Pokémon Go

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Pokémon Go is a 2016 augmented reality mobile game from Niantic that sends players outdoors with a phone to find and catch Pokémon. Within 15 minutes of its release in Australia and New Zealand, the game had passed the server load its makers expected worldwide. At its peak, traffic reached fifty times the forecast, which was ten times the worst case anyone had planned for. A free app built on little more than a map, a camera and a walk had swamped the machines meant to carry it.

  Those July 2016 numbers raise a handful of questions. Who dreamed up the game, and what did it borrow from an earlier Niantic project? Why did investors, police forces, mapmakers and religious leaders all pay close attention to a game about catching creatures? And what became of it after the crowds thinned and a new owner arrived?

  83947576

• 2. Walking The Map

  ›

  PokéStops and Pokémon Gyms are the landmarks scattered across the game's map, and both sit at real-world points of interest. A player can equip a PokéStop with a Lure Module to attract wild Pokémon, sometimes rare ones. Gyms act as arenas for team-based king-of-the-hill matches. Some of these sites ended up in problematic places, including the Korean Demilitarized Zone and the abandoned Bagram Air Force Base. Since 2019, players have also been able to submit locations, which other players then review.

  Water-type Pokémon typically turn up near bodies of water, one example of how species change from region to region. A player's avatar moves across the map as the player moves through the physical world. On meeting a Pokémon, the player sees it against a live-rendered background or switches to AR mode. That mode uses the phone's camera and gyroscope to display the creature as if it stood in the room. Screenshots called Snapshots can be taken either way.

  Flicking a Poké Ball upward on the screen is how a player catches a wild Pokémon, because no battle is involved. Success depends on the creature's catch rate, the player's timing and the type of ball used. Each capture pays out Candy and Stardust. Candy levels up or evolves a Pokémon, and every evolution line has its own type of Candy. Stardust raises a Pokémon's Combat Power, known as CP. As players gain levels, high-CP Pokémon become harder to catch, and an Appraisal feature helps judge the strength of what they hold.

  Incense attracts Pokémon for 60 minutes, a Lure Module draws them to a PokéStop for 30 minutes, and a Lucky Egg doubles experience points for 30 minutes. These items cost PokéCoins or real money. That in-app spending, together with local advertising, makes up the game's freemium model.

  Hats, tops, bottoms, socks, footwear and bags make up the clothing options for avatars, and the choices shift with the season, player level and in-game sponsors or events. Most pieces are free. Others cost Coins, which players earn at select events, for leveling up or by finishing Special Research tasks. In April 2024, an update added hairstyles, adjustable body size and a broader range of skin tones. Backlash followed. Players found the new avatars lower in graphic quality, and some had bought cosmetic items in bulk that the update interfered with.

  In September 2016, the Buddy Pokémon feature let a player pick one creature to accompany the avatar and earn bonuses. Each species has its own walking distance requirement for earning Candy, and longer walks earn more. The same update blocked rooted or jailbroken devices to combat cheating. Many players chase a complete Pokédex by catching and evolving everything. As of the 27th of February 2026, the game holds 946 Pokémon, including regional variants. The entire franchise counts 1,025.

  913142026

• 3. Origins

  ›

  The idea took shape in 2014, when Satoru Iwata of Nintendo and Tsunekazu Ishihara of The Pokémon Company collaborated with Google on an April Fools' Day project called the Google Maps: Pokémon Challenge. Ishihara was a fan of Niantic's earlier transreality game Ingress, a science fiction-themed AR game. He saw the concept as a perfect fit for the Pokémon series.

  Niantic was a Google subsidiary at the time. It reused crowdsourced Ingress data to build PokéStops and Gyms, which were originally adapted from Ingress portals. Google Maps data decided where Pokémon appear, and map displays from OpenStreetMap joined in December 2017. Niantic became an independent entity in 2015, after Google restructured into Alphabet Inc.

  On the 10th of September 2015, the game was announced. Ishihara dedicated his speech to Iwata, who had died two months earlier. Tatsuo Nomura joined Niantic in 2015 after developing the Google Maps Pokémon Challenge, and he served as director and product manager. Junichi Masuda, a longtime Pokémon series composer, wrote the soundtrack and also contributed to the design. Dennis Hwang, known for creating the Gmail logo while at Google, was one of the graphic designers.

