I was thinking about returning to Wizards Unite this week... Only to find that it has discontinued. Sad is an understatement.

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This might be interesting to HPWU players who don't play current Niantic games. Niantic launched a web version of Niantic Profiles at https://my.nianticlabs.com/home last week.

Their announcement: https://nianticlabs.com/blog/niantic-profile/?hl=en

That should mean you can login to see your old HPWU friends list (because HPWU friends were also "Niantic Friends") and see what current Niantic games your friends have accounts for. (The bad news is Niantic deleted defunct games from everyone's profile, so you won't see HPWU listed even for yourself.) You can only see your own and your friends' profiles.

There are no other useful features like messaging, unfortunately.

Miss you.

I joined the "local group" when the chat feature rolled out, but don't recall seeing this notification before. Made me sad to see it. If only my local group was still actually able to have a meet up (though who scheduled it for after game close?). Admittedly I didn't really check the chat because I never saw anyone online near me, but I definitely would have checked out a meet up if they had occurred when the game was still open...

Will have to delete the app soon, as my phone is running out of space. Weird to think the game is done, but clearly something is still working in the background to send these notifications.

My favorite part of HPWU was the wizarding challenges at Fortresses. I enjoyed the balance between the three professions in battle, the need to unlock skills in a profession, and the need for teamwork and communication. I need an option to play remotely, similar to the Knight Bus function. I also liked that it was easy enough to play while watching TV.

Any suggestions? It doesn't need to be an AR game, but I prefer playing on my phone. Thanks!

Edit to add: I tried Ingress and PoGo and did not feel feel like either game had a similar level of strategy, cooperation, and balance between "professions" in a battle. I am currently playing Pikmin Bloom, which fulfills a different purpose (walking outside).

Right now it’s still a badge of honor!

But how long will you let the icon live on , sitting on your home screen taking up space? How long do you wear the badge before it becomes an eyesore? I might give it another month or two.

So had anyone else found themselves continuing to click on the icon and expecting the game to open? I think I’ve been doing it because for one I just keep hoping it will be there one of these times when I do. However, I also think that it just became a habit that when I am in certain places where I knew there was a lot of activity I could quickly get a few minutes of playtime in. I’m still looking for what my next game might be or deciding that I should just find something different to do all together.

I thought someone had posted about a guide/compilation of how the game was played and how the storyline progressed. I was planning on reading through it all now that the game is over, but I can’t find the link. Does anyone know what I’m talking about?

I'm talking about this from the angle of the design and business of games. In 2019 Wizards Unite launched to much fanfare, coming from the same people who made the very popular Pokemon Go. In the first half of 2021, according to reports, PoGo made $642 million, a year-over-year increase of 34%, its 4th year in a row of double-digit growth. In contrast, reports were that in the first 10 months of 2021, HPWU made $4 million, and made less than $40 million over its lifespan.

So, I think it's fair to call that a fail. What went wrong? Post your thoughts below. With the caveat that I am not an industry insider, here are mine:

1. Cool factor. When PoGo came out, Pokemon had been on a slow burn for a long time. It was there in people's minds, and had nostalgia value, but we weren't saturated. In 2019, we'd just had 2 Fantastic Beasts films come out - and let's face it, for a lot of fans they didn't live up to the originals - plus the theme parks, and the original movies were widely available and weren't really old enough for nostalgia to have kicked in. For a lot of people it felt like they were trying to stretch it out, and the whole Harry Potter thing was on a bit of a downswing.
2. Money. Was it just me, or did it feel like the game was trying a lot harder to get us to spend money than PoGo did?
3. Game features. PoGo already had Adventure Sync and gifting. At launch HPWU had friends, but they didn't seem to do anything.
4. The big one saved for last: Plot, characters and story in general.

PoGo never really tried to have that last part. Because Pokemon doesn't need it. Guys wander around trying to collect pokemons, and everything else that happens is secondary. Bad guys get in the way, people breed or engineer new breeds of pokemons, characters travel to new places with different pokemons, but really it's about "gotta catch em all." So a game that's all about wandering around, racking up pokemon catches, leveling pokemons, finding rares, etc., totally works for the subject matter and the fans of that subject matter.

In contrast, Harry Potter is all about plot and characters. Hardly anybody collects anything, and when they do it's a casual mention, not the main premise. Nobody read the HP novels hoping to find out what oddity would be revealed next in Dumbledore's office. We wanted to know what Harry and the gang would do next, and see them foil a Death Eater scheme. So the developers gave us a plot, sort of, with the story bits to unlock and an occasional plot point dropped, but the plot stalled out after maybe a month. It got stretched out, and stretched, and stretched more, but really we were playing a collecting "game" (I'm not sure it should actually be called a game) where the collected items were lifted from HP and Fantastic Beasts. We were shown characters who didn't really do much, with a bit of dialogue here and there - what were we doing this for anyway?

I don't think that ever worked. Many players would have been thinking that they were playing a game with plot, only to discover after a while that they weren't. Maybe the plot was supposed to be the hook to get us caught up in the grind, but it was a grind without an endpoint. It did seem that the developers intended more, evidenced by the unfinishable achievements, but they settled into the grind mode themselves, and every month we got a "The calamity is focused on things found at the bottom of Ron's trunk at Hogwarts! What could it mean?" Clearly no effort was going into it, bugs were allowed to linger and these events felt like the work of an intern who had been given access to the "add character lines" function and the "add purple glow" button.

