Pokemon Go maker Niantic making a game of the world

SAN FRANCISCO - Pokemon Go maker Niantic on Wednesday moved closer to turning the world into a giant game board in a fun mix of fantasy and reality.

San Francisco-based Niantic opened the door for outside developers to build titles to add to its current lineup of mobile games which includes Pokemon Go, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. and Ingress.

"We think there are adventures everywhere waiting to be discovered," Niantic founder and chief executive John Hanke said at a press briefing.

He laid out a vision of "planet-scale" augmented reality where the technology gets people "off the couch and playing together" in parks, streets, cafes and just about anywhere "atoms and bytes meet" and users can ramble in search of virtual creatures.

The invitation to developers interested in building on the Niantic platform came as the company announced that "Run to My Heart" made by JCSoft in Silicon Valley took top place in the company's first "Beyond Reality Contest" that featured a total of $1 million in prize money.

Themes of games in the competition ranged from steampunk tank battles to protecting animal sanctuaries.

"We decided to combine love of running and games as a way for friends to go out and explore," said Jenny Xu of JCSoft, a family enterprise.

The game is set in a world where people who don't run are turned into potatoes.

A Niantic creator program set to launch early next year will have a fund of $10 million to be spent over the course of three years to help developers build experiences for its AR platform.

"Augmented reality is going to reshape the entertainment experiences of tomorrow, altering how we engage with the digital and real worlds," said Niantic head of developer relations Kellee Santiago.

"We know developers are key to creating the new kinds of experiences that get people to explore and connect with the real world."

Niantic collaborated with Warner Brothers Games to create Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, and Pokemon Go was created in a partnership with Nintendo.

Pointing the way

Niantic is looking to improve the real-world maps that provide destinations or points of engagement such as Pokemon Go gyms where virtual battles take place.

Niantic games have been built with the help of player-contributed map information that dates back to when people playing its first game Ingress used smartphones with GPS capabilities to submit places of potential interest.

"We call them waypoints," Hanke said.

"This has been a journey along with our players; as more people play they curate the data."

Since the launch of Ingress some eight years ago, about 27 million locations have been submitted for consideration as waypoints, with 9.4 million having become part of the "live game board."

A "Wayfarer" program now allows high-level players of Niantic games to submit spots they think special for consideration as new points on the game board.

"We are building the foundations for planet-scale AR," Hanke said.

Niantic is also bolstering the business side of its platform by letting small or medium-size businesses schedule events such as Pokemon Go "raids" where players rally together to battle tough in-game adversaries.

Previously, Niantic had only had such partnerships with nationwide companies such as McDonalds or 7-Eleven.

"This is the first time mom-and-pop shops can easily and quickly become a part of Niantic's products," said partnership products lead Carla Li.

Shops can use the opportunities to bring in people when business is slow and make their presence known in communities. The partnerships also revenue opportunities by being able to promote businesses without interrupting play with traditional ads.

Niantic was also tapping into machine vision and other technology to make games more interactive, such as enabling virtual characters to act more naturally by waiting for doors to open or avoiding bumping into people.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Pokemon Go's Niantic taps 'Harry Potter' magic for new AR game

LOS ANGELES - Fantastic beasts, wizard adventures and magic spells will come to life in a new "Harry Potter" augmented reality mobile game from Pokemon Go developer Niantic Inc and Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment, the companies said on Wednesday.

"Harry Potter: Wizards Unite" will bring author J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World to mobile phones and use augmented reality (AR) to create a real-world scavenger hunt, allow players to cast spells, find artifacts, team up and encounter magical beasts and characters from the popular book series.

The game's use of real locations is similar to Niantic and Nintendo Co Ltd's Pokemon Go, which became the first mass market adoption of AR in July 2016 and allows players to "catch" animated characters that appeared in their real surroundings.

No release date was given for the "Harry Potter" game, but Niantic and Time Warner Inc's Warner Bros said more details would be available next year.

Warner Bros Pictures, which produced the $7.7 billion-grossing "Harry Potter" film franchise, will release "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2" in November 2018, the second installment in a new series of films that expand the world Rowling created in her Potter franchise.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Nintendo to release Super Mario Run in mobile game test

TOKYO - Nintendo will on Thursday release Super Mario Run, its first iPhone game and a key test of its foray into mobile gaming, hot on the heels of the Pokemon Go craze.

