Pokemon craze sparks search for alien craft
Mapbox Inc, the provider of maps for customers including Evernote and the Washington Post, felt Pokemon GO's impact the very day the monster-hunting game launched in the US last month.
Inquiries from game developers poured in even though Mapbox wasn't behind the smash hit. One asked for a dark theme for night-time fighting, another for a pirate map with locations marked in old-school cursive script, Chief Executive Officer Eric Gundersen said in an interview. A publisher wanted to know all the city parks large enough to house a crashed alien spaceship.
"The spike for us was overnight, an entirely new demographic of map users," Gundersen said. "What a crazy month we had since the launch of Pokemon. I've talked to more than a dozen major gaming outlets in the past few weeks."
The runaway popularity of the app where users roam real world places in search of virtual pocket monsters has focused developers on the potential of enriching game content with on-location data. Executives at Electronic Arts Inc and Ubisoft Entertainment SA have expressed their admiration for Pokemon GO and said they are working on their own titles that include elements of augmented reality, or AR.
"There is going to be a flood of augmented reality games going forward," said Serkan Toto, founder of consultant Kantan Games Inc. "There were other AR games before, but until now no one in the industry paid any attention."
They are now. Game developers are looking for custom maps that not only fit the specific aesthetic of their game, but also become part of the brand, Gundersen said.
Mapbox offers a free web-based software editor, described by Gundersen as Photoshop for maps, that lets users change color schemes with just a few clicks. It also offers minute control of how roads, bridges, parks and other features appear. That allows Le Monde to deliver maps in French and the Financial Times in its signature pink.
The start-up, which is based in San Francisco and Washington, DC, is now looking to bring that flexibility to games. Mapbox is working on a plugin for Unity, software used in about 30 per cent of the top 1,000 grossing mobile titles.
"This is not about designing a game level anymore, it's about having a full representation of the world baked into your game," Gundersen said. "That's an entirely new concept."
Inquiries from game developers poured in even though Mapbox wasn't behind the smash hit. One asked for a dark theme for night-time fighting, another for a pirate map with locations marked in old-school cursive script, Chief Executive Officer Eric Gundersen said in an interview. A publisher wanted to know all the city parks large enough to house a crashed alien spaceship.
"The spike for us was overnight, an entirely new demographic of map users," Gundersen said. "What a crazy month we had since the launch of Pokemon. I've talked to more than a dozen major gaming outlets in the past few weeks."
The runaway popularity of the app where users roam real world places in search of virtual pocket monsters has focused developers on the potential of enriching game content with on-location data. Executives at Electronic Arts Inc and Ubisoft Entertainment SA have expressed their admiration for Pokemon GO and said they are working on their own titles that include elements of augmented reality, or AR.
"There is going to be a flood of augmented reality games going forward," said Serkan Toto, founder of consultant Kantan Games Inc. "There were other AR games before, but until now no one in the industry paid any attention."
They are now. Game developers are looking for custom maps that not only fit the specific aesthetic of their game, but also become part of the brand, Gundersen said.
Mapbox offers a free web-based software editor, described by Gundersen as Photoshop for maps, that lets users change color schemes with just a few clicks. It also offers minute control of how roads, bridges, parks and other features appear. That allows Le Monde to deliver maps in French and the Financial Times in its signature pink.
The start-up, which is based in San Francisco and Washington, DC, is now looking to bring that flexibility to games. Mapbox is working on a plugin for Unity, software used in about 30 per cent of the top 1,000 grossing mobile titles.
"This is not about designing a game level anymore, it's about having a full representation of the world baked into your game," Gundersen said. "That's an entirely new concept."
The technology behind Pokemon GO comes from... Read More
No comments:
Post a Comment
Have something to say?????