Gabe Newell Thinks Pokemon Go Should Have Had a Bigger Impact on Mobile Gaming
Close to six years after its original release, Pokémon Go continues to be one of the most popular mobile games in the world. Nevertheless, its promised AR revolution hasn't quite materialized, and Valve co-founder Gabe Newell is among those disappointed.
Speaking with Rock Paper Shotgun on the occasion of the Steam Deck's release, Newell said he thinks Pokémon Go should have had "more implications" for mobile gaming. Instead, follow-ups like Harry Potter Wizard's Unite have mostly fizzled out.
By contrast, Newell hopes that Valve can follow up on the release of the Steam Deck by building more mobile experience that make sense for the platform.
"I think Pokémon Go really should have had more more implications for people thinking about the opportunity space for what's possible with mobile gaming, and it really hasn't," Newell said. "So I think that that's one of the things that we're super excited about is, you know, we built this building block, this pretty critical set of components in order to allow this. And now, we get to do the really fun stuff, where we go into R&D mode."
Valve has a history of building games that take advantage of its hardware innovations. Half-Life: Alyx is a recent example of this, being built explicitly with Valve's VR hardware in mind.
Newell says that he's looking forward to digging into the new possibilities. "[I]t's also super exciting to say, let's go prototype, three or four different new ideas for what he could put into a mobile gaming platform that extend the experience. Go into software developers and have them go, 'That's rubbish,' or 'Oh, that's pretty cool.' Or 'Oh my god, you have to do this' and 'Let's start working together on a software prototype to go with your hardware prototype to
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