Like the 500 million people who downloaded the thing (according to Venture Beat) and its 21 million daily users (according to SurveyMonkey), I am a little bit fascinated by Pokemon GO: the social aspect, the use of augmented reality, and the incentive to get out and wander around new and/or familiar places. It’s kind of amazing to see how many people this little free-to-play game is bringing together through a shared interest, giving folks who might otherwise have trouble socializing an easy ice breaker and an excuse to go meet people.
But one of the most interesting discussion topics that’s arisen from this Pokemon resurgence has been “This is a cool idea, but you know what I’d really love to play? (Something else) GO.”
That “something else” potential grabbed my attention. People in my office were speculating on how you would play Harry Potter GO. People I knew on Facebook were pining over mockups of Fatal Frame GO. An idea for how to make Persona GO viable came to me and still refuses to leave.
It was around this time that I realized just how versatile this GO game template could be for a number of different IPs, franchises, and fandoms beyond Pokemon — how easily a lot of other ideas could plug into this same app and get fans out and about, meeting new people through a shared AR game.
So why not explore that hypothetical rabbit hole a bit further?
