Google now into games?

AlphaJohn

AlphaJohn

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Google's Niantic Labs Releases "Ingress" In Closed Beta - A Virtual Reality MMO, Or Geotagging Game, Or Something

We've heard very little out of Google internal team Niantic Labs. Before today, their sole public presence was Field Trip, a mash up of Google Now and various hyperlocal points of interest. The team'' latest creation, Ingress, defies description: it's a virtual reality game in which players are tasked with going to real-world locations to harness a fictional energy source. Also there are two "teams" and every player in the world is one one or the other. Think Alliance versus Horde.

[video=youtube;92rYjlxqypM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92rYjlxqypM[/video]

The premise seems pretty nebulous at the moment. A new source of energy has been discovered, and it's got the potential to control people's thoughts. One side seeks to embrace it, the other to defend humanity as it currently exists. Neither is precisely good or bad, but they are opposed. Players travel to locations that are sources of energy - mostly landmarks and public art, by the looks of things - and collect it. Various power-ups and modifiers exist, and working with teams is more effective than working alone. Hints are apparently dolled out on the project website at www.Ingress.com. At this point, it's got a definite Deus Ex vibe.

We'd tell you more about Ingress, but it's in closed beta, and we don't have any more access than the average Joe. (You can download the Android app on any Android device 2.3 and up, but you'll need an activation code to play.) The game is optimized for smartphones, not tablets, just like Field Trip. It looks interesting, at least if you're in an urban area and tend to wander around a bit. We'll have more detailed information if we ever get to swallow the red pill.

Play Store link:(Free) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nianticproject.ingress
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Source: http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/1...-reality-mmo-or-geotagging-game-or-something/

For more info and Beta key head on over to http://www.ingress.com/

The conspiracy theorist in me think this is kind of funny, a game with Geo-taging and face recognition linked to a company that has its own world domination issues, dealing with Geo-taging and face recognition. I do think this type of game would have rocked with Google Glasses.
 
This reddit comment explains the ideas behind this quite nicely.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/com..._ingress_a_worldwide_mobile/c71v7yv?context=2

Here's a snippet:

At a guess, it's about getting Google good data for footpath routes to compete with Nokia's recently announced turn-by-turn navigation for pedestrians.

Remember Google's free automated directory enquiries service that everyone wondered about ("why would they do that? What's the benefit? Where's the business model?"), that they cleverly used to quickly and effectively build a vast corpus of spoken word queries in a variety of accents, and to train the voice-recognition systems that subsequently made it into Google Voice and Android... and then as soon as it was built, they shut down GOOG-411.
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The are crowd sourcing footpath info to create the equivalent of turn by turn directions for walking. ;)
 
Nerfherder said:
Like when you want to trick your kids in to doing something... you make a game out of it.
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Plain brilliance. I esp like that Google's tricks to get people to do stuff for them are usually pretty clean. e.g. The Recaptcha.

I'm sure most other companies would somehow force you to do something / or apply some kind of pressure.
 
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