AR in Harry Potter Game Is Next Best Thing to Real Magic | Gaming
Niantic last week offered a few members of the gaming press a
chance to take in the magic of its upcoming Harry Potter: Wizards
Unite augmented reality game. The game, which is being developed as part
of a joint effort with WB Games San Francisco under the Portkey Games
label, promises to build on Niantic’s hugely popular Pokmon Go mobile
phone game.
Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, first
announced in 2017, will use a mobile phone to blend augmented reality with the real world, much like Pokmon Go.
Android users can preregister for the
upcoming game on the Google Play store. It will be released later this
year for both Android and iOS devices — with an iOS preorder coming
soon.
Given Niantic’s involvement, it is a given that the gameplay will
resemble that of Pokmon Go, but it also will take AR gaming in a new
direction. Players won’t just gather collectible creatures via their
handsets. This time around, there are role-playing game (RPG) elements, including the ability to cast spells, discover artifacts, and encounter icon beasts and characters from the Harry
Potter universe.
Sorting App
To get started, players will be able to choose their wizarding houses. Gryffindor likely will be a fan favorite, but don’t rule out Slytherin, Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. Potter purists, who believe they shouldn’t choose, can go to the Harry Potter official website and have the
enchanted Sorting Hat place them in the house best suited to their magical background.
The next step will be to choose an appropriate wand for casting
spells. As any would-be wizard knows, this can take some
consideration. However, both wands and houses can be switched at any
time. This is the era of self-expression, so clearly the game’s
developers don’t want to lock players into anything.
Where this game takes a notable turn from the more simplistic
gathering gameplay of Pokmon Go is in the ability to assume a profession,
such as professor, auror (an officer with the Department of
Magical Law Enforcement of the Ministry of Magic) or magizoolgist.
Players also can snap a selfie and edit the photo to outfit themselves
with witch or wizard attire. Then, like magic, it is time to play.
Magic the Ungathering
Whereas Pokmon Go was built around finding and capturing creatures and
then battling in game-world gyms, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite takes it up a notch
with the RPG elements, as well as the ability to “unite” with other
players in team-based challenges.
Here is where Niantic could fail to catch lightning in a bottle the
way it has done with its past AR games. Die-hard Harry
Potter fans may appreciate the ability to create character. Still, the
leveling up of said characters — dealing with skill trees and then the
turn-based combat — could bring the real-world adventure to a grinding
halt if it means constantly looking down at the screen to engage in activity.
Yet, for legions of Potter fans, this might not be an issue.
“People loved going out for Pokmon hunting, and there is pent-up
demand for a location-based augmented reality game,” said Ted Pollak,
game industry senior analyst at Jon Peddie Research.
“It might not have the same impact as Pokmon Go, as it was partially
the new technology of location-based AR gaming itself that caused some
of its success, but this could still have mass appeal,” he told TechNewsWorld.
“Adding the RPG element is probably a good thing to keep people
engaged,” added Pollak. “That was one of Pokmon Go‘s weaknesses, as
the novelty of the hunting wore out eventually.”
AR Magic
Perhaps the greatest selling point of the game is that Harry Potter:
Wizards Unite promises an adventure in the real world. Of course the
“real magic” will come not from spells or a wand, but from the power of
AR and a handset screen.
In J.K. Rowling’s world, the magical realm
exists side-by-side with the non-magical world, and through AR players
are able to cross over.
“Since Pokmon Go first launched in 2016, we’ve seen a number of other
AR games launch as well,” said Kristen Hanich, senior analyst at Parks
Associates.
However, none have risen to the same level of success, and even
Pokmon Go was “successful mainly because of its tie-in to the
extremely popular Pokmon brand, as well as its core gameplay
elements,” she told TechNewsWorld.
The question is whether this game could be too ambitious for today’s
AR technology.
“AR games should be best with AR glasses, but most of those suck or are
targeted at industrial applications, and playing AR Harry Potter on a
phone or tablet won’t have the same level of magic,” said Rob Enderle,
principal analyst at the Enderle Group.
“Pokmon Go lent itself to using a phone, but if you want to do magic, then
truly engaging with the content would, I think, be more of a
requirement,” he told TechNewsWorld.
“So, while I think it has a lot of potential, the lack of AR glasses
and high expectations set by the video — that likely won’t be met — will
make this a problematic game to bring to market,” Enderle added.
Of course, venturing into the world with today’s VR headsets is not
practical, and even the now-defunct Google Glass really wasn’t up to
the task of allowing for an AR experience that could simulate
the magic of Rowling’s world effectively.
“The big issue with this game is that the video sets expectations at a
level that we just can’t execute yet, and disappointment tends to wipe
out the advocates you need to get to a critical mass of regular
players,” noted Enderle.
Magic for Muggles
In the context of the Harry Potter series, a Muggle is a person lacking
any magical ability or who was not born in a magical family. The game
certainly could give our real world Muggles the ability to feel a
bit magical.
“Like Pokmon, Harry Potter is a highly popular media franchise,
particularly among millennials,” Parks’ Hanich added.
“The brand does not have quite the same universal appeal as Pokmon,
but it does have a core group of fans who are deeply involved in the
lore of the world,” she pointed out.
“A complex role-playing game is likely to appeal to this group and
also keep them more deeply engaged over the long run than a more
simplistic game aimed at casual players,” Hanich noted.
Harry Potter: Wizards Unite could succeed, but it
probably will not become a sensation on the level of Pokmon Go, she suggested.
In fact, the RPG element might deter some gamers who are not the most hardcore fans.
“Harry Potter fans are legion, so getting people to try the game won’t
be hard, but it will depend on how much fun the game is,” said Enderle.
Its success could come down to “gotchas, like in game purchases
— or personal information sharing — and overall game play dynamics,” he added.
More AR Worlds to Come
The game’s biggest impact might be in highlighting how AR could be
used with other properties — everything from
superhero franchises to Star Wars.
“This game type could translate into hundreds of different genres, and
this would allow the games to appeal to people of many different
interests — from cars to toys to hunting and fishing,” said Jon Peddie
Research’s Pollak.
“Augmented reality gaming that is accessible to the mass market will
only get better over time, and these games are leading the charge,” he
added.
Given the success of Niantic’s past games, even if this one isn’t a
smash hit, it could serve as a portent for how AR could be used for
future titles.
“Consumers and developers are becoming more familiar with AR and its
possibilities,” said Hanich.
“However, we’ve seen that the most successful AR apps to date offer AR
as an optional add-on. Niantic’s games — Ingress, Pokmon Go, and now Wizards Unite — are much more location-based games than AR-based,”
she noted.
Casting Future Spells
The AR features are optional, meaning that players can
disable or ignore them without impacting the core gameplay
experience.
“Developers have chosen to implement AR this way for two main reasons:
First, AR is still relatively new — a significant percentage of
smartphones do not currently support this technology, and requiring it
means losing these consumers as potential users,” Hanich explained.
“Second, while gamers are much more interested in AR than non-gamers,
they don’t find it universally appealing,” she added.
In U.S. homes with broadband, roughly half of the heads of household who played games for an hour or more per week rated “seeing
and interacting with game characters as if they were in front of you
in the real world” as appealing (rating 5-7 on a 7 point scale), while a
third found it unappealing (rating 1-3), Parks Associates found.
“In the future, AR-first gaming may prove to be wildly successful, but
before that happens, AR-capable smartphones need to become more widely
adopted, and game developers need to figure which AR features most
strongly resonate with their players,” said Hanich, “and as always, the core gameplay experience will be king.”
