game Developers Conference as a backdrop for the promotion of their games fund — calling the U.K. “one of the most flourishing game developing ecosystems in the world.” The U.K. Games Fund allows for both local and foreign-owned gaming companies with a presence in the U.K. to apply for tax breaks. And ever since France announced their fund, more and more people have begun encouraging the British government to expand their program, saying that the U.K. gaming ecosystem should be “retained and enhanced.” But, not only does the government take gaming seriously, the Queen does as well. In 2008, David Darling, the CEO of hyper-casual game studio Kwalee, was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to the games industry. CBE is the third-highest honor the Queen can bestow on a British citizen.
Over in Germany, and the government has allocated €50 million of its 2019 budget for the creation of a games fund. In Sweden, the Sweden Game Arena is a public-private partnership that helps students develop games using government-funded offices and equipment. It also links students and startups with established companies and investors. While these numbers dwarf the investment of more commercial or financial players, the sudden uptick in interest governments are paying to the game space indicate just how exciting and lucrative gaming has become.
Support is coming from all levels
The evolution of investment in the gaming space is indicative of the stratospheric growth, massive revenue, strong user engagement and extensive demographic and geographic reach of mobile gaming. With the global games industry projected to be worth a quarter of a trillion dollars by 2023, it comes as no surprise that the diverse players globally have finally realized its true potential and have embraced the gaming ecosystem as a whole.
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A chat with Niantic CEO John Hanke on the launch of Harry Potter: Wizards Unite
Just shy of three years ago, Pokémon GO took over the world. Players filled the sidewalks, and crowds of trainers flooded parks and landmarks. Anywhere you looked, people were throwing Pokéballs and chasing Snorlax.
As the game grew, so did the company behind it. Niantic had started its life as an experimental “lab” within Google — an effort on Google’s part to keep the team’s founder, John Hanke, from parting ways to start his own thing. In the months surrounding GO’s launch, Niantic’s team shrank dramatically, spun out of Google, and then rapidly expanded… all while trying to keep GO’s servers from buckling under demand and to keep this massive influx of players happy. Want to know more about the company’s story so far? Check out the Niantic EC-1 on ExtraCrunch here.
Now Niantic is back with its next title, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Built in collaboration with WB Games, it’s a reimagining of Pokémon GO’s real-world, location-based gaming concept through the lens of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter universe.
I got a chance to catch up with John Hanke for a few minutes earlier this week — just ahead of the game’s US/UK launch this morning. We talked about how they prepared for this game’s launch, how it’s built upon a platform they’ve been developing across their other titles for years, and how Niantic’s partnership with WB Games works creatively and financially.
Greg Kumparak: Can you tell me a bit about how all this came to be?
John Hanke: Yeah, you know.. we did Ingress first, and we were thinking about other projects we could build. Pokémon was one that came up early, so we jumped on that — but the other one that was always there from the beginning, of the projects we wanted to do, was Harry Potter. I mean, it’s universally beloved. My kids love the books and movies, so it’s something I always wanted to do.
Like Pokémon, it was an IP we felt was a great fit for [augmented reality]. That line between the “muggle” world and the “magic” world was paper thin in the fiction, so imagining breaking through that fourth wall and experiencing that magic through AR seemed like a great way to use the technology to fulfill an awesome fan fantasy.
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Pokémon Sword and Shield arrive worldwide on November 15, 2019
Nintendo Switch has Pokémon games, but it doesn’t really have its own Pokémon games, not in the true sense. Pokémon Sword and Shield, coming November 15, 2019, will be the first real Pokémon games (don’t even mention Pokémon Let’s Go – don’t) for Nintendo Switch, and now we know more about them thanks to today’s Pokémon Direct livestream event from Nintendo.
Starting with the intro video, you can tell that Sword and Shield will be a full-fledged new extension of the Pokémon world taking place in the new Galar region – a fact emphasized by the theme song that played over it which featured the catchy hook “A whoollle new worlllddd.”
Plus in this new region, part of the fiction is that everyone loves watching battles on TV, which seems like it will come into play for big battles. We also got a glimpse at a bunch of new Pokémon, including a sheep one called Wooloo; a flower thing called Gossifleur (which evolves to Eldegoss); plus a “bite” type called Dredgnaw.
There’s also a new place called, not super imaginatively, the “Wild Area” which is pretty much an open world between human settlements where you get the chance to encounter wild Pokémon you can catch. These will vary depending on weather conditions and time of day, and it looks like much more of a free-ranging experience, when compared to the relatively hard-tracked previous instalments.
Pokémon also get a special power called ‘Dynamax’ in this instalment, which is a special power that makes them huge and more powerful for three turns. This also factors into a new mode where up to four Pokémon trainers can team up to squad raid a single Dynamax wild Pokémon who retains their amped up power for the duration of the conflict. At the end, players get a chance to capture the Pokémon – and some are exclusively available to catch this way.
We also got an intro to new characters including region champion Leon, his younger brother Hop (a primary rival for the player), plus a really quick look at some of the gym battles.
The real capper though was a CG cinematic introducing the game’s legendaries, which are wolf-like Pokémon who have – you guessed it – a sword and a shield respectively. These are called Zacian and Zamazenta.
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Pokémon GO will soon use sleep data to ‘reward good sleep habits’
Well, here’s a bit of surprise news this evening: At some point in the future, Pokémon GO is going to wrap the player’s sleep habits into the gameplay.
It’ll come as part of a wider initiative by The Pokémon Company to — as CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara put it in a press conference this evening — “turn sleep into entertainment.” Which… well, we’ll see how that goes.
Niantic CEO John Hanke took the stage at the press conference for a moment, but didn’t really offer much in the way of details. Said Hanke:
Niantic pioneered a new kind of gaming by turning the whole world into a gameboard, where we can all play and explore. By creating a new way to see the world and an incentive to go outside and exercise, we hoped to encourage a healthy lifestyle and to make a positive impact on our players and on the world. We’re delighted to be working with The Pokémon Company on their efforts to encourage another part of a healthy lifestyle: getting a good night’s rest.
At Niantic, we love exploring the world on foot. And that can’t happen unless we have the energy to embark on these adventures. We’re excited to find ways to reward good sleep habits in Pokémon GO as part of a healthy lifestyle. You’ll be hearing more from us on this in the future.
Ishihara also announced that The Pokémon Company is working with SELECT BUTTON (the company behind the 2017 mobile title Magikarp Jump) to make a separate game called Pokémon SLEEP. Next to no details on that one yet, though, besides a launch window of sometime in 2020 and the logo:
All of it will tap a just-announced device called Pokémon GO+ Plus (Yeah. Two plusses, one written. Go Plus Plus.) It’s a follow-up to the original GO+, which was built primarily to let you play Pokémon GO without actually looking at your phone’s screen. The GO Plus Plus will do everything the GO+ did (letting you tap a button to spin Pokéstops, or catch nearby Pokémon) but also has a built-in accelerometer allowing it to be laid on your bed to track sleep habits and send ’em back to your phone via Bluetooth.
And here’s a screenshot of a video that played alongside the announcement, showing the device as it’s meant to be used:
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