AR is a cool thing so…pokemon go

Tonight while listening to reviews of Pokemon GO it struck me just how much potential AR technology has on the entertainment front. Pokemon Go seems to be getting huge traction and I expect that there will be follow on apps from other companies and in other domains. 

I signed up for the game to give it a spin (ninecrowsdotcom is my in-game name). I expect to play with it (and quite possibly wind up sucked in) and see what the game feels like.

Many of the kids games around the Disney World parks could be dramatically augmented using this sort of technology. Most kids these days have their own phones. Using an AR app, it should be possible to add all sorts of games and activities around the parks without much dedicated overhead.

Not only could this improve the visitor’s experience, but it should be possible to diffuse crowds into parts of the part that they otherwise might not visit and introduce people to real world attractions as a consequence of chasing AR cues.

Outside of the Disney scope, the potential of using AR games to draw customers into stores to pursue AR based items and then (hopefully) garner sales of real world items seems attractive.

I suspect that there is more potential here, even for free AR apps as long as the content is attractive enough. I think one kicker may be needing back-end into a geographic database like the one Google has (and I believe that Niantic is usign Google Maps).

Not so much of an issue on the Disney front as the games would presumably occur on park and resort premises where Disney has high quality maps. Adding in the information tied to magic bands and My Disney Experience and it should be possible to incorporate a personal touch into any AR situations.

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