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'Pokémon Go' creator Niantic to develop GPS-based tourism games
It was at the helm of GPS/AR/Maps-based "exergaming" in 2013 with Ingress, saw phenomenal success with Pokémon Go, and will launch a location-based Harry Potter mobile game next year. Now, Niantic is making the natural move into tourism-focused games. In partnership with the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), as part of its Travel.Enjoy.Respect program, the games company will create new experiences that encourage players to explore and discover the hidden histories of both their own neighborhoods and further afield.
"With our ongoing commitment to promote sustainable and responsible tourism, and Niantic having recently become a UNWTO Affiliate Member, this partnership is a natural fit," said Ion Vilcu, Director of UNWTO's affiliate members department, before adding that Niantic is the obvious choice for "creating real-world mobile game experiences that not only motivate their players to discover new places, but also to appreciate the culture and beauty of the world around them."
It's very early days for the project. It's not clear what these games will look like, nor what kind of timeline is in place for their launch, but there's no question that if any company is going to get people out and about exploring, Niantic is best placed to do it.
(Score: 1) by Kent_Diego on Sunday November 25 2018, @06:11PM (3 children)
Niantic had near $900M in sales last year. What they have is a database of points of interest (POI). The POIs are pictures and descriptions of every little odd item throughout the world. This is info that game players have recorded and added to the database that Niantic gets to keep and leverage four game development. Now Niantic will get even more high quality POI data that can be used to make future games. Can't wait to see how the POI database is leveraged for use in the new Harry Potter game. I am practicing my Alahamora move right now.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday November 25 2018, @06:27PM (1 child)
I'm practicing my AVADDA KILLDRAVA!
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(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 25 2018, @06:43PM
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by RandomFactor on Sunday November 25 2018, @07:22PM
It is interesting, I played (still do occasionally) Niantic's original game 'Ingress' for years.
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I submitted portals and photos of places of interest all around the burb I live and downtown. Years later Pokemon Go! came out. Pokestops locations matched Ingress portal locations, even more surprising was that the pictures of them and even the descriptions I wrote were the exact same as well. I suspect that most Ingress players that were active submitting portals had a similar experience.
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Niantic gave us a fun free game without ads, we populated their database. I've made worse deals.
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