In the 1980s, Atari was the hit that created console gaming, with a device that supported hundreds of video games, with every different genre. In 1982, Atari earned $2 billion and was the fastest growing company in American history. There’s a lot of money when you create a new platform for video games.

So far, outdoor video gaming hasn’t been a platform. A platform needs to support thousands of games of all game types. Pokémon Go and its copycats only support one type of gameplay: collecting stuff.

This is an unimportant game genre. Nobody plays collecting games on PC and console! But somehow Pokémon Go earned $9 billion from this weak type of gameplay. Their success surely started with the Pokémon brand, but there’s more. Walking lifts your body chemistry. It literally makes you happy to walk around. That drove player retention: it made players want to play Pokémon Go longer.

Player retention is a big issue to most video game makers. They must continually add new content or create new “levels”, which are very expensive, to keep players engaged. Now think about outdoor activities like baseball and football. In sports, nobody worries about designing a new baseball diamond or adding new monsters to the football field. Sports are simply fun and endless. It’s built into our animal nature. It feels good to go outside. Players are active and they engage with real people. That’s all that sports needs. It’s part of Pokémon Go’s success, too.

So moving video games outside magnifies player retention. What if, instead of an unimportant game type like collecting stuff, you took a more powerful game type outside? If you started with blockbuster PC / console game genres, like action, simulation, strategy and roleplaying, how much more money could you make outdoors?

Pokémon Go never got there. Its technology is based on tiny fixed map points, and you can’t do much with that. How can you put a racing car game on a pinpoint? You need a race track. How can you explore a fantasy world on a pinpoint? You need a fantasy world. These huge game genres only work when the game world is a landscape, a continuous area that players can explore.

That means that, although outdoor collecting games have already earned $10 billion, most of the potential of outdoor games is still untapped! Who will take roleplaying and action games outside, and all of the other game genres? That would be an “Atari moment” — the moment that outdoor gaming became a real platform for video games, supporting hundreds of games and dozens of game types, just like PC, console, VR, mobile, arcade, and existing game platforms.

See the Baird Augustine industry report, Monsarrat at a Turning Point for Outdoor Video Games.

That’s our opportunity at Monsarrat. We’re not just making a game (B2C) of a type never seen before. We’re building a major new game platform (B2B), to support any time of gameplay outdoors.

Our technology, based on 8 patents, lays out an entire landscape of content across a real-world space, which a player walks through to play. We don’t use fixed locations; you don’t need to walk all across your city to play. Instead, the player chooses where to play, like you would set up a game of volleyball. Choose any place that’s easy to walk around, indoors or outdoors.

It’s not our first time creating a new category. Our founder, Johnny Monsarrat, previously co-invented MMO gaming as Founder, CEO, and CTO of Turbine, one of the “big three” first MMO game companies. Turbine won D.I.C.E. “Game of the Year” for Asheron’s Call (which is like winning an Oscar in the video game industry) and PC Gamer “Game of the Year” for Lord of the Rings Online, and is now a division of Warner Bros.

Playing sports is a great way to make new friends. But many people feel shut out of sports. They find sports boring and exhausting.

Our outdoor roleplaying games give them a more creative, less athletic outdoor alternative. Like sports it gets you moving and helps you make friends. And it also draws sporty people who like video games but don’t want to sit at a desk.

Most video games are a break from life, a stress break. Immersive games “feel real”, but your body knows the truth: you’re sitting statically in your mom’s basement, with all the lights off. VR is “fully immersive” but even worse: you put your head in a prison where you can’t even see your mom when she comes down with cookies.

Our games don’t separate you from life. They connect you to life.

You explore your neighborhood, engaging with trees, grass, squirrels, and feeling part of your community, seeing passersby and an AR game landscape on your phone. That’s a kind of “immersion” you could never get with other games. It doesn’t just “feel real”. It is real.

You could pet a passing dog, buy an ice cream, take photos of the sunset, or make a friend who could change your life. Your real life.

In the global crisis of loneliness, it’s hard for people to get off the couch. Up to 80% of young people say they feel lonely.

Other games are a stress break, but you pause your life. You aren’t living your life.

We can help. Our game gets you outside and walking! That’s great for physical and mental health. Walking changes your body chemistry; it literally makes you happy to walk around.

Our games can even introduce people in a public park and be an ice breaker that bonds them together. Make a new friend, not online but in the real world!