[Updated] Econet Launching Augmented Reality Treasure Hunt On 12 February

Econet has just announced that from 12 February, subscribers will be able to take part in an Augmented Reality (AR) treasure hunt. Those of you who follow tech trends may know Pokemon Go the extremely popular AR game that drove a large part of the world crazy a few years ago and that’s what I liken the new treasure hunt game that Econet has released to.

If you’re not familiar with Pokemon Go, I’ll just explain how the Treasure Hunt works; on your phone, you’ll be able to fire app the web-based game in your browser and once in-game a map opens and if you hunt down treasure by going to certain locations and collecting the Yo Play Atoms – which are boxes containing rewards. You’ll have to fire up your camera or be within a certain distance to collect prizes which you can trade-in at Econet shops for real-life rewards.

Update: Users will only be able to hunt between 12-2 pm and 4-6 pm. Not sure why that’s the case but it seems like an odd thing to add such friction to the process. This will mean if you’re in an area with prizes but it isn’t one of the listed times, you won’t be able to collect the boxes containing treasure.

This gamification of what would otherwise be a boring normal giveaway is definitely a first especially when you take into consideration the tech being used.

The way it’s been done takes the context into consideration in a manner that many will appreciate. One such instance is the treasure-hunt being web-based and not requiring users to download an app. This takes into consideration the fact that data is expensive at the moment and would deter a number of people from playing the game. It also takes into consideration that the treasure hunt has a time limit thus an application isn’t really necessary – we already have too many ghost apps on our phones anyway.

We’ll test out the treasure hunt experience once it goes live and share our feedback.