To me, this suggests that HPWU should have been a different game. PoGo has a grind without end, and the players who want that can play PoGo. And they do. A lot. But every game can't be like that. Developers have to decide what kind of game they're making. So my contention is that they should have embraced a plot-driven one, and HPWU should have had an end date set from the start**. It should have been something reasonable, like one year, with a plot written out that would be sufficient to stay engaging, and** an end condition**. It should have been an actual game that can be won or lost. If it was doing well, the developers could have planned a season 2, with a new story.**

Imagine it. They could have had an adversary battle to finish each season, that's properly hard and can be lost. "You've foiled Lucius Malfoy's plot and rescued the London Five! For your reward, the Ministry lets you borrow ten gold keys until season two starts! Watch this space on June 10 to see what dastardly deeds the former Death Eaters come up with next!" Those plot items about Grim Fawley could have been dropped over the course of the story and led to revelations building up etc.

Anyway, for me, that's the real problem. I don't really mourn the end of HPWU, because by that time it was already a lost opportunity.

I used to walk the long way everywhere…and today I started to, but…didn’t. #portkeys

It's no good for walking, but it does fill those few moments throughout the day when I'd normally open WU.
They've made it a LOT more cutesy than it was when I used it some years ago, which honestly I don't like, but it's not a deal breaker.

I believe some people have said they would try to before the game closes. Would be happy if I could get my hands on some of the icons to maybe use as profile pictures and so on.

Hi there!

I'm Matthew Lee, a researcher affiliated with Macquarie University (& formerly the University of Pennsylvania), whose research examines the impact of AR games like Pokémon GO and Wizards Unite. You might have seen or participated in one of the studies my team has done in the last couple of years on how COVID impacted the experiences of those playing AR games (the findings for two of which have been written up here of which you may find here and here).

We're interested in seeing if AR games have long-term effects on people's behavior that persist after people stop playing, and how people's experiences with the game and the IP behind it might affect this. With Wizards Unite having just shut down, we're launching a half-year study to see what kind of impact playing HPWU had on players' lives.

Did it affect your physical and mental well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic years? Did it help you walk more or provide an opportunity to spend time with family? Did it create any meaningful moments for you? Did participating in HPWU related communities help ease the sense of isolation? And with HPWU coming to an end after two years, do you plan on finding an alternative to keep up their walking or playing routine (another AR game, perhaps)?

The initial survey for this study will be found at https://limesurvey.mq.edu.au/index.php/793761?lang=en, and will be open until February 16th.

Note that we plan on contacting those who respond to our initial survey for two follow-up surveys (3 and 6 months after the first closes) to see how players' lives and routines may have changed, so we'll be asking for an email address where you be reached!

If you have played Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, are at least 18 years old, and can read fluent English, please consider participating in this survey or sharing it with others you know who might be interested! I'd love to be able to show the world what impact HPWU had in the short time it was around (and after), and I'm asking for your help.

Thank you once again for your time and generosity! It's been an honor to have been part of the HPWU community with you all!

This survey is deployed on r/harrypotterwu, r/HarryPotterWUFriends, and r/WizardsUnite. If you visit these subreddits at the same time, you will see this post being pinned in all 3 subreddits. It is the same survey in all these places.

As of today, Wizards Unite is no more... thank you all for a great run! Perhaps we'll see you around in /r/pokemongo, /r/ingress, or /r/HarryPotterGame.

https://niantic.helpshift.com/hc/en/9-hpwizardsunite/faq/3247-harry-potter-wizards-unite-has-shut-down/

Hi everyone! I was wondering if anyone who requested their in-game data has received it yet. I emailed just before the January 15th deadline and received a response that it could take up to 30 days to prepare it. I’m mostly just curious about the contents from my game.

On another note, does anyone know if it would be absolutely too late to submit a request for it? One of my friends was getting ready to get a screenshot of their final stats right as the app shut down. I was about to suggest that they email Niantic for their game data, but then remembered that the deadline had passed. If my friend were to email them now, is there still a possibility that Niantic could fulfill the request?

I keep scrolling to where I keep the HPWU app at times of the day when I’d normally play - walking to my office from my car, when I first get up, etc. I get a little twinge of sadness every time.

I meant to go in one last time yesterday and I couldn't. So I thought tonight I would have one last chance just to look around. I'm never deleting the app, but I really wanted to go in one more time. Maybe screen recorder bakes I don't think I ever did and I should have. This is like it actually emotionally wrecking me and I thought I'd prepped for this enough that it wouldn't

I stayed up late playing on pst time but fell asleep before the servers went offline. Are the servers offline now even if you change the date on your phone? Just curious :)

I feel like an utter idiot and now I didn’t get to have my huge hurrah today like I thought I was going to have. I had a huge amount of potions and gold I was going to blow today.

I hope you all had the biggest party last night and enjoyed it enough for all of us!

Thank you for a great few years and getting me through the pandemic! Some days, the only thing I had to look forward to was brewing potions and catching a few foundables. It’s been an incredible journey. Thank you so much!

Thanks to all who just played all-out last night in the Knight Bus. I’ve never used so many potions on a whim and with abandon; quite liberating! I’ve been staying up late all week trying to finish my skill tree with almost success. Just needed one more day (said by many people).

Signing-off from Kelowna, BC, Canada

I got a rude awakening this morning. I didn’t see a notification about them ending it. Was there a particular reason?