Introducing Ingress: The MMO by Google. Google has joined the MMO scene. The company revealed its new massively multiplayer online alternate reality game, Ingress, yesterday. Players of this new game will be able to capture and defend virtual control points known as portals, but they have to actually get themselves to the proper meatspace location in order to do so. According to the game's trailer, which you can check out just below the cut, scientists have unleashed havoc on the world in the form of a mysterious energy source that gathers around certain locations -- and it's up to players to choose a faction and try to set things straight. Ingress is currently in closed beta and available only to Android users at the moment.
There are plans for an iOS version to come. You can sign up for a beta invite and get more details at the official site. Ingress. Ann Wuyts - Google+ - Expanded upon our Antwerp influence zone a bit last night.… Ingress Help. Start [Niantic Project / Google ARG Wiki] #niantic | Logs. The Niantic Project. Niantic Project. Google, This Is Getting Pretty Weird [The Niantic Project] : technology.
Are ARGs Dead? A Closer Look at a Common Refrain. November 14, 2012 · By Adrian Hon in Opinion Editor’s Note: At this year’s StoryWorld conference in Los Angeles, Fourth Wall Studios’ Chief Creative Officer Elan Lee stated that alternate reality games are dead as part of the conference’s final panel on “The Way Forward” for the transmedia industry. As one of the driving forces at Microsoft behind The Beast, Lee’s statement questioning the role of alternate reality games warrants closer examination. Adrian Hon, one of The Beast‘s player-moderators, former Director of Play at Mind Candy, and CEO at Six to Start, penned the following opinion piece exploring the statement.
“ARGs are dead”. We’ve heard it said many times over the years, and now most recently by Elan Lee, Founder of Fourth Wall Studios, at the Storyworld conference in LA this past October. Taken literally, it isn’t true. From a commercial standpoint, things haven’t changed much either. But I don’t hold any special enmity towards ARGs. So, what would that take? 2) Make money. Niantic Labs Bears More Fruit: Location-Based Massively Multiplayer Game Ingress Hits Google Play. We’ve seen startups tackle location-based multiplayer gaming, with title’s like Massive Damage’s Please Stay Calm and Shadow Cities out of Grey Area, but now a heavyweight player has entered the ring with Ingress, an app created by Google’s Niantic Labs.
The Niantic project got a lot of buzz last week thanks to a mysterious teaser, and previously the group was responsible for Google’s location-based discovery app Field Trip. Now, Ingress is launching on Google Play, offering a way for players with invites to join in unravelling a global mystery. The game is like other map-based ones we’ve seen before, plotting in-game elements to real-world locations, so that users can interact with the locales on their Android devices to unlock clues about what’s going on, gather objects, work together and against other human players in a two-sided battle to determine the future of humanity. Inside Ingress, Google's new augmented-reality game. Google Launches Ingress, a Worldwide Mobile Alternate Reality Game - Liz Gannes - Mobile. What’s the wackiest thing you can imagine Google launching?
How about a game to fight for control of the minds of everyone on earth? Or maybe that’s not so wacky. Meet Ingress, a new free mobile app and alternate reality game made by Google launching today (on Android first, available as soon as it makes it through the Google Play release process). Ingress is a project of former Google director of geo John Hanke and his Niantic Labs, a start-up team wholly inside of Google. “This grew out of us thinking about notions of ubiquitous computing,” Hanke told AllThingsD this week.
“The device melts away.” Ingress also aims to get people out in the physical world, both for physical activity and to see their surroundings in a new way. Users can generate virtual energy needed to play the game by picking up units of “XM,” which are collected by traveling walking paths, like a real-world version of Pac-Man. But Hanke contended that the game will be good for Google’s business from the beginning. Google Launches FieldTrip, A Location-Aware App That Helps You Find Cool Stuff Around You. Google just launched FieldTrip, a new location-based app that, as the company says, is meant to be “your guide to the cool, hidden, and unique things in the world around you.”
Just like Google Now can show you location-based information on Android 4.1, FieldTrip runs in the background and will automatically show you a card with relevant information as you walk around. The app, says Google, “can help you learn about everything from local history to the latest and best places to shop, eat, and have fun.” FieldTrip is currently only available for Android (2.3+), but the developers say that an iOS version is “coming soon.” The product was developed by NianticLabs, a small group inside of Google that, according to the New York times, specializes in building location-based and social mobile apps.
Talking to the New York Times, NianticLabs’ John Hanke said that “the idea behind the app was to build something that would help people connect with the real, physical world around them.” Google Game Could Be Augmented Reality's First Killer App. Choosing sides: Google’s new augmented-reality game, Ingress, makes users pick a faction—Enlightened or Resistance—and run around town attacking virtual portals in hopes of attaining world domination. I’m not usually very political, but I recently joined the Resistance, fighting to protect the world against the encroachment of a strange, newly discovered form of energy. Just this week, in fact, I spent hours protecting Resistance territory and attacking the enemy. Don’t worry, this is just the gloomy sci-fi world depicted in a new smartphone game called Ingress created by Google. Ingress is far from your normal gaming app, though—it takes place, to some degree, in the real world; aspects of the game are revealed only as you reach different real-world locations.
I found the game, which is currently available only to Android smartphone users who have received an invitation to play, surprisingly addictive—especially considering my usual apathy for gaming. Confused much? I sure was.