The 3D scans Pokémon Go players are collecting are intended to create new possibilities in the game, but they will also give Niantic’s platform for AR developers an advantage over competitors. In December 2019, Niantic raised funds at a valuation of USD$3.9 billion.Įxplainer: what is surveillance capitalism and how does it shape our economy? Tech companies and investors think this kind of data is immensely valuable. Niantic’s latest game, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, collects each player’s location every five seconds or so, which is often enough to recognise individual behaviour patterns and detect intimate details of their life. These portals became the underlying infrastructure that powers Pokémon Go and other games, but just as valuable was the data collected about how players moved around the world while playing. Screenshots of the Ingress Portal Scan Feature, via Niantic. In 2012 Niantic launched a game called Ingress, which saw players photograph and upload millions of locations of interest that became “portals” within the game. It stayed part of Google until 2015, when it became an independent company again. In 2010, Keyhole was rebranded as Niantic and focused on games.
Keyhole Inc was acquired by Google in 2004, and was instrumental the development of Google Maps. The company developed mapping technologies used by the US military in the early 2000s. Niantic was initially formed as Keyhole Inc by John Hanke in 2001 with backing from the CIA’s tech venture capital firm, In-Q-Tel. One reason for Niantic’s huge success has been how it uses digital games to collect data about the world. These scans, and this type of data collection, will likely affect all of us in the near future. In February, Facebook acquired Scape Technologies, an AR start-up that was creating a 3D map of the entire world, and Microsoft’s Minecraft Earth AR mobile game touts the same kind of planet-scale AR play.
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