  On the 4th of March 2016, Niantic announced a Japan-exclusive beta test to start later that month. The beta later spread to other countries, and on the 7th of April it was extended to Australia and New Zealand. Signups for the field test opened in the United States on the 16th of May 2016. The test concluded on the 30th of June 2016, leaving the public launch only days away.

  7475798587

• 4. Launch Under Strain

  ›

  The official launch began on the 6th of July 2016 in Australia, New Zealand and the United States. Server strain soon led CEO John Hanke to announce that releases in other regions would be "paused until Niantic is comfortable" that the problems were fixed.

  For the first two days, players could not sign in with Pokémon Trainer Club accounts, and only Gmail-based accounts got through. Crashes and authentication errors lasted several days. On the 11th of July, Australian servers failed again. Players blamed people in the United Kingdom who were using Australian servers to play before the official release. On the 16th of July, a few hours after release in many European countries, the servers went offline. A hacking group called "PoodleCorp" claimed it had used a DDoS attack, though the problem was fixed later that day. The next day the servers went down again as the game launched in Canada. Hanke apologized at the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con, saying, "we weren't provisioned for what happened". The game's application logic runs on the open-source Kubernetes system, which struggled under the huge user base and was improved afterward.

  Some early iOS installs asked for full access to a player's Google account, including Gmail, Google Drive files and photos in Google Photos. The Pokémon Company and Niantic acknowledged that the iOS app "erroneously requests full access permission for the user's Google account". Adam Reeve, who first raised the alarm in a Tumblr post, later backtracked and said he was not "100 percent sure" the claim was valid. Dan Guido, CEO of the security company Trail of Bits, analyzed the code. He found that the request did not let third parties use accounts, as first reported. It did let Niantic unintentionally reach email addresses and phone numbers. A later iOS update narrowed the access, and Niantic stated that nothing beyond what the app required was accessed.

  In mid-July 2016, the tracking feature broke. It normally shows between zero and three footprints to signal how near a Pokémon is. Instead it became stuck at three, earning the name "three-step-glitch". On the 30th of July, Niantic removed the footprint feature entirely, which sparked criticism. By the 1st of August, players reported a glitch that swapped captured Pokémon for random ones. Another bug, confirmed by Niantic in August, made catching harder. Some players also obtained Legendary Pokémon through a glitch, and those were later removed from their accounts to keep the game fair.

  The Japanese launch, scheduled for the 20th of July, slipped by two days after a sponsorship deal with McDonald's leaked. France was set for the 15th of July but moved to the 24th of July after a terrorist attack in Nice on the 14th of July. Niantic resumed global releases once the load eased in late July. Eduardo Paes, then-mayor of Rio de Janeiro, had hoped the game would arrive before the 2016 Summer Olympics, and it did, on the 3rd of August. Much of Southeast Asia followed in early August. Indonesia became the first Asian country where the game ran, though its official release came on the 6th of August.

  South Korea never got an official release at first, because of restrictions on online mapping data. A glitch let the game work around Sokcho, in the northeast, which was mistakenly treated as part of Niantic's North Korea mapping region. Bus tickets from Seoul to Sokcho sold out, and locals shared tips on free Wi-Fi spots with visiting players. Players found a Gym in Panmunjom, near the Korean Demilitarized Zone, but Niantic later removed it. After the Japanese release, parts of Busan became playable too, because Tsushima Island's proximity put them inside Japan's mapping area. The official South Korean launch came on the 24th of January 2017.

  In mainland China, the Great Firewall blocks Google services, and Niantic blocks the game's GPS feature. Players must install the game with App Store IDs from other regions and use VPNs to reach the Google services needed to load it. Some rely on GPS spoofing apps. Others turned to a clone called City Spirit Go, which appeared shortly after the Japan beta test. As of 2020, the official game remained unplayable in many parts of China.

  Taiwan received the game on the 6th of August 2016, and its dense urban areas suited the location-based design. Large crowds gathered in Taipei, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung. Chen Ching-Po, known as "Uncle Pokémon", became famous for attaching seventy-two smartphones, running over twenty Pokémon Go accounts, to his bicycle. Myanmar was left out of the Southeast Asian launch, yet users in Thailand found the game worked in border cities near Myanmar.

  On the 11th of September 2018, the game appeared quietly on Russia's App Store and Google Play Store, more than two years after the first launch. Niantic made no official announcement. The Samsung Galaxy Store added it in May 2019. Saudi Arabia was the last entry on the release table, receiving the game on the 12th of October 2024.

