The Mentor that Stole My Life
In 2012, I was doing research on some games that didn’t have great graphics, but were very successful from the prospective of engagement and monetization (yes, part of my work is to research and play games, among other grueling activities such as talking about games, traveling the world, and coming up with random comments while filming my videos).
During this time, a game called Parallel Kingdom popped up on my radar135.
Parallel Kingdom is a mobile location based MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) that allows players to access and grow in a virtual world laid out on top of the real world, based on the player’s GPS location. The game has fairly unrefined and unimpressive graphics, but monetizes handsomely and makes millions of dollars as a small team.
When I started doing preliminary research on the game, I initially planned to spend no more than two hours to learn about its game mechanics design...