What can we learn from the game design successes and failures of Pokémon GO?
More than a year ago, we talked on this show about alternate reality games,
augmented reality games, and what happens when gaming spills over into the real world.
And yeah, Ingress has been kicking around for a while, but now we've got our
first real test case with the massive success of Pokémon GO.
So let's talk about the lessons we've learned and what can be improved as we move forward
with these games that lead us into the real world.
Because, as difficult as the tech for a game like this is to build,
Pokémon GO's popularity has ensured that we're gonna see a lot more like it.
And, as much fun as Pokémon GO is, there's still a lot of room to improve on the design.
There is a lot to cover here, so let's split this discussion into two segments:
First, preventing harm
Second, doing good
Both sides of this are important because, as we explore designing games for the real world,
we need to start thinking in real-world terms.
Today I just want to focus on preventing harm.
Because, as much as I hate to say it, once you get tens of millions of people playing a game
out in a world where not everybody is playing by the game's rules,
and there's a lot more going on than just the game itself,
there's a chance people are gonna get hurt.
I mean we've already seen some examples: people have gotten mugged,
people have walked off cliffs,
and any injury that could have been prevented with good game design is one injury too many.
Besides, if we don't start designing to minimize harm,
countries are going to have to start making laws regulating these types of games,
and once people who know very little about games start making
different laws in different countries about how real world games have to be run,
it's gonna be a lot harder to create them.
So, minimizing harm.
first we have to talk about how to keep people from wandering into dangerous areas,
like cliffs or active construction sites, flooding streams and that sort of thing.
And while you might think that we can rely on common sense to avoid such hazards,
the more engrossing the game,
the less people are going to be aware of their surroundings,
so we've got to make them more aware of their surroundings from within the game itself.
Now this part's actually pretty simple:
Ingress had a system that allowed players to flag real-world locations
which have become the PokéStops you know today.
And while that system was eventually closed off
because they felt like they had enough locations,
a simple system allowing players to pull up a tool
that would allow them to paint an area as dangerous
would go a long way to making sure that at least the most
traveled areas were a bit safer. It would work something like this:
You're playing your real-world game and you get to an area like a steep drop
and you say to yourself, "Wow, somebody could hurt themselves here."
You pull up your tool to mark a dangerous location
and you start painting over what you think is a reasonable area
for people to start being aware that something potentially harmful is nearby
this data gets sent to the company running the game,
and, if enough people paint over the same area,
it starts appearing red on your little GPS map,
alerting anybody who is absorbed in what's happening on their phone that
it's time to start looking around.
The harder issue, both to design for and to accept,
is the idea of people using these games to lure people to a place where they're vulnerable.
Back in the early days of MMOs, we started to take child safety very seriously.
Part of this was due to the laws around protecting kids on the internet,
but it was motivated by something greater than that.
James new designers who stayed up late
having nightmares about a child being harmed because of the game they were making.
This drove them to think up some really innovative systems
to ensure that their games were as risk free as possible.
It's time we do the same with real-world games.
And while having features like a parental mode where the child's game doesn't work
unless they're within a hundred meters of a paired device
like the parent's cell phone, that sort of thing will help,
but the truth of the matter is: eventually, real world game companies
are gonna have to start working with local law enforcement,
maybe offering last known GPS coordinates after a crime's been reported,
or perhaps even including a panic button in their games.
Of course, if this button were designed to actually contact emergency services,
there'd also have to be a lot of design work done around
preventing people hitting it on accident, but still.
Lastly, we have to have respect for those not playing the game.
On the milder end of things,
this means taking measures to prevent players from getting in people's way
or holding up lines as they attempt to catch their pokemon,
but more seriously, it means having respect for places that don't want to be a part of your game.
The Holocaust Museum, Arlington National Cemetery, even Auschwitz-Birkenau
has had people showing up to catch pokemon.
Military installations have had a hard time
keeping people from wandering on base for a rare find.
And governments have even had to issue warnings
about taking pictures of secured sites while pokemon hunting.
This might need to happen more on a corporate level than a design level, but
there has to be some easy way to opt out of being a destination for our real-world games.
Because frankly, our joy shouldn't come at the cost of others.
If we can do all of these things, we can focus on the way cooler,
way more important part of these real-world games, the part that James actually wants to talk about:
the aspect of these games that can be incredibly positive and add to our lives outside of the game,
rather than just giving us the joy we find in it.
There is a lot to say about all the amazing things real world gaming can do though,
so we're gonna save that for next week when we got enough time to do the topic justice.
I will see you all then.