Niantic is one of the few companies in the augmented reality world making some actual goddamn revenue.
As such, it didn’t feel right not to have the company that built Pokémon GO represented at our one-day Sessions AR/VR event this Thursday in LA. I’ll be sitting down with the company’s AR research lead Ross Finman at the event to talk about why augmented reality is so important to Niantic’s future and why AR tech can actually make tomorrow’s games and apps more engaging.
The game maker struck gold with Pokémon GO, but as it looks for lightning to strike twice with its upcoming Harry Potter title that’s being released later this year, the company has become a lot more vocal about the potential of AR tech to make users feel like the game world and the physical world are aligned.
Finman joined Niantic after the startup he co-founded, Escher Reality, was acquired by the company earlier this year. Prior to founding Escher, Finman spent 7 years at MIT researching 3D perception and mapping. There isn’t much in the augmented reality space he hasn’t directly interacted with.
We’ll chat with Finman about the challenges of scaling to a global user base some of these more experimental technologies, and what learnings Niantic has garnered from all of the success of Pokémon GO.
Final tickets are now on sale — book yours here and you’ll save 35 percent on general admission tickets. Student tickets are $45.