Campfire Adventurers Club, Niantic’s Brazilian secret project

I was recently contacted by a Brazilian redditor who wanted to know what Niantic is doing in Brazil. They have a project named “Campfire Adventurers Club” which rewards communities that complete time-based challenges.

The backstory

Gabrielense, a Brazilian redditor posted an odd request today on The Silph Road Subreddit. He asked for help in promoting a streaming party for the forthcoming Pokemon Latin America International Championships.

I immediately wanted to assist and asked for details to better understand how they could use the Pokemon GO hub and exactly what help they needed. Niantic “challenges” the redditor to complete this task, with rewards in-game and physical if they do. They also have a “secret Campfire Rewards Project” that is aimed at Brazil only, which I was unaware of.

I wanted to learn more. What I found out about Niantic’s secret Brazilian pilot project and how it is being used to promote Campfire throughout Latin America.

Campfire Adventurers Club, Niantic’s secret Brazilian pilot project.

Niantic has launched in Brazil a program called the “Clube de Aventureiros Campfire” which is translated as Campfire Adventurers Club. Trainers can join this project to build local communities and receive rewards for their size and participation in time-based tasks.

The rewards are varied and include things like PokeStops that will be temporary during Community Day; increased bonuses when playing on Community Days; exclusive Legendary Raid Hours and material kits for free, codes to game items, communication channels and Niantic Brazil.

There are four reward tiers, based on community size.

What’s more, Niantic Brazil can boost these rewards even higher by launching timed challenges where it will ask Communities to take part in certain activities to earn rewards.

Niantic, for example, has set a challenge to them: they must get 500 / 1,500 / 3,000 simultaneous viewers on one of their live streams from the Latin America International Championships. All Brazilian communities would receive additional rewards if they were successful. The initiative was unable to attract 500 viewers in the first 24 hours, and as such, it failed.

Although the failure to reach the viewers challenge the first day is a disappointment, it doesn’t seem to have dampened Brazilian trainers. Despite being a project in its early stages, the Campfire Adventurers Club is already proving to be an important catalyst for building community and engaging Brazilians.

Take a peek at the leaderboard Niantic hosts on its website.

This chart shows that there is good activation and engagement in many Brazilian cities. It’s a good start for something big in Brazil.

Campfire Adventurers Club: Our opinions

Niantic has re-thought its approach to engagement with communities. The Campfire Adventurers initiative is a major shift. Niantic hopes to build a stronger connection with players by offering rewards that are tangible and rewarding local communities.

If this approach is successful in another region, it could change the way Niantic engages its players globally. It’s strange, to be honest. This hasn’t been implemented in Europe or North America either.

Campfire has not been a huge success in North America and Europe. It probably requires a similar incentive for it to catch on and gain popularity among local players.

It’s also worth noting that many Trainers don’t know about it, and aren’t interested in switching to another messaging/raid organization app.

This project and Pokemon GO Brazil will be closely monitored. If successful, this looks great. But if it doesn’t work out well, that is fine too. This program should be rewarding Brazilian trainers and allowing them to enjoy their bonuses.

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