Pokémon Go served a purpose, and it was not indeed to be neither a “game” nor excel in “AR”.
Niantic’s (an Alphabet company) founder John Hanke (Google Earth, Google Maps, Street View…) achieved with Pokémon Go the most relevant production proof of concept that besides creating predictive products based on the “behavioural surplus” they could in fact, and globally, increase the effectiveness by simply herding people into bars, McDonald’s restaurants, shops and transforming the predictions into an actual increase of outcome. Users where instrumented into a predictable outcome.
With this Niantic in my opinion serves a greater and historical purpose: to demonstrate that this behaviourist approach to generate predictable results and monetise it was possible at a global scale.
Niantic’s (an Alphabet company) founder John Hanke (Google Earth, Google Maps, Street View…) achieved with Pokémon Go the most relevant production proof of concept that besides creating predictive products based on the “behavioural surplus” they could in fact, and globally, increase the effectiveness by simply herding people into bars, McDonald’s restaurants, shops and transforming the predictions into an actual increase of outcome. Users where instrumented into a predictable outcome.
With this Niantic in my opinion serves a greater and historical purpose: to demonstrate that this behaviourist approach to generate predictable results and monetise it was possible at a global scale.
It was surveillance capitalism at its prime.