  7883891381

• 5. Markets And Money

  ›

  Investors reacted to the release on the 7th of July 2016 by lifting Nintendo's share price an initial 10 percent. By the 14th of July, shares were up as much as 50 percent. Nintendo owned only 32 percent of The Pokémon Company and an undisclosed stake in Niantic. Even so, its market value rose by 9 billion US dollars within five days of release. By the 19th of July, the stock had more than doubled from its pre-release level. Turnover hit a record ¥703.6 billion, or 6.6 billion US dollars, and the stock made up a quarter of all trades on the main board of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

  The Financial Times suggested investors were betting less on Pokémon Go itself than on future Nintendo apps. The company had long avoided mobile games, fearing they would cannibalize portable console and game sales. Nintendo planned four more smartphone games by March 2017. Investors noted that it still owned some of the "most valuable character intellectual property in the world", including Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda and Metroid.

  By the 22nd of July, Nintendo had gained ¥1.8 trillion, or 17.6 billion US dollars, in market capitalization. Then the company clarified that it neither produced Pokémon Go nor had received significant financial gains from it. On the 25th of July, its stock fell 18 percent, a loss of ¥708 billion, or 6.7 billion US dollars. That was Nintendo's largest single-day decline since 1990, and it hit the maximum one-day trading limit on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Macquarie Securities put Nintendo's effective economic stake in the game at roughly 13 percent. Tomy, TV Tokyo and the Bank of Kyoto also gained, and Zagg, owner of a battery case maker, rose 25 percent.

  Within two days of release, the game sat on more than 5 percent of Android devices in the United States, according to SimilarWeb. Sensor Tower counted more than 10 million downloads in the first week, the fastest any app had managed, and 15 million worldwide by the 13th of July. On the 12th of July, SurveyMonkey measured 21 million active users in the United States, topping the 20 million peak of Candy Crush Saga. About 1.3 million people were playing in the Netherlands by the 15th of July, even though the app was not officially out there. On release day in Japan, more than 10 million people downloaded it, including 1.3 million in the first three hours. By the 31st of July, downloads passed 100 million worldwide.

  In-game purchases brought in more than 160 million US dollars by the end of July 2016, and App Annie reported around 10 million dollars of revenue every day that month. Sensor Tower said worldwide revenue topped 200 million dollars, beating records set by Clash of Clans and Candy Crush by a wide margin. By the 2nd of September, Sensor Tower counted more than 440 million dollars. Newzoo reported 500 million downloads and 470 million dollars grossed in 80 days. After only 90 days, revenue reached 600 million dollars, the fastest ever for a mobile game.

  In August 2016, the game earned five Guinness World Records. They covered most revenue in a first month at 206.5 million US dollars, most downloads in a first month at 130 million, and topping charts in 70 countries at once. A fourth record covered topping the grossing charts in 55 countries at once. The fifth was for the fastest time to gross 100 million dollars, which took 20 days and ended on the 26th of July.

  Retail partners also paid. Starbucks, McDonald's and Sprint pay Niantic for "Foot Traffic" at their shops. In December 2016, Starbucks and Sprint partnered with Nintendo to add PokéStops and Gyms at select United States locations. In January 2017, five thousand more Starbucks locations became Gyms.

  Usage in the United States peaked on the 15th of July 2016. By mid-September, the game had lost 79 percent of its American players. Forbes said that "the vaguely curious stopped playing, and the more committed players ran up against a fairly unsatisfying endgame". A Halloween event in October 2016 pushed revenue up as much as 133 percent, according to Sensor Tower. The game earned about 23.3 million dollars between the 25th and the 29th of October, against about 10 million between the 18th and 22nd. App Annie estimated that 2016 ended with roughly 950 million dollars in total revenue.

  In February 2017, the game won best app at the Crunchies awards, with 650 million downloads and a reported 1 billion dollars in revenue, the fastest for any mobile game. By June 2017, downloads passed 750 million, and Apptopia estimated about 60 million people were still playing a year after launch. In May 2018, SuperData Research reported 104 million dollars of monthly revenue and 147 million monthly active players, the most since summer 2016. The United States supplied 21.0 percent of downloads, followed by Brazil at 9.3, India at 8.6, Mexico at 5.5 and Indonesia at 5.0. By February 2019, downloads exceeded 1 billion. Live events earned 249 million dollars in tourism revenue during 2019, when the game also earned 1.4 billion dollars. In 2020, revenue reached 1.92 billion dollars, the highest in its history and above even 2016. The first half of 2021 added another 641.6 million dollars.

