Niantic, they produce my personal favourite mobile games and their popularity grew massively in 2016 when Pokémon GO was released. Now they have three different games (Ingress Prime, Pokémon GO and Harry Potter Wizards Unite) and most of these games are Real World AR based meaning you have to get up and explore the world around you to progress in the games.
Back in February it was becoming clear how serious COVID-19 was many countries including the UK started to enforce lockdowns making it illegal to meet up with friends and other activities. In the UK for example you could only go outside for one hour of exercise per day by yourself. Because of this Niantic obviously needed to change some of the major ways that their games are played to stay relevant.
Harry Potter Wizards Unite
HPWU is Niantic’s most recent release and just recently turned one year old. The game involves you filling in this magic registry sticker book sort of thing which you can complete by catching Foundables, completing Wizarding challenges and unlocking Portkeys. To catch and complete the challenges though you need magic and to get magic you need to walk to stops. Not just that but the wizarding challenges are only at special sort of stops.
Niantic made several changes to the game which to be honest makes the game completely playable at home. They introduced the possibility of picking up magic straight of the map, made more frequent rare ingredients appear on the map they also gave away free potions allowing more Foundables to appear on the map. The daily challenges were also altered so they could be completed from home.
In April they introduced the famous purple Knight bus into the game. The Knight bus takes you to the Hogwarts fortress where you can complete Wizarding challenges with other plays around the world all from home. Whilst I’m not expecting things like the spawned magic to stay, I really hope that the Knight bus stays part of the game.
Ingress Prime
Ingress is game which is nothing like HPWU, the game is in a way a real world capture the flag and from home is virtually impossible to play from home as it requires you to go the locations (Portals) to destroy the opposite teams capture and recapture it for yourself. It also requires you to go the portals and ‘hack’ them to gain in game items. None of which could be done from the comfort of your home.
So, to adapt to COVID-19 Niantic did make some minor changes. Portals will die after a while if no one recharges them, the time it took for this to happen though has been majorly reduced. Levelling up in Ingress after level 8 is harder and to do so you have to gain medals. One of which is the “Sojourner” badge which requires you to hack a portal every day for a certain amount of days. For now, though you can “Recharge” portals remotely enabling you to do it from home without losing your way to your badge. (As to get the maximum badge you need to do it for 365 days in a row!)
In June Niantic released Dronenet allowing you to remotely hack a portal every hour using a drone. The drawbacks however were that you had to move it each time you want to use it so if you’re in a real remote location it wouldn’t be much use. You could however leave it in London, go home and just move it around London to gain items.
Pokémon Go
Pokémon Go is Niantic’s most popular game and even with the release of a new game since its launch it continues to remain the most popular game out of the three. The game involves a lot of walking and playing in groups to complete special battles however something which both were going to be impacted by COVID-19 due to government restrictions on gatherings and going outside.
Niantic made many changes to Pokémon Go to adapt to the new normal and many of them are still active today. Most of the changes remove the requirement of walking outside for example you can get double the amount of Incense a special device that makes Pokémon appear without walking. As well they removed the walking requirement for the “GO Battle league”
During the lockdown they released a new feature which allowed you to play the Raids (Raids are battles you complete in a group to win the chance of unlocking a rare Pokémon) from home instead of going outside and gathering. These are a great addition to the game, and I hope they stay post COVID however they are pricey around 80p per pass.
Virtual events
Many of the games host events during the year, for example Ingress host “First Saturday” events and Pokémon often do “Community days” and most recently they hosted their first Virtual GO Fest something which is normally hosted in a big city. All of these have been made virtual and having played the GO Fest day I think it’s actually better as more players across the world can now play.
Summary
I think Niantic have adapted well to the pandemic, all of their games involve being outside as well as some social interaction and I think if they didn’t alter some of the ways their games are played they would be in trouble now as a lot of people couldn’t / can’t go outside and it’s clear it’s all go still for Niantic with Pokémon Go making $38 Million revenue last month just on the iOS Platform (1)
Do you still play any of Niantic’s games, or have you been playing less because of COVID-19? I’m very keen to hear everyone’s thoughts so please tweet me www.twitter.com/kylewilkinson46
Thanks for reading
Kyle Wilkinson
(1) Data from Sensor Tower, www.sensortower.com
(2) Having been playing Ingress since Late 2015, Pokémon Go & HPWU since there game launch all information is from personal experience.
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