Leaderboard: Will Pokemon Go and the ARG genre stand the test of time?

GamesIndustry.biz has an interesting piece out this week examining the bandwagon effect of a game like Pokemon Go, as investors and venture capitalists begin seeking the “next Pokemon Go.” “[D]evelopers are frantically preparing pitches and demos to that effect; IP holders are looking at their own franchises and trying to figure out which ones they could ‘do a Pokemon Go‘ with,” writes Rob Fahey. “This is an ill-advised direction, to say the very least.” He points out that studios shouldn’t jump on a bandwagon when “we don’t even know if this bandwagon is rolling yet.” It might just be another fad, especially if Niantic doesn’t make “dramatic updates and changes” soon.

“To put this in blunt terms, Pokemon Go has just managed to attract the largest audience of any mobile game within weeks of its launch – and it could just as readily find itself losing that audience almost in its entirety within a few weeks. If that happens, those enormous download numbers and the social phenomenon that has built up around the game will be almost meaningless.”

It’s a well-argued piece, and it made me wonder what you folks think about the staying power of Pokemon Go and ARGs, which so desperately depend on social momentum. To the pollmobile!

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