Orion AR nonsense, the power of Roblox, and Pokémon Sleep heads to smartwatches | Week in Views

The games industry moves quickly and while stories may come and go there are some that we just can’t let go of…

So, to give those particularly thorny topics a further going over we’ve created a weekly digest where the members of the PocketGamer.biz team share their thoughts and go that little bit deeper on some of the more interesting things that have happened in mobile gaming in the past week.

Introducing Orion, our first true augmented reality glasses

I had planned to cover this announcement in the podcast, but Virgin Media heard my rant and summarily dropped my internet connection, saving you all from my rambling. So here it is in text form instead. Sorry.

This week Meta unveiled the new Orion AR glasses. At first glance, it sounds great – a better form factor for the long-awaited AR wearables that will take us into the future and help us ascend to a higher plane of existence.

Well, actually no. Meta said it will never make its way into the hands of consumers. Ascension will have to wait. Sorry again.

It kind of reminded me of Magic Leap, raising billions of dollars and making enormous promises that ultimately never came to fruition. Though Meta is investing more money into this endeavour, at least?

But why would Meta announce this headset at all? You can show anything as a prototype when a consumer version doesn’t exist and it comes without a price tag. What would that consumer version really look like? The Apple Vision Pro? Wait, that’s not really for consumers either, is it.

Orion across as a marketing tool to raise share price, justify Meta’s immense expenditure in the XR space – it even changed its name, don’t forget – and to generate consumer interest for its other VR products.

The danger, however, is when Meta does finally release its AR glasses, with plans to ship something in the near future, it will be a disappointing, lesser version of what was teased.

Which brings me to a wider point. Tech companies need to stop shipping bad versions of hardware and software and just calling it the ‘first one’ and that it will ‘only get better’. It’s what ultimately happened with the Vision Pro. An interesting headset with no practical use case and no sales.

It’s a waste of consumer money. The iPhone worked because the first iteration was incredible, a game-changer. It made sense off the bat. Yes, it would only get better, but the first version was great.

Tech companies look so desperate to create the next platform after so many missed out on the smartphone era, that we’re just cursed with some of these products given and shown to us before their time.

AR might well be the future. But please show us the tech when you really think it’s ready. It’s okay. We can wait.

22 year old raises $3.7 million for Roblox tool platform Gamebeast

The Roblox platform is huge, with over two million developers creating new experiences and no signs of that slowing down anytime soon. If anything, platforms and games with a user-generated content focus only seem to be getting even more popular. 

For Zander Brumbaugh, Roblox seems to have been a career and life-changing experience. And he’s only 22 years old.

Brumbaugh started playing Rolox at the age of 12 and went on to create games with over 500 million visits. He’s written books on coding for Roblox and now has his own company, Gamebeast, which makes tools for UGC platforms. 

With $3.7 million in pre-seed funding raised, Gamebeast can continue developing its no-code toolset, which focuses on helping creators develop on platforms such as Roblox. Outside of games, there also appear to be opportunities coming from the military sector.

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think platforms like Roblox are without their faults, but for some, they’re a place where a hobby can turn into a true passion for development, and in this case a huge opportunity for success.

Pokémon Sleep sleepwalks to $120 million in time for smartwatch update

Another day, another milestone. Or should that be another night?

Either way, Pokémon Sleep has reached $120 million by AppMagic estimates. I’m always surprised at how much money this game’s making when it’s really less of a game than something like Pokémon Unite, yet it’s made substantially more money.

Clearly there’s a market for these kinds of games, making Pokémon something of a companion to daily life – out and about with Go, brushing your teeth with Smile, and a good night’s kip with Sleep.

The latest milestone has been reached just as Sleep has added smartwatch compatibility, finally meaning players don’t have to leave the game open and running on their bed all night. Previously the only alternative was to buy the Pokémon Go Plus +, a device compatible with Go and Sleep costing around $50.

It’s a step in the right direction for accessibility, letting users on iOS and Android use their smartwatches instead if they prefer.