The new smartphone game app “Pokemon Go” is going on 2 weeks old now and it’s taken the nation by storm. Check your app store and you’re sure to find Pokemon Go at the top of your list. It’s free to play and download, but you can take advantage of in game purchases to boost your playing power. All this equals revenue to Apple and Google as they take a cut.
Google has a special relationship with Pokemon Go though. Niantic, the company behind Pokemon Go, spun off on it own a couple years ago. It used to be under the Google/Alphabet corporate umbrella. Some have said that Niantics move to spin off on its own gave it the freedom to get a partner like Nintendo to join forces and partner up for this hit. However, that’s just speculation.
What is known is that Google has invested a 30% stake into Niantic. Whether or not it is directly benefiting from games success is still unknown, but I’m willing to bet that Google will be benefiting somewhere down the line if not yet. Not only is google getting a share of the in app purchases through the Pokemon Go game, but the game plays bones are built on to the google maps platform.
Remember when Apple tried to push their own “maps” onto Apple users and how upset they got when that happened? They wanted their google maps back. Why? Well because google (Alphabet) has been heavily investing in their maps technology and it’s arguably the best maps platform available. When people want to check a map on their smartphone where do they look? Google maps is most surely the only place.
You might be thinking, who cares? It’s just maps. But what Pokemon Go does is show the world how a detailed maps platform technology can be used in the most ingenious ways. Ways that can bring revenue to Google’s pockets.
Pokemon Go gives players a taste of Augmented reality
Seeing those pokemon characters on your smartphone screen running around in the “real world” is part of what augmented reality is going to be. Although hardcore gamers may tell you it’s not really fully augmented reality, what it does though is it grabs the attention of those lower key gamers. Remember when the wii was getting your grandma up to bowl? Kinda like that but with your smartphone. Grandma probably doesn’t want to put on full head gear to get the full augmented reality effect, but she may pick up her phone and search for a pokemon.
To be fair, part of the craze with this new Pokemon Go game is that it’s piggybacking on the famous Pokemon name. Pokemon Go isn’t the first game to use mapping tech and augmented reality, but it is the first one to do it with powerful intellectual property behind it. Who do you think all these Pokemon Go players are anyways? It’s a bunch of millennials. The same group of people that grew up playing the Pokemon games when they were younger. It will be interesting to see what happens when the honeymoon is over and the nostalgia wears off. Is Pokemon Go just a fad that will end just as quickly as it started? Possibly.
One things for sure though, even if this is just a “thing” that’s happening this summer Google is sure to benefit from it now and in the future. Pokemon Go has proven that even a simple game that involves catching monsters can be profitable if used with the right technology. Google is heavily invested in this technology.
Disclaimer: At the time of this writing I don’t own any Google (Alphabet) stock but I have in the past and I do plan to buy it again in the future. I also do own shares in Apple.