The game will start selling in 151 countries and regions later Thursday and will become available on Android-based devices at a later date.

The highly anticipated release comes after the Kyoto-based Wii console maker refused for years to move into smartphone gaming or license its characters for online play.

But, as it struggled to repair its finances, the firm changed course and announced last year it was teaming up with Japanese mobile specialist DeNA to develop games for smartphones and tablets based on its host of popular characters.

In March, Nintendo released its first mobile game "Miitomo" -- a free-to-play and interactive game that allows users to create avatars.

Then the Pokemon Go game -- based on Nintendo characters -- exploded into the public consciousness, being downloaded more than half a billion times.

But it was only partly Nintendo's creation -- the game is owned by San Francisco-based Niantic -- and it's had little impact on the firm's bottom line.

Super Mario Run, based on Nintendo's iconic Italian plumber, is the firm's most important move so far into mobile gaming.

Randy Nelson, head of mobile insights at US-based industry analyst group Sensor Tower, said it was likely to be a hit in the first month or so.

"We have no doubt that first month downloads of Super Mario Run will be historic -- likely much greater than Pokemon Go -- thanks to months of prominent featuring by Apple, extensive media coverage, and more," he wrote in a blog.

But a nearly $10 price tag to buy the full version could scare away some potential customers, Pokemon Go is free, and Android users won't be able to buy it until a later date.

"It's not like it will be Pokemon Go of 500 million downloads in two months," Macquarie Securities analyst David Gibson told Bloomberg News, instead estimating about 200 million downloads by the end of March.

"Nostalgic Nintendo players will almost certainly spend. But what matters is if the marginal customer says this is good, yeah, I’ll spend the money."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Pokemon Go spurs lifestyle changes, business boom as it rolls out in Asia

JAKARTA - Asian fans of smartphone game Pokemon Go are hunting out the best telecom providers and network gear to overcome the hurdle posed by patchy network signals in their race to capture virtual cartoon characters.

From Indonesia to Hong Kong and Cambodia, the wild popularity of Nintendo's augmented reality app is also driving lifestyle changes for many gamers, who must trudge through real-life locations in their quest.

The game launched in many Southeast Asian countries on Aug. 5, a month after the United States, New Zealand and Australia, but enthusiasts are finding they must first vanquish shaky transmission signals.

In Indonesia, Muchamad Syaifudin, a 29-year-old bank employee, said he switched to a mobile carrier offering better data packages, while his friends snapped up modems, at a cost of $20 each, to lock on to the signals.

"We can bring the modems to play, especially at places where a signal is hard to find," Syaifudin told Reuters by telephone.

He and his friends living in Central Java, a province famed for its idyllic paddy fields and mountains, used to spend leisure time playing strategy games at home.

But now, armed with the new devices, they increasingly venture out to catch the Pokemons that appear at temples and other landmarks where people gather.

In Hong Kong, commuters are hopping on the trams known as "ding dings" in their forays, while in countries such as Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, the U.S. State Department has sent tweets warning players to beware of unexploded wartime mines.

The game officially launched just two weeks ago in Indonesia, but tens of thousands of enthusiastic adopters among a population of 250 million had started playing earlier, using proxy sites to access app stores elsewhere.

Gamers are fueling a boom for modem makers, such as PT Smartfren Telecom, whose nationwide sales of 4G modems, priced around 300,000 rupiah ($23) each, have jumped five-fold in just two months.

The firm has launched new devices with bigger battery capacity, Derrick Surya, Smartfren's vice president for brand and marketing communication, told Reuters.

Retailers also benefit as more gamers seek devices to power up mobile connections and minimize the expense of data packages.

"More and more customers are looking for alternative sources of additional mobile network capacity," said Billy Cahya, a salesman at an electronics shop in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.

Also surging, however, is the demand for game innovations, ranging from new characters to a higher maximum level players can reach, said Syaifudin.

"Looking for Pokemons, looking for items, battling at gyms...We have done that again and again," he said, referring to game sites where players stage contests between virtual characters.

"It probably needs a new concept to retain our interest."

