Is there a future in wargaming with games like Pokemon Go?

[JWW]

I have some friends playing it. I have no interest. But I just wonder what the future of such games is and if we will see wargames vaguely similar to Pokemon Go. It would seem pretty easy to make a transition to a simple first person shooter.

[bairdlander2]

[&:]what is pokeman go

[Zap]

ORIGINAL: bairdlander

[&:]what is pokeman go

Its all the rave, talked about on the news but I have not paid that close attention to explain in detail. Just that people follow the directions and end up walking in different places. A recent news story about a young man who was following Poke man go which lead him to a dead body. He reported it to the police.

[JWW]

Pokemon Go. See the trailer at the link. And you have go get out doors to play it. And it is becoming incredibly popular. It might be described as semi-virtual reality using your phone to overlay game information onto the real world. I have one friend who was a certified couch potato who is now out with a group playing the game every evening. This will be a terrible description but it has something to do with capturing cute monsters and growing cute monsters and killing cute monsters with some of the action like a VR overlay over the real world as seen through your phone screen. Looking at the trailer at the link and a couple of other videos I've seen, I could see the idea being turned into something a little more hard core, like a hard core fantasy game or FPS. In fact it appears a graphics mod would make it look more hard core as it is. I'm just wondering if this will lead to a major new direction in gaming.

https://youtu.be/Qryf2F_QfXg

[Max 86]

You pretty much nailed it. My grandson has been showing me the game.

Ok, here's the wargame version, you use phone to setup your forces on your current location and play real time battle against another person in same location.

[demyansk]

Just what we need for our young people. Walk in front of me while I am training on the bike, cut me off while you text, hit me while you have to answer the real important phone call while you're traveling 45 mph. Life was good before cell phones including your parents had no clue of what you were doing and didn't have a leash on you 24/7. This is the problem these days, these youngsters will be 50 years old some day and the only thing they witnessed was inside a 3"x5" screen - sad and don't text and drive

I just came across this story on the Pokemon game from Chief Bratton - NYC
https://nypost.com/2016/07/14/nypd-comm ... okemon-go/

[hadberz]

Pokemon Go is a huge security risk. Our security folks strongly recommended that it be uninstalled due to the games tracking capabilities (apparently someone was lured into a trap and robbed at gunpoint) and the fact that it gives complete control over ones Google account to the developers i.e. they could read your emails, or do anything else Google allows the account owner to do. The account control part is supposedly being fixed, but no clue about the tracking part.

[Mobeer]

How about some of these similar games:
http://www.mobipicker.com/games-like-pokemon-go/

Ingress seems the most wargame like to me.

[JWW]

ORIGINAL: Mobeer

How about some of these similar games:
http://www.mobipicker.com/games-like-pokemon-go/

Ingress seems the most wargame like to me.

See, I had no idea there were other games like this out there. Thanks. I have no interest in playing one of them, but I find the topic interesting. It seems a cheap way of creating a VR-like atmosphere without actual VR equipment.

As a high school teacher I also wonder what the impact will be when school starts again in the US in a couple of months. How many kids will be trying to play it during school?

[bairdlander2]

So, for the first time ever, adults, follow their phones around and walk off of cliffs, and die, looking for a Pokemon.

[JWW]

ORIGINAL: bairdlander

So, for the first time ever, adults, follow their phones around and walk off of cliffs, and die, looking for a Pokemon.

Well, to me that seems nobler than dying for a selfie. [:D]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/taj ... 10edf7998e

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mor ... hu-picchu/

http://nypost.com/2014/11/05/tourist-pl ... ng-selfie/

[IainMcNeil]

Augmented reality is very cool when combined with geolocation tech. However there are certainly a host of issues with Pokemon Go - not least the hollocaust center being a pokegym, a police station being broken in to because a pokemon can only be found inside and much much more.

I'm sure you could come up with some way to wargame using the geolocation tech but you wouldnt want to rely on finding people nearby as it requires too high a critical mass of players. It would have to be based around fighting over your locale with AI players, but with ways for players to help each other out to give reasons for friends to play and teams/clans to form. To work I think it would have to be at the lighter end of the strategy/wargame spectrum so more like a possible tower defence gameplay.

