Pokemon – The Map Room https://www.maproomblog.com Blogging about maps since 2003 Sat, 04 May 2024 22:46:57 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://www.maproomblog.com/xq/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/cropped-logo-2017-04-32x32.jpg Pokemon – The Map Room https://www.maproomblog.com 32 32 116787204 Pokémon Go Users Are Adding Fake Beaches to OpenStreetMap https://www.maproomblog.com/2024/05/pokemon-go-users-are-adding-fake-beaches-to-openstreetmap/ Sat, 04 May 2024 22:46:55 +0000 https://www.maproomblog.com/?p=1830565 More]]> Some Pokémon Go players are apparently adding fake beaches to OpenStreetMap in order to improve their chances of catching a new pokémon. The pokémon in question was added to the game last month and only spawns in beach areas. Pokémon Go uses OpenStreetMap as its base map. It’s not hard to see how players can cheat by adding natural=beach nodes where no actual beaches exist, and indeed beaches started turning up in odd places in the game—and in the real-world map as well, because the game uses real-world map data, and that’s what gamers have been messing with. Receipts at the OSM community forum thread. [Atanas Entchev]

]]> 1830565 The Mapping Tech Behind Pokémon Go https://www.maproomblog.com/2016/08/the-mapping-tech-behind-pokemon-go/ Tue, 23 Aug 2016 00:51:47 +0000 http://www.maproomblog.com/?p=2671 More]]> Bloomberg Businessweek looks at Niantic, the company that developed Pokémon Go, and its CEO, John Hanke, both of whom have a long history in mapping technology (Hanke was the founder and CEO of Keyhole, which became the foundation for Google Earth; Niantic started as a Google startup and focused on location-based apps—including, among other things, the game Ingress—before being spun off).

Hanke says Niantic’s focus has always been its underlying technology, not any one game, and the success of Pokémon Go has already attracted partners interested in using his mapping software for projects of their own. “Maybe you want to build a real-world vampire game where you control a clan of vampires and battle with other clans of vampires,” he says. “You could invest in re-creating our core technology and all of our data, which would require a fairly large team of very sophisticated Ph.D.s, or use our platform.”

[Benjamin Hennig]

Previously: Pokémon Go.

]]> 2671 Pokémon Go https://www.maproomblog.com/2016/07/pokemon-go/ Thu, 14 Jul 2016 12:01:40 +0000 http://www.maproomblog.com/?p=2401 More]]> With Pokémon Go players turning up outside private homes that have somehow been designated, in game terms, as “gyms,” The Atlantic’s Robinson Meyer asks where exactly Pokémon Go is getting its mapping data from. [Jay Owens]

Adding Pokémon Go gym locations to OpenStreetMap is a no-no, by the way. [James Fee]

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