The Difference Between AR, VR and Pokémon Go

1
The Difference Between AR, VR and Pokémon Go Out
of all that we have discussed till now, we very
well know that Virtual Reality is all about
escapism. All one needs is a nicely fitting HMD
and a pair of earphones to teleport to a new
world. VR deprives your senses, from keeping a
track of the world you are in and it comes no
less than a surprise that people are tagging
this new rage Pokémon Go as a VR game. Well if
you say that it makes you unaware of your
surroundings and you keep banging into other
people as you are busy looking for that rare
Vaporeon on your phone, then I must tell you
that it is not what I mean by losing a track of
the real world.
By the
way, just in case you are one of those
living under a rock and havent come
across the
phenomenon called Pokémon Go, then it is
supposedly an Augmented Reality (AR) game which
will use your smartphone and insert Pokémon into
your surroundings so that you can try to catch
them. Not just that the game also encourages
players to get out and explore, only after which
one can catch hold of a Pokémon. Well, that
sounds really cool and we are surely hoping to
soon hear Pokémon Go weight loss stories. Jokes
aside the game has actually become the biggest
mobile game in the US history while breaking
records of apps like Twitter and Tinder in terms
of downloads and number of users.
So, Pokémon Go has been released as an AR game
with an amazing concept video for AR. But for
the beginners again, there is a lot of difference
between AR and VR. The biggest difference between
the two technologies is that with AR one can
experience the world around them but with a
digitally changed environment while in the case
of VR one experiences a separate digital world
altogether, presented by an HMD like Oculus Rift
or HTC Vive. By now, we assume that we can easily
strike out the option of Pokémon Go being
anywhere close to VR. Now lets talk about the
game and is connect with AR.
2
Sadly, in reality, the game is nowhere close to
its announcement video. So how do we categorize
it as augmented reality? Well, lets start with
the first feature of GPS tracking. This means
that in order to find Pokémon and Poké spots,
one has to physically move around. This doesnt
look as great as it sounds, for one is, in a way
looking at the stylized version of the maps on
your phone. So nothing fancy out here.
The next said to be AR feature is the camera
view which upon discovering a Pokémon, shows
the creature superimposed on whatever the phones
camera happens to be looking at. But to our
disappointment, it really doesnt augment
reality and that superimposition of Pokémon looks
BAD. Like for a general example, how the famous
image messaging app Snapchat knows the shape of
your face and helps augment it in interesting
ways. But Pokémon Go knows nothing more about
your reality or
3
surroundings. Pokémon superimposed in your
surrounding cant really be tagged as augmenting
reality but merely conflicting with it.
Overall, Pokémon Go is a nice, interactive
and without failing addictive game but
calling it as a benchmark for an AR game would
not be the best choice of words. There is a lot
which still needs to be done in the game to make
it a successful augmented reality nevertheless,
the efforts and thought process cannot be
ignored. The game with its popularity is sure to
make the technology more popular and much in
demand but we would definitely expect better
trials the next time.