This morning I read an article on Multiplayer.it where there’s a video showing a Pokémon GO “clone” from 2011. This is the trailer:
So, has Niantic copied the idea?
I don’t think so. The idea is similar but the game play it’s totally different.
Ok, the game isn’t working anymore, and if it still was, i wouldn’t work outside Korea (Olleh is a brand of Korea Telecom), so I didn’t personally try it, but from the video I can see the difference.
The purpose in Olleh catch catch was to catch as many Mon as you can, and then convert the points in coupon, while in Pokémon GO you gotta catch ’em all™ and become the strongest trainer.
It’s also monetized differently, in the first one, the target is increase customer loyalty, go in partner stores to gain coupons to spend in partner stores. In Pokémon GO instead the devs make money from in-app purchases (power-ups) or pokéstop sponsorships.
In the end I think that Niantic didn’t got inspired at all to this game, but simply has took (their) Ingress and simplified the gameplay in order to make it appealing to any age range.
What do you think?