Pokémon Go was the first augmented reality mobile game to earn global success. It was a massive hit when it was released for Android and iOS devices in 2016 and remains popular, especially among fans of the colossal Pokémon franchise, despite receiving mixed-to-average reviews from critics. But the game has since gone beyond enthusiastic players catching virtual monsters in an augmented real-world environment.
Gotta Map the Streets: How Pokémon Go Players Became Unintentional Cartographers to Solve Urban and Autonomous Navigation Challenges
Pokémon Go developer Niantic used the mobile game to crowdsource players into scanning and taking billions of real-world images from around the world that it then used to build a commercialized virtual positioning system for guiding urban navigation.
Crowdsourcing Players
Niantic, the American software and video game developer behind Pokémon Go, first launched its augmented reality mapping feature within the game title in the fall of 2020. This allows players to scan real-world locations and items by walking around them while the actual Pokémon Go app captures images from the smartphone camera.
The feature is presented as in-game Field Research tasks in which players are asked to record video of real-world landmarks, buildings, and other locations guised as Gyms or PokéStops. Completing these would unlock various in-game rewards. However, behind the scene, Niantic is collecting and processing the images to perform photogrammetry.
Photogrammetry is the process of taking measurements from real images to create highly accurate three-dimensional models of the physical world. Niantic has amassed 30 billion real-world images. Thus, while players thought they were just earning in-game rewards, they were actually performing massive and decentralized crowdsourcing.
Virtual Positioning System
A particular VPS intends to fill in the gaps left by global positioning system or GPS. Standard GPS is notoriously unreliable in areas with towering buildings that block or bounce satellite signals. This causes a GPS drift in which a GPS-dependent device might think it is 50 meters away from its actual location, and results in missed directions.
However, unlike traditional GPS, which can be imprecise and struggles in dense urban areas or indoors, a virtual positioning system allows a device to determine its exact location and orientation by comparing its camera feed to a pre-existing three-dimensional map. But building this system requires a massive amount of real-world data.
The game division of Niantic was acquired by Scopely, another American video game developer and publisher, in 2025. The non-video game business was spun off as Niantic Spatial in the same year. One of the flagship products of this spin-off is a Visual Positioning System or VPS that was created in part using data collected from Pokémon Go.
Real-World Applications
Coco Robotics is a technology company that builds and markets delivery robots. Niantic Spatial announced its partnership with this firm in March 2026. The arrangement is intended to solve the limitations of GPS and enable delivery robots to navigate dense city streets with inch-perfect accuracy using the VPS from Niantic Spatial.
Furthermore, to understand further how VPS works for urban navigation, a particular robot comes equipped with a camera that scans its surroundings using a computer vision model. It compares the visual feed of buildings, statues, and storefronts against the massive library of 3D models built from data collected by Pokémon Go players.
Precise mapping helps robots differentiate between a sidewalk, a bike lane, and the street. The data includes information on where curbs are, where stairs begin, and where the shortest route without steps might be. These are vital for wheeled robots. Hence, by reducing navigation errors, robots become more reliable at delivering items.
Notable Ethical Arguments
Pokémon Go is a free-to-play mobile game with a freemium model via local advertising and some in-app purchases. It is still a free app overall. However, in the digital world, when a digital product is marketed free to use, this essentially means that the user is the product. This model centers on collecting and selling user or user-generated data.
The developer behind the augmented reality game never hid that it would be collecting and using data from players. Section 5.2 of its Terms of Service, which an individual agrees to upon using the app, notes that Niantic holds wide-ranging rights over anything that users upload or generate through the augmented reality features of its products.
Moreover, while some would argue that Pokémon Go players were employed to collect massive amounts of data, and were thereby exploited due to their unpaid labor, others could counterargue that these individuals were willing to work similar to typical gig workers, and they were paid in virtual items like Pokéballs or Rare Candies.
FURTHER READINGS AND REFERENCES
- Coco Robotics. 5 March 2026. “Niantic Spatial Partners with Coco Robotics to Accelerate the Future of Autonomous Delivery.” Coco Robotics. Available online
- Niantic Spatial. 10 March 2026. “Niantic Spatial Partners with Coco Robotics to Accelerate the Future of Autonomous Delivery.” Niantic Spatial. Available online