  9481959698

• 6. Mania And Reception

  ›

  Metacritic scored the game "mixed or average", with critics calling it enjoyable but weighed down by technical problems. Oscar Dayus of Pocket Gamer wrote that "the very personal nature of catching Pokémon in your own neighborhood made me smile more than any game has for years." Jeremy Parish of US Gamer compared its social side to a massively multiplayer online game. Terri Schwartz of IGN called it "secretly the best exercise app out there" and said it changed her daily walking routine. Julia Belluz of Vox wrote that it could be the "greatest unintentional health fad ever". Studies found users took an extra 194 steps per day on average, about 26 percent more than usual. In 2018, IGN ranked it the 100th best video game of all time.

  Miguel Concepcion of GameSpot enjoyed the social appeal and visual design but said the "initial iteration is a buggy mess on all levels". Matt Peckham of Time criticized the frequent crashes. Mike Cosimano of Destructoid said the original idea showed promise but was poorly executed. Kat Brewster of The Guardian wrote that she did not think it a good game, yet it was "a great experience". Philip Kollar and Allegra Frank of Polygon called it "an exciting social experience" but wondered whether it would last for years or "end up as a brush fire craze that the whole gaming world is talking about for a few weeks, and then it is forgotten". Critics also pointed to a gap between rural players, who found fewer PokéStops and Gyms, and city players.

  Media outlets called the surge "Pokémon Go Mania", or simply "Pokémania". In July alone, 231 million people took part in 1.1 billion interactions on Facebook and Instagram that mentioned the game. "Hundreds or thousands" of visitors came to the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington, D.C., on the weekend after the American release. Small museums with PokéStops at their exhibits saw more visitors, among them the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas, and the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens in Boca Raton, Florida. Animal shelters offered dog walks to people who wanted to hatch in-game eggs. Many Gyms sit in places of worship, and religious groups who welcomed the crowds saw the game as a reminder to come and pray.

  Within a week of release, a secondary market appeared. High-level accounts were resold on Craigslist and PlayerUp, and expert advice was sold on Thumbtack. T-Mobile US offered free data for a year for Pokémon Go sessions, and Yelp added a filter showing only businesses near a PokéStop. The game also placed players where they could help catch criminals and report crimes in progress.

  Launched on the 22nd of July 2016, Pokévision showed exactly where Pokémon spawned and how long remained before they vanished, using data hacked from the game. In its first five days, 27 million unique visitors used the site. On the 31st of July, Pokévision and several other tracking apps were disabled for violating Niantic's terms of service. Poké Radar, a crowdsourcing app, reached number 2 on the Apple App Store, behind Pokémon Go itself. GoChat let players leave messages at specific locations and passed 1 million downloads in five days. Its developer, Jonathan Zarra, struggled to keep the servers running until angel investor Michael Robertson joined the board, after which it reached over 2 million active users. RiskIQ counted at least 215 fake versions of the game by the 17th of July 2016, and several carried malicious code.

  Politics and entertainment noticed too. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both mentioned the app during their 2016 campaigns. President Sergio Mattarella of Italy compared a dispute over a referendum date to the preposterous hunt for Pokémon. Bellator fighter Michael Page celebrated a knockout of Evangelista Santos by putting on a red Ash Ketchum-style hat and rolling a prop Poké Ball. On the 25th of July, Dwayne Johnson released a promo video with MatPat and Ali-A, casting himself as a tough, rare Pokémon. The "Pokémon Theme" from the animated series gained 630 percent more listeners on Spotify during the month of release. Maroon 5 spoofed the game in the video for "Don't Wanna Know". The 2016 Doctor Who Christmas special "The Return of Doctor Mysterio" had the Doctor flood a floor with Pokémon to draw people away. The Simpsons episode "Looking for Mr. Goodbart" parodied it as Peekimon Get. A channel called Twitch Plays Pokémon Go let viewers steer an avatar using an iPhone with a spoofed GPS location, and Niantic later issued permanent bans for GPS spoofing and bots.

  Pokémon Sun and Moon, released later in 2016, became the best-selling 3DS games with over 16 million copies, partly thanks to newcomers drawn in by Go. Shigeru Ohmori, director of Sun and Moon, said the Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon sequels were designed partly to ease those newcomers in. Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! drew significant inspiration from Go. An official line of Go merchandise arrived in November 2019.

