Niantic Outlines Future Plans for Pokémon GO in India

Pokémon Go, a game that famously pioneered socially interactive gaming, has found a unique resonance in India, a country rich in culture and dynamic social interactions. We sit down with Sundarraman Ramalingam. Country Manager – India, Pokémon GO India to explore Niantic’s perspective on shaping this category within the Indian context, delving into their strategies for engaging a diverse player base and navigating the country’s distinct cultural landscape. Check out the full interview below.

Niantic Outlines Future Plans for Pokémon GO in India

Pokémon GO pioneered social interacting gaming, how does Niantic view its role in shaping this category in India, particularly given the unique culture and social dynamics?

So we are not really looking at shaping Indian dynamics, but like you said it’s a very socially interactive gaming, right? We are bringing culturally relevant items like Pikachu wearing a saree, Pikachu wearing kurta, like bringing our cultural festivals like Diwali and Holi by activating them in game as festival of colors and festival of lights, and we see our trainers react positively to it, and we want to enhance the culture by embracing it but not change it in any way, and I think it’s working beautifully.

Since the introduction of Hindi language a while back, so what is the specific growth trends have you observed in the Pokémon GO India player base? How has the localization strategy impacted the user engagement and retention

So when we localized it in Hindi, we wanted more people in India to really access the game, right? And we received a lot of positive feedback post that, and I think a lot of our events together combined have seen a large positive outcome in terms of both our user engagement and user base. We saw one of our significant revenue years last year and we see that reflecting this year as well when it comes to player engagement, and our total number of communities doubled last year from around 20s to 50 plus, and out of 30, around 30 plus cities, right?

And more number of people are coming out to play Pokémon GO than before, so I think all of our activities and local focus has helped us significantly and we are kind of seeing the result here with the kind of turnout and reception we have gotten for City Safari Mumbai.

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What are the biggest challenges and opportunities Niantic faces in expanding Pokémon GO reach and impact in India

So, I think there are a few places where we could be, I wouldn’t say we could be doing better or maybe some places where we face an issue is the awareness for the Pokémon brand itself has not been particularly as great as some of the other western markets, right? And that’s why even now the Pokémon company is investing significantly in terms of spreading awareness about Pokémon, and we are also quite committed to the market, so that’s been something that we have been working actively on, and say a strength is that our people are very passionate, way more than say some of the other countries and how connected they are with the community, how passionate they are about the game, it’s really on a different level which has helped us out a lot.

How is Niantic collaborating with local developers and creators to foster the AR ecosystem in India?

So, when you are talking about AR from a developer improvement standpoint, there were certain projects which helped, Niantic’s goal has always been augmenting the real world with technology and enabling social interaction, and one of the visions through that was the projects that they launched a couple of years back that helped developers sort of utilize their platform to develop their own games, and active support to that is still being provided, but apart from that, the focus right now is about Pokémon GO in India, and sort of seeing the reception that we are getting from the Indian audience.

What are Niantic’s future plans about Pokémon GO in India? What new features or events or initiatives does the Indian player base expect in the coming years?

For Pokémon GO, I think a lot of things that we have done so far, right, sort of shows what we want to do in the future as well, like for example, last year we had a Bollywood celebrity collaboration with Riteish Deshmukh and Genelia D’Souza. This year we are collaborating with Mumbai Indians and Gujarat Titans IPL team.

So from a marketing perspective, we are targeting some of the big players to spread awareness and excite the Indian audience, and then from an in-game perspective as well, both Sareen Kurta Pikachu and Siri Safari Mumbai, this is the first time a live event is happening in India, so that in itself is like a big achievement that we have brought for the Indian market, and that is also a testament to our players who have been responding very positively. So in the future we want to look at more cities in bringing these activations, we want to look at more local events for say Holi and Diwali and more localized content for our users, and that will be our focus moving forward to excite Indian Pokémon GO players.

Gaming