Other players complain rural areas have few Pokestops, or stockpile sites to secure equipment needed to catch Pokemons.

"We have fewer Pokestops in Legazpi City compared to metropolitan areas," said Rey Anthony Ostria, a player in the Philippine city about 340 km (211 miles) from Manila, the capital.

"In towns that I have visited, there's almost none."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Pentagon clamps down on Pokemon Go

The Pentagon doesn't like Pikachu.

In the latest bizarre news surrounding the global phenomenon that is Pokemon Go, US Defense Department officials on Friday said employees should not download the game onto their government-issued smartphones.

"You can imagine a number of reasons [why] that wouldn't necessarily be a prudent thing to do," Pentagon deputy press secretary Gordon Trowbridge told reporters.

"Aside from any security concerns, I think taxpayers would appreciate government phones being used for government business."

Pokemon Go is an augmented reality app through which users hunt fictional digitized animal characters like the furry yellow Pikachu, which have been scattered around the world, often in unlikely locations.

The game has become a global craze, with crowds of players dashing to locations to try to snag characters.

Several military installations have warned troops about the possible perils of playing Pokemon Go on bases, including near runways.

Trowbridge jokingly said he could not definitively confirm reports a Pokemon "gym" -- a virtual battle arena -- has been placed in the courtyard in the middle of the vast Pentagon building.

"Last I heard, there was still a gym in center courtyard. I'm not a player myself so I will defer to others," Trowbridge said.

"I can confirm it," quipped Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

New York bars sex offenders from Pokemon Go

New York, United States - It's the smartphone game electrifying the world but New York took steps Monday to ban sex offenders from using the app to potentially prey on child victims.

The game, developed by US-based software company Niantic, a spinoff of Google, has been downloaded more than 75 million times across the United States and has gone viral across the world.

But Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered New York's department of corrections to ban nearly 3,000 registered offenders on parole from downloading, accessing or taking part in Pokemon Go as well as other Internet-enabled games.

"Protecting New York's children is priority number one and, as technology evolves, we must ensure these advances don't become new avenues for dangerous predators to prey on new victims," Cuomo said in a statement.

The governor wrote Monday to software developer Niantic, Inc. asking them to bar sexual predators from playing Pokemon.

"The state has taken action to prohibit sex offenders from using this game, but we need your assistance to make certain that sex offenders will not continue to use Pokemon GO by technologically barring their use," he said in the letter.

A report from two New York state senators showed that children playing Pokemon have been unwittingly lured into proximity of sex offenders.

Their investigation caught 57 Pokemon characters directly outside 100 homes of registered sex offenders on probation or parole whose crimes involved child abuse or possession of child pornography in the city of New York.

There are nearly 3,000 sex offenders currently on parole in New York, the fourth most populous state in the United States.

Since 2008, New York sex offenders have been required to register all email accounts and Internet identities with the state criminal justice services.

The list is given to more than two dozen social networking companies on a weekly basis in order to purge offenders from their membership.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Pokemon GO blamed for illegal border crossing from Canada to U.S.

Two youths unaware of their surroundings when they were playing Pokemon GO on their cell phones made an illegal border crossing this week from Canada into the United States in a remote part of Montana, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol said.

The two, who were not identified, were found by U.S. Border Patrol agents on Thursday, with their attention affixed to their phones as they were trying to hunt down cartoon characters on a journey that took them over the border.

"Both juveniles were so captivated by their Pokemon GO games that they lost track of where they were," said Michael Rappold, a spokesman for the agency.

The two were reunited with their mothers at a nearby border patrol station, the agency said.

The game has been an unexpected success from Spain to Australia, doubling Nintendo's value since the game's launch in the United States earlier this month.

Using mobile devices, players search for virtual Pokemon characters that appear to pop up at office spaces, restaurants, museums and other places. Players score points in various ways, including capturing the Pokemon characters with a flick of a finger on their phone screen.

The game was also to blame for a rash of car accidents and a slew of mishaps stemming from distracted players.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Bernard Orr)

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Can't wait for Pokemon GO? Here are older games to enjoy in the meantime

OK, the Pokémon GO phenomenon is now so huge that people couldn’t wait for it. In the Philippines, a number of Pokémon GO Facebook groups have been cropping up while previous Pokémon online communities have expanded to include discussions on the upcoming game.

