Last time, we discussed many of the dangers
that real-world games have to design around
in order to be safe and enjoyable for everyone.
This time, let's have the much more fun discussion
about all of the amazing things bringing games into the real world can do, if we design for it.
*intro music*
First off, we can get people to notice the world around them.
This may seem like an odd thing, given how many complaints there have been
about Pokémon GO players being oblivious to their surroundings,
but these sort of games can highlight what a magical place we live in.
It's so easy to be too caught up in our daily lives
to notice some of the amazing things about the places we live.
Just the other day, James was playing Pokémon GO and
it drew his attention to a mural that he'd never noticed in his own neighborhood.
It showed him something new about his town
and helped him to appreciate the place more.
But we can integrate this into design even further:
If we were to simply divide up the globe into reasonable sized chunks,
say, half a square mile [1,3 m²] or so,
and give players a small bonus if they visit every location in an area,
it would encourage people to see everything around them
and help make sure that they got to see some of the more obscure sites and hidden gems.
More that that, if you can work things, like links to Wikipedia
or even small sourced blurbs about some of the more famous locations in your game,
you can give people the opportunity to self-educate.
With a little bit of effort, every walk can become a small walking tour.
Or what about historical locations?
Like not just the places where a historical site or a landmark still exists today,
what about the places, where some historical event once happened
or where some significant thing once existed?
If, as a company, you're willing to put in the time to include those,
it could give the player a window into another world.
One, where the very ground they tread on takes completely new significance.
Of course, it would be difficult to have these specific locations affect gameplay in any way,
because locations are user-submitted and the developer often just won't know that much about them
but for a large enough game, having special rewards or events
that at least fit the theme of some of the most well-known sites around the globe
seems like a way to enhance the game experience
while getting more people excited about our shared heritage.
These games also, by their very nature, get us excited about going outside again.
I had mentioned making the player notice the magic in the real world,
but these games also make the real world magical.
Things you never look forward to doing
like walking the dog or running errands become joyful activities.
There is value in that, which shouldn't be dismissed.
And then there is the fitness side of things:
Pokémon GO actually does a decent job of getting people out and walking
but there is even more potential there.
I'm certainly not a fitness expert, so I'll try not to speculate too much here,
but a game company could easily work with people who are fitness experts,
in order to encourage players to walk an optimal amount per day
or even to encourage running in a way that's thematic, fun and, at the same time, very healthy.
I mean, imaging having to run a half mile [0,8 km] in seven minutes in order to get away from a dragon.
Or to catch some elusive, agile monster.
And if technology akin to the Fitbit ever becomes a standard feature of your phone
there's a whole host of things we can do
to get people to enjoy excercising enough to lead fitter, happier lives.
There are also economic benefits to getting people out more:
My local coffee shop has a PokéStop right next to it.
They basically leave an active PokéLure on it 100% of the time.
And every day, I see people just sitting there
hanging out, ordering coffee, doing work and catching Pokémon all the while.
Forbes did a whole article on how to use Pokémon GO to help your small business.
And I love this.
Niantic gets to make money on all these businesses buying lures
and small shops get to make their locations more appealing to customers
which is way more cost-efficient than say, repainting or installing fancy lights.
But there is also potential for partnerships with large cooperations, which is a bit of a danger.
I worry about the day when people-placement becomes a thing
and cooperations like Walmart or Starbucks can pay
to have unique Pokémon appear in the middle of their locations.
These sort of partnership deals threaten the magical nature of the game
reduce the player to a commodity and encourage game companies toward predatory practices.
It's a dangerous can of worms to open, but realistically
there's just no way to avoid it, if games like these get big enough.
Depending on the game though, there might be ways to inoculate the audience against this
with some subversive design. At least a little.
As a side note: If you ever wanted to walk a dangerous line
you could use the phone camera's inherent ability to scan barcodes
and use barcodes as a random number seed to generate items in-game.
On the one hand, the designer in James just salivates at all the cool things you could to with that,
but on the other hand, it's just rife for abuse and someone's gonna do it sooner or later...
But Pokémon GO has shown, that these real-world games
have a thousand other positive effects, that I couldn't have even predicted:
Animal shelters are organizing days for people to take the animals on Poké-walks,
The national parks in the US have seen a massive uptick in visitors,
and even in those cases, where some unfortunate person
finds a dead body or something because they were out looking for Pokémon
for one: It's good somebody found that body
and two: Sooner or later some Pokémon explorer is gonna find a person
who's not dead, who's injured or lost in some remote area.
And a life is gonna end up being saved because Pokémon
or some game like it has encouraged people to go outside.
But I think the greatest possibility and the greatest danger lies in truly opening up the platform.
Imagine if you could design adventures or dungeons for your local park.
Or create a module for your neighborhood that anybody could run through.
It would require a game with far more mechanics than Pokémon GO to work, but I think that day will come.
And the idea that turning the places we love into magical adventures for our loved ones
or into romps through history for our students is an enticing thought.
It's something that I hope to see come to pass.
Unfortunately, there is a design hurdle, that I can't work my way around:
The possibility for a poorly designed level or a troll designer causing people to get hurt.
My hope is that somebody is gonna find a solution though. Possibly one of you!
Because I would love to be playing that game in five or ten years time.
Anyway, I hope that you've enjoyed this look at the potential in real-world design.
See you next week!