Lessons of Pokémon GO

Chris Furniss

But what Pokémon GO is benefitting from right now is a emergent mentorship that almost completely replaces a traditional tutorial. I would argue that this emergent mentorship is even more powerful than an actual tutorial. Mentorship increases engagement through social bonds. You've probably experienced this already with Pokémon GO: teaching a confused player something about the game that you've figured out already not only makes you feel smart and altruistic, it assuages confusion for the person you've mentored in a way that is highly personalized, and therefore more impactful.

 Interesting to make that behavior part of the interface: "I'm not going to give you a hint, but I will connect you to a couple of nodes in your own social graph that have figured it out."