The Niantic EC-1, Part III: What's nextWhat is Niantic If they recognize the name, most people would rightly tell you its a company that makes mobile games, like Pokmon GO, or Ingress, or Harry Potter: Wizards Unite.But no one at Niantic really seems to box it up as a mobile gaming company.
Making these games is a big part of what the company does, yes, but the games are part of a bigger picture: they are a springboard, a place to figure out the constraints of what they can do with augmented reality today, and to figure out how to build the tech that moves it forward.
Niantic wants to wrap their learnings back into a platform upon which others can build their own AR products, be it games or something else.
And they want to be ready for whatever comes after smartphones.Niantic is a bet on augmented reality becoming more and more a part of our lives; when that happens, they want to be the company that powers it.This is Part 3 of our EC-1 series on Niantic, looking at its past, present, and potential future.
You can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
The reading time for this article is 24 minutes (6,050 words)The platform playAfter the absurd launch of Pokmon GO, everyone wanted a piece of the AR pie.
Niantic got more pitches than they could take on, Im told, as rights holders big and small reached out to see if the company might build something with their IP or franchise.But Niantic couldnt build it all.
From art, to audio, to even just thinking up new gameplay mechanics, each game or project they took on would require a mountain of resources.
What if they focused on letting these other companies build these sorts of things themselvesThats the idea behind Niantics Real World Platform.
This platform is a key part of Niantics game plan moving forward, with the company having as many people working on the platform as it has on its marquee money maker, Pokmon GO.There are tons of pieces that go into making things like GO or Ingress, and Niantic has spent the better part of the last decade figuring out how to make them all fit together.
Theyve built the core engine that powers the games and, after a bumpy start with Pokmon GOs launch, figured out how to scale it to hundreds of millions of users around the world.
Theyve put considerable work into figuring out how to detect cheaters and spoofers and give them the boot.
Theyve built a social layer, with systems like friendships and trade.
Theyve already amassed that real-world location data that proved so challenging back when it was building Field Trip, with all of those real-world points of interest that now serve as portals and Pokstops.Niantic could help other companies with real-world events, too.
That might seem funny after the mess that was the first Pokmon GO Fest (as detailed in Part II).
But Niantic turned around, went back to the same city the next year, and pulled it off.
That experience that battle-testing is valuable.
Meanwhile, the company has pulled off countless huge Ingress events, and a number of Pokmon GO side events called Safari Zones.
CTO Phil Keslin confirmed to me that event management is planned as part of the platform offering.As Niantic builds new tech like, say, more advanced AR or faster ways to sync AR experiences between devices itll all get rolled into the platform.
With each problem they solve, the platform offering would grow.But first they need to prove that theres a platform to stand on.Harry Potter: Wizards UniteNiantics platform, as it exists today, is the result of years of building their own games.
Its the collection of tools theyve built and rebuilt along the way, and that already powers Ingress Prime and Pokmon GO.
But to prove itself as a platform company, Niantic needs to show that they can do it again.
That they can take these engines, these tools, and, working with another team, use them for something new.