So while waiting for the game to arrive in the Philippines, here are some of the interesting Pokémon games that you can play, if you can get your hands on their cartridges and the consoles where you can play them:

1. Pokémon Shuffle

This is probably the first true Pokémon mobile game and the one that is most accessible to everyone. Shuffle was originally launched on the Nintendo 3DS handheld console but was later ported for Android and iOS devices. But unlike the traditional gameplay of most Pokémon games, Pokémon Shuffle plays like another mobile game: Candy Crush. And yes, you still get to capture Pokémon every time you win a puzzle. What’s more, Pokémon Shuffle is free to play on mobile.

2. Pokkén Tournament 

 

Yes, it plays as it sounds. Fans of the Tekken game series would have some familiarity when playing this Pokémon fighting game for the arcade and Wii U home console. Made by the same company that made Tekken, Pokkén Tournament tries to mix the side-scrolling fighting style of Tekken, as well as a “field” element wherein the Pokémon characters can freely move and use their specific skills. It may be a bit jarring to play for hardcore Pokémon fans but it’ll give that quick fix when seeing Pokémon start using their special attacks.

3. PokéPark 1 & 2

You really don’t get to train, battle, and trade Pokémon here but you’d get to play as Pikachu in a number of mini-games and interact with various types of Pokémon. And since it’s on the Nintendo Wii, players can utilize the motion sensing capability its remote to move your creatures around.

4. Pokémon X and Y

Previous iterations of Pokémon games on all of the consoles were in drawn in 2D anime-style animation. But Pokémon X and Y for the Nintendo 3DS were the first games that used 3D cel-shaded graphics and it also added “Mega Evolutions,” which made Pokémon become more powerful.

5. Pokémon Red and Blue

The two games that really started the phenomenon. You’d be hard pressed to find cartridges of these games or even a working generation 1 Game Boy to play it on. You might get lucky finding these in trade shops in Greenhills. Released in 1998, Red and Blue had 150 Pokémon that could be captured, trained, battled, and traded. From the get-go, Red and Blue really allowed for multiplayer gaming as it utilized a physical cable (Game Link) to allow two Game Boys for battling and trading. While they may look excessively ancient to play now, especially with the simple button layout of the Game Boy, Red and Blue’s gameplay is practically the same as any of the new Pokémon games around and it still stands up to the test of time.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Pokemon GO could be next big marketing tool for retailers

NEW YORK - Pokemon GO, a mobile game that has rocketed to the top of Apple Inc and Android app stores in record time, looks set to challenge young internet companies which specialize in increasing foot traffic for small businesses and may end up playing a role in major brands' marketing, according to industry experts.

The augmented reality game from Japan's Nintendo Co Ltd, where players walk around real-life neighborhoods to hunt down virtual cartoon characters on their smartphone screens, has more than 65 million users in the United States just seven days after launch.

That is more users than Twitter Inc, and the game is already helping local restaurants, coffee shops and small retailers to attract new customers.

L'inizio Pizza Bar in Long Island City in New York claims its sales jumped 75 percent over the weekend by activating a "lure module" feature that attracts virtual Pokemon characters to the store, thereby tempting in nearby players. The store's manager spent $10 to have a dozen Pokemon characters placed in the location, according to a report in the New York Post.

That sort of instant effect is a potential threat for Groupon Inc, LivingSocial Inc, Foursquare and other relatively new companies which have revolutionized online marketing for small businesses in the last few years.

Pokemon GO's instant popularity appears to be the result of nostalgia for the classic 20-year-old cartoon franchise and players' desire to win kudos within the game by capturing as many characters as possible.

"People born in the 1980s and 90s, they grew up with this. It's approachable and reassuring and that's whyit's gone from zero to millions of users in just a few days," said Jeremiah Rosen, managing director at creative agency Reason2Be in New York City. "I see McDonald's, Home Depot, national brands playing into the culture."

A report on tech news site Gizmodo on Wednesday said a student in Australia had uncovered code in the game's workings that indicated a sponsorship system and mentioned the name of McDonalds Corp. McDonald's declined to comment on the matter or any of its marketing plans.