  In 2016, the Syrian artist Khaled Akil published a photography series called Pokémon Go in Syria. He placed Pokémon characters in destroyed Syrian streets, noticing that the media had forgotten the war while the game trended worldwide. The series went viral after he posted it online and was later exhibited at venues including the American University Museum.

  1112158410

• 7. Alarms And Bans

  ›

  The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, Arlington National Cemetery, the ANZAC War Memorial and Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park all drew complaints for hosting Pokémon capture sites. Niantic responded by removing content from sensitive areas such as the Hiroshima memorial and the Holocaust museum. The Dutch company ProRail worried about players trespassing on railway tracks, and fire stations asked players not to block their operations by gathering outside.

  PokéStops and Gyms, derived from Ingress portals, were sparser in many minority neighborhoods, a reflection of American demographics. Rural players complained of few spawns, PokéStops and Gyms. Steve Spohn, COO of the AbleGamers Foundation, said that compared with other mobile games, Pokémon Go "excludes disabled players to a significant degree".

  Police departments in several countries issued warnings, some tongue-in-cheek, about inattentive driving, trespassing and criminals targeting players who ignore their surroundings. In the United Kingdom, 290 police incidents were reported in July 2016 because of the game. New York banned sex offenders on parole from using the app. Bosnian players were told to avoid minefields left from the Bosnian War. In September 2016, Russian video blogger Ruslan Sokolovsky, aged 21, was arrested for two months after playing the game at the Church of All Saints in Yekaterinburg. He eventually received a suspended sentence of three and a half years in prison on blasphemy charges.

  In Japan, the first accident happened within hours of release. In late August 2016, a 39-year-old farmer playing the game drove his truck into two women crossing a street, killing one and badly injuring the other. Japan's National Police Agency counted it as the 79th Pokémon Go-related accident in the country. On the 11th of August 2016, a young girl in Cambodia was reportedly killed by a car while trying to capture a Pokémon on a road. In January 2017, a Chinese-American civilian named Jiansheng Chen was shot dead while playing.

  Al-Azhar University in Cairo described the game as a "harmful mania". A Cossack leader said it "smacks of Satanism". Kuwait banned it from government sites, Indonesian officials called it a national security threat, and the Israel Defense Forces banned it from army bases. In Saudi Arabia, the General Secretariat of the Council of Senior Scholars noted a 2001 fatwa that banned the Pokémon card game as gambling and said the app needed a new ruling. Indian and Malaysian Islamic leaders told Muslims to avoid the game.

  During Thailand's 2016 constitutional referendum, players were told not to enter polling stations, and the country's broadcasting and communications commission planned to ask Niantic to remove Pokémon and PokéStops from government facilities, historic and religious sites, private property and dangerous spots. Cambodia banned the game at a former genocide site after players showed up there. Vietnam barred players from government and defense offices, and the Philippines banned it in all administration offices. A survey by the Malaysian Employers Federation found that around 4 percent of employers in Malaysia fired staff for playing during working hours.

  Nikolay Nikiforov, Russia's Minister of Communications and Mass Media, suspected foreign intelligence agencies of using the app to collect information. Iran's Supreme Council of Virtual Space banned the game in August 2016 over security concerns, and the same month the Pentagon facility in the United States restricted its use on their property. In September 2016, Niantic stopped supporting the CyanogenMod operating system, so users on it could no longer play. In India, the Gujarat High Court issued a notice to Niantic over "posing danger to public safety" after a petition sought a ban. A second petition accused the developers of hurting religious sentiments by showing eggs in places of worship, but the game was not banned.

  In The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Shoshana Zuboff described the game's local advertising as an experiment that originated at Google to move targeted advertising from the digital domain, priced per click, into the physical domain, priced per visit. She wrote: "The game about the game is, in fact, an experimental facsimile of surveillance capitalism's design for our future." Some players have also vandalized OpenStreetMap, one of the game's map data sources, to manipulate gameplay.

  1310848182

• 8. A Game That Kept Changing

  ›

  At the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con, John Hanke unveiled the three team leaders: Candela for Team Valor, Blanche for Team Mystic and Spark for Team Instinct. He said only about 10 percent of the game's ideas had been implemented. Players reach Gyms at level five and must pick one of the three color-coded teams, red Valor, blue Mystic or yellow Instinct. On the 19th of June 2017, Gyms were temporarily disabled for a revamp built around teamwork. Each Gym now holds at most six Pokémon, each of a unique species, and coin rewards depend on how long a defender stays.

