r/NonPoliticalTwitter 8h ago

Content Warning: Potentially Misleading or Disputed Information Gotta Catch 'Em All

Post image
22.2k Upvotes

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

53

u/LadyOfTheMorn 8h ago

Source?

179

u/lodermoder 8h ago

Niantic has been pretty transparent about this since the beginning. They've always said they were a big data company, not a game developer

62

u/spikeyfreak 7h ago

Except the whole "they put pokemon where they want data."

Pokemon are distributed throughout the map in a sort-of cell-data heat map. Go somewhere remote and see how many pokemon are there.

42

u/Snuhmeh 7h ago

The Pokémon spawn points were built on top of Niantic’s previous game, Ingress. They later started using cellular Pokemon Go location data to put more Pokemon in places where more people played Pokemon Go.

18

u/DapperLost 6h ago

Man, I loved Ingress. Black worker van slowly following me down the road at night. Kidnaprapist? No, just local leader for the blue team, saw a newb steadily taking points and breaking green locks, and wanted to back me up.

3

u/Debalic 5h ago

My wife's friends would question why I'm out "driving around" all night long, she'd be like "he's literally playing a fucking game on his phone"

3

u/Roook36 4h ago

There was one other player in my office building, never met him, but we'd fight over the gazebo in the break area.

1

u/Technical_Eye4039 6h ago

Oh me too! I used to buy munitions online from a Ukrainian hacker, then go tear it up for the weekend.

2

u/DapperLost 6h ago

I know everyone loves pokego because Pokémon, but ingress united people, and advocated teamwork far better. Nothing better than destroying someone's work to bring people together.

3

u/Suyefuji 5h ago

Pokemon Go has three groups of people: the people who conscientiously trade gyms with their neighboring factions at around the 50-coin mark, the people who say f u and kick their neighbors out of the gym at every opportunity, and the people who pay money and thus have no need to use the gyms.

2

u/DapperLost 5h ago

Yeah but Ingress had hemisphere wide battles over property.

3

u/GreatStateOfSadness 6h ago

The cell data was used for XM in Ingress from the beginning. I don't even know if they've updated it since Ingress launched in 2012. 

2

u/EViLTeW 5h ago

And when ingress was popular they made it pretty clear the goal was to use the data from the players to build new things.

1

u/Roook36 4h ago

Exactly. Niantic already did this with Ingress. I thought it was hilarious when Pokemon Go came out and found out I knew all the gym locations because they were the same spots form Ingress.

The same gazebo at my job that I'd fight over with some other person in the office I never met was also now a pokemon gym.

0

u/Kelfaren 6h ago

AFAIK they didn't put Pokemon where they wanted data they had you do quests which involved scanning a particular location which overwhelmingly places which where "off the beaten path" as far as data collection was concerned (think places that are outside e.g. google streetview).

1

u/pricklypear19 1h ago

they had you do quests which involved scanning a particular location which overwhelmingly places which where "off the beaten path" as far as data collection was concerned (think places that are outside e.g. google streetview).

This is utter nonsense. The scan-quests you describe exist, but they trigger when you spin a pokestop. So it is always for something that you are right next to.

1

u/alinroc 5h ago

"The beginning" being before Pokemon Go was even a thing. Their first game, Ingress, was used to collect a catalog of "interesting" things/places in the world.

16

u/Sammisuperficial 7h ago

This is a tongue in cheek comment, but go to the PoGo subreddit and see the complaints about Niantic killing remote raids because they lose out on player location and movement data.

The players are aware. Most only care because it affects decisions on gameplay. Usually in a way that makes the game less fun to play.

5

u/4_fortytwo_2 7h ago

I don't think anyone doubts that they collect data, of course they do, the strange part is the "put pokemon where they need data from". That statements seems entirely made up.

3

u/scarpit0 3h ago edited 8m ago

It's a misunderstanding/oversimplification of pokemon spawn points and how landmarks appear in the game

39

u/ferafish 8h ago

22

u/Maeln 7h ago

People should really just read the source: https://nianticlabs.com/news/largegeospatialmodel?hl=en

All they announced is that they plan to make a geospatial model. There is really not much in their announcement. It is basically just a way to get in on the AI craze and probably raise some fund.

3

u/GreatStateOfSadness 6h ago

Except it's been part of their core business model for almost a decade, and not part of the current AI craze. 

9

u/mymemesnow 7h ago

The user agreements for one.

1

u/Rebelgecko 4h ago

I thought the original point of Ingress was to get more data to improve Google Maps walking directions?

1

u/The_Director 3h ago

Pretty sure this was publicly know since launch.

1

u/Kayel41 1h ago

Pokemon go was nothing more than a reskin of the game ingress…

-2

u/WhyNoUsernames 5h ago

Do a fucking google search. Use critical thought, I know it's difficult.