The World Changed This Week, Thanks To A Game For Children

Push Media

I'm sorry if I'm going to exhaust your tolerance for augmented reality this week, but the plain and simple fact is that when something goes from nothing to a ridiculous level of market penetration with this kind of speed, there's more going on than a summer fad.

Also, well, summer fads rarely monetize this well. Nintendo is rolling out ad-supported hotspots next, because why on Earth wouldn't they? Any business that benefits from walk-in traffic (which is to say, damn near every quick serve restaurant, convenience store and so on) should probably consider this, especially if they are in a part of the world with enough foot traffic, or if they are in a walkable neighborhood. (Frankly, I suspect that the game makers could also collect protection money from homeowners or associations who want their peace and quiet, but that probably says more about my sense of humor than the business model.)

Locally to me this summer, a transit agency had to take a third of its cars offline due to repair issues, in the height of a busy convention season. People are going in to work an hour early or late, enduring packed cars in heat, and so on. And if you gave that agency an ability to delight those in queue, they'd be crazy not to take it. (And yes, I know that the scale of game play hasn't quite extended that far yet, but give it a little more time, and a host of other games that use the same tech, but appeal to different demographics.)

You'd add in the game content at a managerial level, if only to lessen employee turnover from dealing with customers who are inconvenienced. We've been conditioned as digital consumers to search for Easter eggs in digital media for decades, and now the eggs are out in the world. This has all been a series of dominoes that have been set up over the past 15 to 20 years, and now that they are all in motion, the change in our society will be breathtaking.

It's not all a panacea, of course. The news has been filled with the unintended consequences of the game's impact this week, from small-time crime to the end of shaky romantic relationships, and a host of ill-considered attempts to cheat the system. Getting to a place where people are paying even more attention to their phones hardly seems like a positive development, especially when you add in the likelihood of distracted pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers.

But all of that is beyond the point now. The game changer to end all game changers in mobile has come, and it's only the first of many applications to take advantage of the platform and technology. We're not going to stop feeling the ramifications of this for a very long time.

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