On the other hand, gyms are just arbitrarily tied to landmarks purely by location. There's no actual interaction with the landmark. Excepting spawn variance, you could replace the entire pokemon map with a fake world and absolutely nothing would change from a gameplay point of view.
In that sense, I struggle to call that AR there's no actual augmentation to the reality. The pokemon, gyms, PoI, etc. do not influence or take influence from the landscape around them. You don't go to actual hospitals to heal your pokemon. Gyms don't change in any way whatsoever based on where they're placed - for example, battling in a gym in the middle of a park doesn't involve fighting in an open field with no obstacles, vs a gym in a CBD letting the buildings, cars, etc. play a role in the battle.
It really boils down to the subjective aspect of what AR/VR/etc. constitutes. For me, there needs to be some influence from the real world to the AR. With PoGo, there's really not beyond the most superficial listed above. In that sense, it's no more AR than an achievement/reward-based, social-network style step counter where you compete with your friends and the public for the amount you walk. It simply uses the GPS to measure distance - beyond that, the real world plays no role.
One major thing would change: the social aspect. There are raids in Pokemon Go and they happen in specific physical locations. You must literally go stand near other humans and cooperate with them to win.
Is that actually a feature of Pokemon Go? I'd heard of this, but what I heard was specifically that it was a myth.
I suspect the old rumours of 'porygon is most likely found near libraries, etc.' is myth, but this definitely holds.
Seeing as plenty of companies are wanting to cash in on the visual definition of AR, perhaps we need a differentiated term here? If you wanted to highlight the locational aspect, perhaps something like "augmented cartography" but I think the idea goes beyond harnessing position data... it's more generally about annotating reality, in a way.
> "the nascent technology, which blends digital images with a person’s view of the real world."
edit: correct mixed relative to mixed reality. brane fart.
Pokemon Go may not have deeply integrated with reality, but it brought the game "out of the screen".
"Geo-AR" reached an early user awareness peak when foursquare was exciting and it is still very much alive in niches like Strava segments.
But you're not augmenting your senses that perceive the reality. Using the app to check if an entity exists near you is nothing more than just a reference check; it's like looking up Yelp reviews for the restaurant you're in.
Technically... yes. But that would make any location-tracking application technically "AR" too.
Yelp is an AR application (it's Monocle mode) in much more of a real way tham just slapping stuff on landmarks and using GPS.
Lets face it - "Augmented Reality" to most people means real-time video overlay and enhancement. Maps data isn't reality, it's a representation of it. Real-time video through a devices camera is a reflection of reality so augmenting that is much more towards the spirit of the term.
Is it not also AR to have many invisible creatures, gyms, and resources placed in the real world? I don't think there needs to be a visual component at all for it to be AR. When I used to play the game my reality was augmented because everywhere I went I thought "I wonder what Pokemon are around" and would check the app.
A seamless visual integration would be nice (I want to see some Pokemon battle in my living room) but even just the Ingress-style map integration is AR in my opinion.