Before Pokemon Go, there was Ingress
In September 2015, agents “Anfidurl” and “Carniv0rous” were in position in Cambodia. They held the portal keys for Sabah, East Malaysia, and Karimun and Medan in Indonesia. On their signal, 30 agents in seven countries moved into action: Shields were attacked, resonators deployed and portals linked. After three hours, an emerald field glowed over Singapore and parts of Malaysia and Vietnam. Months of covert operations allowed the Enlightened to finally capture 5.4 billion mind units.
In September 2015, agents “Anfidurl” and “Carniv0rous” were in position in Cambodia. They held the portal keys for Sabah, East Malaysia, and Karimun and Medan in Indonesia. On their signal, 30 agents in seven countries moved into action: Shields were attacked, resonators deployed and portals linked. After three hours, an emerald field glowed over Singapore and parts of Malaysia and Vietnam. Months of covert operations allowed the Enlightened to finally capture 5.4 billion mind units.
If little of the above made sense to you, we just want to say: All this really did happen — in the alternate world of augmented reality location-based game Ingress, an offering from game developer Niantic released three years before Pokemon Go took the world by storm.
The community here that plays the game is still going strong, citing aspects such as strong friendships among players as reasons why they continue playing, despite it being less well-known than its popular brother.
There are some 800 to 1,000 active players now, according to players TODAY spoke to. Some meet weekly, while others gather monthly. And they do not meet just to play Ingress — sometimes, they hang out to cycle, rock-climb, play football or frisbee, as well as to go for meals or durian outings.
Both games embody Niantic’s “core values of exercise, discovery and fun”, in the words of Niantic chief executive officer John Hanke. While Pokemon Go has already won over an unprecedented number of gamers in its first months, it may do well to learn from Ingress about how to keep them coming back.
Like Pokemon Go, Ingress can be played without interacting very much with other players. In Ingress, players choose a side — the Enlightened or the Resistance — and then battle the opponent to capture mind units. However, 36-year-old engineer Dustin Lau, who has been playing since April 2013, explained: “The game was designed in a way that, to play at an enjoyable level, you have to play with other people.” This is because certain actions, such as creating a level eight portal, can be executed only when at least eight players are physically gathered at the portal.
“Ingress has been a game changer because you have to play in real life, you have to meet people and build a community,” explained Lau, who is a moderator in the Resistance faction. “People who would otherwise be socially awkward develop social skills. Young players, who were a bit shy when they joined, gained stature as they spend more time (playing) the game.” Giving an example of a teenager who led older players in an operation, he said: “It teaches people to be leaders.”
Many Ingress players also play Pokemon Go, and they understand the latter’s popularity — it has lower barriers to entry and Pokemon is well-known intellectual property.
But the real-life teamwork demanded by Ingress ends up building a strong sense of camaraderie. “Like army buddies, the players overcome adversities together. Having been in the trenches together, you gain the trust in the people whom you play and build friendships with,” said Lau. The sense of community becomes a draw in itself for players. “I came for the game,” he said. “But I stayed for the community.”
Pokemon Go’s current gameplay does not encourage teamwork yet, although this might change as the game evolves. There has been talk that Niantic is planning on introducing a highly-anticipated update that will allow users to trade Pokemon.
“In photos showing the crowds at Hougang, they are all playing but they are not necessarily playing (the game) together,” said Lau.
The sociality that Ingress promotes is not new, said associate professor Patrick Williams of Nanyang Technological University’s Division of Sociology. “Connecting people through games and competition has been around forever,” he said. However, technology is “putting a new skin” on sociality and, with smartphones and GPS (global positioning systems), Ingress can provide “a new level of integration of the digital and the geographically real”.
Dr Jude Yew, who studies social computing at National University of Singapore’s Department of Communications and New Media, said that design “is not just aesthetics” — it carries values and “can nudge human behaviour”.
Dr Yew added that Ingress has designed a game that encourages sociality: For example, even though “computer games are notoriously misogynistic”, women feel safe playing Ingress because “after a while you know who your opponents and your team are, which makes it less likely for players to troll or to be misogynistic”.
His observation is supported by “AvaCarter”, a lawyer in her 40s who preferred to be known by her in-game name (IGN). She estimated that about one in three Ingress players is female.
“Everyone has his or her preconceived idea of what to expect from the gaming community,” said AvaCarter, who has been playing since June last year. “I thought I would meet typical gamers, but (instead) I had a chance to meet people from a very diverse background.” She said the community included different ethnicities, age groups and “entire families that play together”.
On Sept 24, Singapore will host the Via Lux Anomaly, a large-scale Ingress event that brings players from the region together. “It is quite a big deal,” said AvaCarter, who anticipated an influx of Ingress players from Asia and was putting together a hospitality team to arrange accommodation deals, create a visitor’s guide and organise dinners.
“I can’t emphasise the social aspect enough — people are excited to get to know new people,” she said. The event is held by Niantic, but most of the organisation is a ground-up effort by local players. “It gives people a sense of community, to go out and organise events, and see actual results from their efforts. You can play on a daily basis, but it’s very different when you say you are coming together with 15 (Anomaly) sites around the world.”
To achieve the stickiness that Ingress has done with its players, Pokemon Go could take the advice given to a 14-year-old agent at an Ingress gathering held on Sept 3. The veteran player said: “The links you make with people are the ones that matter.”