[Kanov]

I'm imagining for the future something like Total war, Achtung Panzer, Combat Mission etc being displayed on your phone at surface level, moving your phone will give you different perspectives, like a mask overlay on the "real world" where the units are displayed in front of you if you look through your phone. You could check LOS by yourself by actually walking to location.

[stuart3]

I think that I will feel safer playing Distant Worlds!

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/po ... 96441.html

[LarryP]

ORIGINAL: stuart3

I think that I will feel safer playing Distant Worlds!

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/po ... 96441.html

DW will work your brain too, which would be different than the Pokemon crap.

[MrsWargamer]

Is there a future for wargames?

Weeeeeeeell I suspect I will have to die first as will a bunch of the rest of ya to keep card board slaughter from dying.

But I don't think there's a lot of wisdom in pretending it will outlive us.

Pokemon might be really on dope lately, but, people are dying from playing it. Clearly it has something War in the Pacific doesn't.

And even if the game is silly, it's got a hold of technology war games can only dream of.

[mikmykWS]

Its just another thing that competes for the same chunk of time wargaming occupies. If you subscribe to market theory that should drive the quality of wargames up. So good for you little more work for us[;)]

[JWW]

Okay, I've been thinking about this while watching the failed coup. Imagine a game like Scourge of War. Imagine being able to access detailed terrain maps in your local area, or any area, and being able to set up virtual skirmishes where you play the role of say a brigade commander. The view you get through your phone screen is what the commander would have access to. First would be a terrain map. No units on it, just a map, though perhaps the game would allow you to draw things on the map. The game could also give you you order of battle and some logistical information, and maybe a situation briefing. Primarily the game would be played through the screen with your soldiers and the opposing units displayed over the real terrain you are looking at. You could order your units -- perhaps through voice commands. If you wanted to move yourself, you would have to physically move. You would have to pan your phone back and forth to get the full view. So there is an option.

Either that or playing on the actual battlefields, which I don't think would be appreciated or appropriate.

I could also see playing against a real opponent or playing co-op.

Or consider playing the same type game with WWII type skirmishes. Or playing as a tanker.

Of course this is incredibly complex, but there you go.

It might be better to do it with VR goggles though that would allow you to see both the real terrain you are on plus the game display.

But then there are ways to make your phone into a VR display by buying or creating simple cardboard holders.

https://vr.google.com/cardboard/get-cardboard/

Okay, Matrix, get on this.

[battleground]

'Pokie-go' should be sufficient for most people with single digit IQs...

[stuart3]

Is there a future for wargames?

....

But I don't think there's a lot of wisdom in pretending it will outlive us.

It is far too early to write the wargame's obituary.

Back in the late 70's, early 80's my local wargame group was reinforced by a group of teenagers who joined in sufficient numbers to change the nature of many of the games played. What followed was two or three years of head shaking by us older gamers at the more juvenile games played by the youngsters. After that, however, these younger gamers matured, developed an interest in more traditional wargames, and added a degree of innovation to the campaigns they devised that improved the games for all of us.

I don't doubt that a significant minority of the new Pokemon hunters will also develop more mature tastes in gaming over the years. Wargames will live on, although they will always be a minority gaming interest in their purest form.

Pokemon might be really on dope lately, but, people are dying from playing it. Clearly it has something War in the Pacific doesn't.

And even if the game is silly, it's got a hold of technology war games can only dream of

As with other games, wargames will continue to evolve with technology. in my teenage years, I would have dismissed suggestions that wargaming could develop to include offerings such as WITE and DW, let alone the Total War series of games as sheer fantasy.

There will always be limits to what our senses will accept in terms of augmented reality. Imaginary monsters like Pokemon work very well, modern tanks may perhaps work, although I wonder how we could be persuaded to believe that an imaginary battle could be being fought along the High Street when we know that it isn't. Somehow I can't imagine anyone being convinced by the sight of a virtual Roman legion battling the gauls through their local branch of Marks & Spencers.[:)]