DISRUPTING DISRUPTERS

The popularity of Pokemon GO threatens companies like Foursquare, which has a service called Swarm offering coupons and prizes to customers who "check in" at participating venues, and social e-commerce sites like Groupon and LivingSocial, which many businesses use as a vehicle to offer discount deals. Such "daily deal" sites get a cut every time a customer buys a retailer's coupon.

Groupon and LivingSocial were not immediately available for a comment. Foursquare said it was too soon to tell the impact of Pokemon GO.

Marketing experts said small businesses may increasingly turn to Pokemon GO - and redirect some of their marketing spend - as the mobile game racks up a bigger user base.

"With Pokemon GO, you are seeing it as bypassing a lot of digital (marketing) channels that the brick and mortar shops have been relying on for the past few years," said Christophe Jammet, director of social media and mobile at consultancy DDG in New York.

"There hasn't been a geolocation social platform that can lure so many people all at once."

Pokemon GO players are highly engaged, spending far more time in the app than they do with some of the most popularsocial apps such as Facebook Inc's Instagram and messaging services WhatsApp and Snapchat, according to SimilarWeb, a market intelligence and web analytics firm.

Many shops are attracting customers by advertising themselves as "Poke Stops," a place where gamers can grab new Pokemon balls and increase their level of power within the app. Experts said it is only a matter of time before major brands jump on the bandwagon.

"They are already looking into it," said Tom Kelshaw, director of technology at Maxus Global, a media investment management group in New York.

The Pokemon GO craze - and potential for further revenue from third parties - has sent Nintendo's shares skyrocketing since the game's debut on Thursday, adding nearly $10 billion to the company's market value.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Angry Birds maker, Lego sign toy deal

HELSINKI - Finland's Rovio said on Monday it had signed a deal with Danish toymaker Lego to launch a line of Angry Birds building blocks as a bid to revive its ailing licensing business based on the popular mobile game.

Rovio, whose 2014 earnings fell 73 percent due to a drop in licensing the Angry Birds brand on toys, clothing and sweets, said the release of the Lego toys would coincide with the premiere of its full-length Angry Birds movie in spring 2016.

The Angry Birds game, in which players use a slingshot to attack pigs who steal birds' eggs, is the No. 1 paid mobile app of all time, but the brand has been losing appeal and Rovio has struggled to produce new hit games.

The company is hoping the upcoming 3D movie will help the toy business turn back to growth.

Rovio recently cut about 110 jobs, or 14 percent of its workforce.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Flappy Bird creator set to release new game

MANILA -- Dong Nguyen, the creator of the phenomenal Flappy Bird game, is set to release his follow-up to the highly addicting game later this week.

According to a report from gaming website TouchArcade, Swing Copters will be available on app stores starting Thursday for free, with an option to pay a small fee to remove ads.

The game, which has several similarities to Nguyen's earlier hit, features a man wearing a propeller helmet instead of a flying bird as the main character.

The goal is virtually the same as Flappy Bird -- users have to navigate through a series of obstacles and score as much points as possible.

Nguyen, a game-maker from Vietnam, earlier made headlines when his first game, Flappy Bird, became the most downloaded free game in Apple's App Store.

It reportedly earned him over $50,000 in ad revenue a day but was controversially pulled from the online store in February.

Nguyen explained that the reason he removed the game was because of the "unwanted" attention he has been receiving since Flappy Bird's shot to fame.

He tweeted at the time: "I'm sorry Flappy Bird users, 22 hours from now, I will take Flappy Bird down. I cannot take this anymore."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Flappy Bird to fly again this August

MANILA - Mobile game developer Dong Nguyen confirmed the return of the smash mobile hit, Flappy Bird, complete with multiplayer and changes to make it "less addictive."

Speaking with CNBC's Kelly Evans, Nguyen discussed his plans to put the title back in the App Store in August, as well as future games such as the one he described as a "man jumping from one building to another."

Back in February, Nguyen made headlines when he decided to remove the highly-addictive mobile game from the App Store, despite earning more than $50,000 per day from ad revenue.

His decision, according to him stemmed from the attention he has been receiving since the game's shot to fame.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com