Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, which some fans are calling "Potter Go", appears to be off to a slow start. This is despite the backing of Warner Bros. studio through its WB Games label, and a franchise with a high fanbase.
According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, the game was downloaded around 4.7 million times within the first six days after release. Pokémon Go, which was released in July 2016, had 32 million downloads during the same period. That's not all, as initial sales are way behind as well. While Pokémon Go had $50 million in sales during the first six days, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite reported a rather dismal $1.9 million. Even worse, the game has yet to reach the top in major app stores, something that new games typically experience.
So what appears to be the problem? For some of those in the gaming community, one observation is that Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is not the Harry Potter game that needed to be made. Indeed, it appears that marketing and raising awareness for the game was not enough. If WB banked on Harry Potter fans diving headfirst, it appears that was a miscalculation. The difference is rather telling. During the first few days after Pokémon Go was released, one could observe groups of people going about catching Pokémon. For Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, that doesn't seem to be the case.
There are also those who say that the problem could also be that a number of AR games seem to be released more frequently. This makes playing multiple AR games more difficult. It's also not that easy to convince players to switch, especially if they are already deeply invested in a game like Pokémon Go.
Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is also experiencing some issues game-wise. For starter, one problem relates to spell energy. For some quick background info, in the game you play as a wizard trying to make sure that magic is not revealed to Muggles, or the "real" world. To do so, you need to use magic to fight magical creatures and items to send them back to where they belong. Each time you use a spell, you use up energy. The problem is that spell energy does not restore over time, unlike in some games. One option is to find "Inns" in order to replenish your energy. Barring that, your only other option is to use coins. How do you get coins? By getting them as a reward or actually buying them, that is, spending real money. Talk about pay to play.
Another problem being raised by players is that you can gather ingredients, but are unable to use them until to reach a certain level. This means you eventually reach the limit of your inventory. While RPG games allow you to sell items in the inventory to free up space, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite does not. You are only left with increasing the amount of inventory space. How to do that? You guessed it, using coins.
A number of players don’t have problems with paying real money in order to improve their chances in the game. However, something feels different for Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Clifford Colby at CNet probably said it best that the range in which the game “gives you to play before paying” is smaller compared to Niantic’s first two offerings.
It can be argued that the game is still in the early stages of release and open to changes. Hopefully, that change comes sooner rather than later.
