Niantic Labs recently announced that there is a new mobile game in the works for fans of Harry Potter called Wizards Unite. This news put glittery stars in the eyes of Harry Potter fans, but not so much for fans of Niantic's other popular game, Pokemon Go.
You see, according to Forbes, forums and discussion threads across the net are filled with disgruntled Pokemon Go fans. The site collects some of the conversations happening across the web, and the aficionados of the mobile monster-catching app have aired their grievances with Niantic's plan to tackle Harry Potter.
The main issue isn't franchise jealousy, but rather franchise neglect. Many on the Pokemon side believe that Niantic hasn't been putting as much effort into the game as the company should be. It's no shock that over the past year and a half since the game launched for mobile devices, Pokemon Go has been extremely slow to receive updates and has been gaining new content at a snail's pace.
It's true that the game has only just received some Gen 3 Pokemon, from games that have been out for 15 or so years. I know that it takes a lot to squeeze a lot of Pokemon into a tiny app on mobile devices and for a company that hasn't had any previous development experience with the franchise, but there are certain expectations that people have going into a Pokemon game and Niantic has been slow to capitalize on those expectations.
In fact, almost all of the major events taking place in the West have not gone as planned, and even resulted in Niantic getting sued for the catastrophe that took place in Chicago.
Gamers feel as if Niantic could end up supporting Pokemon Go even less now that Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is set to come out for mobile devices.
Forbes makes a good point that Niantic might have a B team working on the Harry Potter title, and hiring in new staff could help mitigate any issues of having slow roll outs for Pokemon Go. The article also poses the alternate scenario of Niantic not having enough staff and stretching staff thin between both titles, which would be detrimental to both brands.
Obviously we don't know exactly what's going on behind the scenes at the development studio, but there's also the issue of the company not doing the best job securing the network infrastructure to handle the player load for Pokemon Go, so there are worries about handling the load for Harry Potter.
And, lastly (and probably most importantly), some are worried that Niantic could cannibalize its own success by encroaching on a market that the company currently controls with zero competition. There are no other notable games even remotely close to competing with Pokemon Go, and the game is still extremely popular. Bringing another game into the fold that offers a similar experience could fracture the market and cannibalize sales of Pokemon Go.
Of course, we just don't have enough info right now to make any snap judgments about what will happen with either game. We'll definitely need to see what Niantic does with both games before getting too excited or being too pessimistic.
