Pokémon GO demonstrates that a game can become part of an infrastructure that outlasts the entertainment itself.
According to Niantic Spatial, its geospatial model uses scans of public locations that users voluntarily capture through a special feature in the game and the Scaniverse app. This is not the same as regular gameplay: simply walking around and catching Pokémon does not train the model.
These scans are used to create visual maps of the space. Systems can then recognize the location and direction of view using the images, which opens up possibilities for augmented reality, robotics, and other applications.
What I find most interesting here is the connection between human behavior and the value of data. What a user experiences as a small task can become part of a much larger system.
So the question isn’t just how fun the game is. It’s also important what we consciously share, how that data is used, and what is built from it later on.
A game can also be infrastructure. We need to see both sides of this story.
Sources: Niantic Spatial — Large Geospatial Model.
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