Niantic? Heard the name a lot lately? For the uninitiated it is the name of company which gave the World Pokemon Go.
The company had its humble beginnings as an internal startup at Google in 2010, founded by John Hanke (founder of Keyhole, Inc.). The company is focused on Augmented Realty products. Their first product “Field Trip” was launched in 2012 and later in the year during November, 2012 they introduced Android only app “Ingress”. Both games/apps are based on Google Maps allowing oneself to discover things in their local neighborhood, by ‘walking’ around their place.
While Field Trip had a tepid response, Ingress was an instant hit among Googlers and the now AR cult groups across cities of the world. They also launched an app “Endgame”. Ingress was initially launched as an invite-only App and was later opened to public in October 2013 and introduced on iOS in July 2014.
The company was demerged from Google into a separate standalone entity in 2015.
Speaking of the company’s landmark achievements, they actually brought AR into mainstream day-to-day gaming. Many developers have been trying their hand at AR, however they have hit roadblocks like faulty software or costly hardware, et al. Niantic has stuck the right chords when they introduced software Apps which could run perfectly on the present age hardware available with end-users.
Come September, 2015 the company announced that it was working on “Pokemon Go” in partnership with Nintendo and The Pokemon Company. Ever since July, 2016 when the game was launched on App Store and Play Store, it has been downloaded more than 100 Million times and is no short of an instant success. Their revenues exceed $10 million a day.
With Pokemon Go, we expect the company and technology to reach new paradigms. More so, for the lazy couch potatoes who will now actually get up and go get their groceries rather than ordering it online. Thereby allowing service providers to engage better with their audiences.
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