“Go Tour was by many metrics our most successful week ever.”
How much does someone who built the foundations ofPokemon Gostill play the game, eight years on?
“I spend as much of my time beating up the game as possible,” he laughs.
This is often using work-in-progress beta builds, he admits, to ensure upcoming features are bug-tested.
It’s fair to say Pokemon Go did the job.
“It’s not only healthy, but it’s growing,” Wu says of the game now.
If you’re standing in the countryside, you’ll catch Pokemon surrounded by fields and trees.
In the city, you’ll be around skyscrapers.
Wu can’t help but stop and point it out.
“I knew that after all that hard work it was right,” he recalls.
Could it get as granular as offering specific Pokemon around specific buildings or businesses?
The ice cream Pokemon Vanillite near an ice cream parlour?
Niantic’s other gamePikmin Bloomoffers something similar, I say.
“Well,” Wu laughs, “obviously we have the data.”
“I think there’s always a balance to be had.
Ice cream shops are a good one, though…
But, seemingly, its renewed efforts to ensure Pokemon Go remains a success are paying off.
“Like, hands down.”
More than the game’s annual summer Go Fest events?
More than previous Tours that focused on Kanto and Johto?
“It allows us to give more value to them without…” he trails off.
Giving 33 percent of your cut to Apple or Google?
And we know they are wrong because they don’t have access to that data.
They don’t have visibility into non-mobile numbers.”
Clearly, the much decried nerf to remote raiding hasn’t dented the game’s overall popularity.
People banded together and went out and about.
Maybe you already got your Shiny, but you were out with the group.
Ultimately, experiencing the game together keeps the game healthy.
We see that in the data."
“There are literally millions of knobs in the game.
And that’s still a process, I’ll be frank.
If you compare Pokemon Go to any other kind of game, there’s basically nothing like it.
We’re talking about a single worldwide instance.
“Allow me to be an engineer for a second,” Wu continues, getting visibly more exited.
“It’s a single instance serving tens of millions of people, and simultaneously!
And how do other MMOs accomplish this?
We can’t do that either.”
He takes another beat.
“I mean, again, we’re not perfect.
I don’t want to say our job is done.
And if you think about this more deeply, doing this kind of computing is actually incredibly foundational.”
But the game exists in the real-world, and the real-world isn’t like that.
More people want to play Pokemon Go in central London than in the Scottish highlands.
“It’s exciting.
I’m wondering whether these, too, has helped swell the game’s finances.
We want to create something that’s actually joyful that people experience, with goals they can work towards.
Could Pokemon Go ever offer more in terms of narrative?
Longer stories or plotlines beyond the very basic seasonal research and shorter event quests seen at present?
“There is a balance,” Wu replies.
But there’s fun things to learn about for those who want to engage with it.
It should be - not simple as insimplistic, but just enough to create a sense of wonder.”
I asked Wu what Niantic’s plans were for both in the future.
And now we have the infrastructure, the basics in the system for folks to invoke them.”
And as for Arceus?
“There are lots of ideas,” he laughs.
So what is on the agenda for 2024?
As a development team, that’s the trajectory we’re aspiring to and getting back to.
I can very happily say we have now passed a milestone of more than 2m Routes published.
And we have a commitment to launch major features which transform the way people play the game."
