Waze is Google. I think MQ is…out of business now? I’m not sure. I think Trimble has its own geolocation stuff they resell for like construction companies and real estate stuff.

It might even be that Google would let you scrape their map data for free! I’m not actually sure that that’s the main holdup. Believe me, I’ve been thinking on this topic nonstop since we started playing.

But I look at PoGo and holy shit is there a lot going on. Not only in terms of game design but global experience. AR games don’t work, I think, if you constrain them to a specific country. And then look at the, gosh, hundreds (thousands) of critter designs and all the cross-marketing that goes with that. And the marketing toward non-playing entities to hook in, like how there’s a Pokestop at every Starbucks.

Maybe, I guess, if someone had an absolutely jaw-dropping proof of concept they could pull a few mil in and hire up for all that ongoing programming, testing, marketing, art…it’s a big job.

It also occurs to me that there’s a minimum critical mass of players to make it work. That’s true of all games but it seems extra true for a game model that relies so heavily on actual human interaction. So expect to lose a few mil in the first 18 months, yeah?

Dunno. Maybe there really is a garage operation out there somewhere who’s figuring this stuff out.