  Raid Battles arrived in July 2017, letting players team up against an over-leveled Pokémon in a Gym. Difficulty runs from Level 1 to Level 5, and Level 5 raids are reserved for Legendary Pokémon. Articuno and Lugia came first on the 22nd of July 2017, and Ho-Oh appeared from the 27th of November to the 12th of December. In August 2020, Mega Evolution was introduced, and in May 2022 raids gained 6-star Mega Legendary Pokémon, starting with Mega Latias and Mega Latios. October 2022 brought Elite Raids, which must be fought in person and need large groups. May 2023 brought Shadow Raids, which allowed remote play from May 2025. In September 2024, Dynamax Battles arrived, inspired by Pokémon Sword and Shield. Gigantamax Battles followed in October 2024, and since August 2025 they have allowed up to 100 players, up from 40.

  In December 2018, Niantic introduced player-versus-player Trainer Battles. The Go Battle League launched in January 2020 as an online format that needs no physical proximity, with the server matching players through a variation of the Elo rating system. It features three-on-three battles in three formats: Great League with a CP cap of 1,500, Ultra League with a cap of 2,500, and Master League with no cap. In October 2021, it was announced that Pokémon Go would join the 2022 World Championships. It also appeared in the 2023 and 2024 World Championships.

  Team Go Rocket battles began in July 2019. Defeating Team Go Rocket members at PokéStops or after they appear in sky balloons lets players catch Shadow Pokémon, which carry a purple aura. Shadow Pokémon get a 20 percent attack boost and a 20 percent defense cut. Players can purify them to raise their level and stats and unlock an exclusive move.

  On the 20th of January 2018, the first monthly Community Day featured Pikachu, which could learn the exclusive move Surf when evolved into Raichu during the event. The 2018 series went on to feature Dratini, Bulbasaur, Mareep, Charmander, Larvitar, Squirtle, Eevee, Chikorita, Beldum and Cyndaquil. The first live event run by Niantic took place in Charlotte, North Carolina, in May 2017. Then, in July 2017, a first-anniversary event in Grant Park, Chicago sold over 20,000 tickets in half an hour. Attendees suffered connectivity issues and crashes, and Niantic refunded every ticket and added 100 dollars of in-game currency. About two dozen attendees still sued, seeking travel reimbursement. The Pokémon Go Plus wearable, launched on the 16th of September 2016 in the United Kingdom and North America, vibrates near a Pokémon or PokéStop and lets players act with one button press. Its successor, Pokémon Go Plus +, arrived on the 14th of July 2023 with sleep tracking for Pokémon Sleep.

  During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Niantic added indoor step tracking, long-distance player-versus-player battles, stronger Incense effects, more spawn points and a doubled interaction radius. On the 1st of August 2021, it began rolling those changes back in its Exploration Bonus Updates, starting with New Zealand and the United States. The interaction distance for Gyms and PokéStops had risen from 40 to 80 meters, and players objected on health, safety and accessibility grounds. The hashtag #HearUsNiantic trended worldwide. On the 5th of August 2021, Niantic defended its decision in a blog post and announced an internal cross-functional team on the issue. On the 1st of September 2021, it said the 80 meter radius would return, along with monthly Developer Diary announcements. As of the 13th of May 2025, trainers may use up to 10 Remote Raid Passes per day to join Shadow Raids and Max Battles from anywhere.

  In March 2025, Niantic announced it would sell its video game division to the mobile publisher Scopely for 3.5 billion dollars, and the deal was confirmed on the 12th of March. It covered Pokémon Go, Pikmin Bloom, Monster Hunter Now and the companion apps Campfire and Wayfarer. Ingress and Peridot stayed with the spun-off Niantic Spatial, still led by John Hanke. Niantic paid 350 million dollars to equity holders and funded Niantic Spatial with 250 million, of which 50 million came from Scopely. The acquisition closed on the 29th of May 2025 after regulatory approval, and 68 employees at the Ferry Building headquarters in San Francisco lost their jobs. Under the new owner, a leveling update on the 15th of October 2025 raised the maximum player level to 80, up from the 50 set on the 30th of November 2020.

  465354635