The Pokemon Go mobile game has been around for more than a year and the developer (Niantic) had managed to transform the global success into many stages of evolution. I must admit that I have been following this game from the beginning, even though the rest of my family have given up on it and moved on. I was fascinated about how this game has been able to make kids get out of the house to exercise and bond total strangers together in a common tribal experience, with the help of technology. This was the new phase of social media for all gamers.
Being the go-to website for all information nowadays, we started to see new channels in YouTube set up for hardcore Pokemon Go fans. One of them stood out for me. He was very knowledgeable about the game, posted daily videos and even travelled around the whole to participate in the special events, letting all of us experience his adventures from our arm chairs. This channel is called TrainerTips and it is run by a 27-year-old guy called Nicholas Oyzon.
From Jan 2016, he anticipated the launch of Pokemon Go and created videos to talk about the game in detail every day. He was a Millenial that grew up on Pokemon game cards during his teenage years and can easily spurt out the statistics of each creature in the game effortlessly. While getting 300,000+ views per video on his YouTube channel and Ad revenue, he was also selling his own branded TrainerTips Pokemon merchandise online. These provided him with funds to pursue his passion. He also started funding campaigns (GoFundMe) to help him subsidize his overseas trips to Japan and Europe to report on the special Niantic events for his fan base.
In his own words : “The idea for Trainer Tips was born shortly after the original announcement trailer for Pokémon GO. The game represented something that we had been hoping for since childhood – an opportunity for a real-life Pokémon adventure. At the same time, it was also a promising business opportunity. Having worked in digital content creation for the last couple years, I understood the power of online video. We knew we weren’t alone in our excitement over the game and predicted that there would be a large market for the type of content we aimed to produce.”
The wonders of the social media via the internet is still evolving all the time. This guy managed to combine his childhood passion with slick online marketing to cash in on a trend as a one-man enterprise. That’s really awesome! As a frequent viewer of his videos, I can experience first-hand his adventures and thoughts. He started a business model that was able to create and satisfy a new need with a global audience as a base and then monetizing it.
While this may not last forever as fads come and go, it is a peek into things to come in the future, of possible new future careers that our kids may have. The world is your oyster and there is no glass ceiling. You develop an idea and then use a global platform to launch your content. PewDiePie was the pioneer that showed everyone the new way forward and its possibilities, which I had mentioned before on my blog. Exciting times ahead.
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