Prime and the philosophy of Ingress
Before I begin, I do not have the same hate for Prime others do... yes its a buggy mess but that will change eventually. My issue lies in how it, the new aesthetic Niantic has adopted, their new medias look and feel, and the effect its had on the games approach to AR gaming.
What do I mean? Well to me Ingress isn't a "video game with a real-world component" but a "real-world activity with a video game component". And the best illustration of this is in the OG scanner itself. Its modelled to appear as a "radar" of whats around you. You zoom in and its like zooming in on google maps. Ingress achieved AR immersion not through what we think of as AR but in making an experience that FELT real.
Now look at PoGo... you zoom in and your perspective shifts. To me it shows a shift torwards what people think of as AR... and away from what made Ingress unique. You make a field and its as if you actually built it because of the work you put into... you catch a pokemon and... thats it. Its just another tick on a video game checklist. It fails to capture that real life feel of being a 'trainer'... hell, it doesnt even capture the feeling of being a Game Boy trainer. A fun game but to me it doesnt qualify as AR... even with the fancy camera.
Now Prime is making this shift to this new 'AR Philosophy'. Niantic went from thinking outside the box to making a box thats pretty but ultimately empty inside.
And this is the crux of my issue. Niantic lost their way... whether it be from money, shareholder interference, or a staff of Hipsters that can't see past "their vision" Niantic is no longer Niantic.
This is running long so Ill skip over the other points I wanted to make about things like the new badges clash with the aesthetic of the original badges, or how the medias gone from "The Ingress Report" to something that looks like it was filmed in a garage with props from Party City.
So in summary, Primes not the real problem, its what Primes bringing to the table; food that in unpalatable with whats already on the table. Change may be good, but not when that change betrays everything that came beforehand.
Whats your take on this?
Comments
What? Because you can zoom in to ground level now 'niantic has lost it's way'?
You can't be serious. Apparently having everything actually to scale is bad.
No, thats not it at all. I was using that to illustrate that the difference in approach to AR immersion differs between the original scanner and their Unity games in ways that are not obvious. And while "real world activity with a video game element" and "video game with a real life element" sound like the same thing, they're not.
But yes "losing their way" is a bit dramatic, but IMHO they're not the same Niantic we've known for years. Some of thats a good thing, but much of it isn't.
I think I understand your point. As I remember Niantic even stated somehow they are going to do this with an intention to transform Ingres and make it more game-ish...
Redacted was more like a navigation tool with AR\game elements and speaking about me it was used as a map app alternative (navigate to portal, keeping some keys for just a navigation purpose, etc.) but Prome is more like game with elements of navigation tool.
The focus just changed from being a game character to seeing the game character in the phone
This is true.
We didn't ask for flash or fancy graphics, because we didn't need it. The excitement was in playing the game.
Just as a fancy game interface merely distracts from the excitement of tic tac toe, battleship, or rock paper scissor, the fancy interface doesnt help ingress.
Seeing a 3d world isn't necessary. Indeed, it interferes with zooming in and out efficiently. Connecting to a magnetometer isn't necessary.
It just forces out players who dont have magnetometers on their phone... when were already losing players left and right.
Low contrast alienates people with weaker eyes, instead of adding atmosphere.
I think this is a really key insight: the scanner is not the game ("how do I move?") but a tool you use to play the game. That's both Lore and reality (aptly enough). Ingress really ought to be played with a heads-up display, but given that we don't seem to have a practical implementation of that right now, the scanner is what we've got. Ideally, it should be designed to minimize the amount of time you spend looking at it, and to maximize your ability to move and act in the (augmented) real world. That's what makes Ingress distinctive, and what (if nurtured) will protect it from obsolescence: it can only become boring if the world becomes boring.
"it should be designed to minimize the amount of time you spend looking at it, and to maximize your ability to move and act in the (augmented) real world."
Well put! 👍 In strong sunlight, with sunglasses, on the pedestrian, on the bike, in the car, on the bus, at night, at the office, by the tv, in rain, in snow, with gloves also on a small phone with one hand thumb play when moving, also when 50+ of age, quite a high percentage of men has color vision problems.
Imagine the classic scanner supported all this!
And if keeping old playerbase worldwide is a priority: offering options to configure scanner so cpu/gpu usage can be reduced and bandwidth can be reduced, maybe a new phone and/or dataplan isn't needed to play Ingress for some after all....
Everything is configurable, some skins to choose from maybe is an idea...
Edit: Personally I skipped the recent event badges I didn't really have time for the events and didn't want the badges. I think it is great we can see each badge beforehand and make a choice - the way it has always has been in Ingress. 👍
Thanks for a great game!
I agree. And with old scanner you can almost play without looking at the screen, now it is more "immersive" in the bad way.. the cellphone and the screen capture you from real world, when the idea was to be outside doing things with a scanner tool. So you get alienated faster and the gamming experience factor is almost lost.
There s also a shift from PvP game to PvE with the last events that makes no sense at all.