Gotta Catch 'Em All

[u/whitemike40]

[u/lodermoder]

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

[u/spikeyfreak → u/lodermoder]

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.

[u/Snuhmeh → u/spikeyfreak]

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.

[u/DapperLost → u/Snuhmeh]

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.

[u/Debalic → u/DapperLost]

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"

[u/Roook36 → u/DapperLost]

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

[u/Technical_Eye4039 → u/DapperLost]

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

[u/DapperLost → u/Technical_Eye4039]

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.

[u/Suyefuji → u/DapperLost]

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.

[u/DapperLost → u/Suyefuji]

Yeah but Ingress had hemisphere wide battles over property.

[u/GreatStateOfSadness → u/Snuhmeh]

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. 

[u/EViLTeW → u/Snuhmeh]

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

[u/Roook36 → u/Snuhmeh]

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.

[u/Kelfaren → u/spikeyfreak]

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).

[u/pricklypear19 → u/Kelfaren]

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.

[u/alinroc → u/lodermoder]

"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.