Pokémon Go players are altering public map data to catch rare Pokémon
- Thread starter JournalBot
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To prove that some people actually read the article before commenting. Congratulations!
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It looks like it may have been inadvertently carried over from the article about League of Legends anti-cheat; which ran recently and had a TPM-related component.
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Really? What's the point of a map that's inaccurate? Seems like the height of irresponsibility, to me... all to "catch them all".
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RickRoyLeonPrisZhoraRacha
Ars Centurion
On a less positive note, can you imagine individuals focusing on other needs of society than their own? To modify data so they can get something of no value.
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Is vandalizing publicly-writable databases "passionate hacking"?
I'd agree that there's a word for zero-skill damage to a public good in the attempt to get video game stuff for yourself; but it's slightly less complimentary.
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It should definitely be emphasized that the map data in pokemon go isn't live. From my experience in my city, the map only updates once every ~3 years, along with updated spawn points. A beach added in OSM likely won't show up in pokemon go for years.
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I suppose this is marginally more safe than attaching your phone to a ceiling fan to get your eggs hatched
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I had no idea this game made so much money. According to that Statista article, it generated nearly a billion dollars in revenue in 2020. Insane.
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Yeah, 2020 is a special case, because deep in pandemic times is when they introduced remote raid passes, which allowed you to participate in a raid (fight a mon, usually a legendary or other big critter) anywhere in the world, as long as you were invited to it. They made a ton of money with those things… which is why it’s baffling to see them nerf the passes last year (they limited how many you could use per day while simultaneously raising the price). And they wonder why their revenue has gone down since that point.
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It takes years for Pokemon go to bring the OSM content into the game. Not that OSM updates are slow.
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pthariensflame
Smack-Fu Master, in training
OSM itself is very live! What the article is talking about is how often PG pulls from it, which is a completely unrelated update frequency.
EDIT: ninja’d!
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I didn't realize the game had a real world link for biome and just thought the spawns were random, with rarity being the factor to overcome and not actual geographic location
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I guess I got the other title because I don't see any references to either. Or perhaps our ARS overlords put the title on the wrong article and fixed it afterwards.
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Are you saying pokemon go actually does use the current version of OSM despite what the article says and the article is incorrect?
The article to paraphrase says things can appear on OSM very quickly without appearing in pokemon GO. Pokemon Go does not use the live/current version of OSM, they use it as of a certain point/version. Occasionally (measured in years) they update which version they use.
People might be changing these things to try to get them to appear on pokemon go, but there is going to be lag up to 3 years before they actually appear on Pokemon Go.
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Well reddit is a "source" of sorts... You know fake news, bad takes, public opinion that is based on likes etc...
In other words It's a hive of scum and villainy. Team rocket probably is involved somewhere in there.
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Nothing is perfect. Deliberately making things worse remains bad.
Pen testers don't typically intentionally break the production system. People who do that are known as "black hats", and, yes, "vandals".
How dangerous a bogus change is doesn't depend on how adorable you find the motivations of the worthless idiot who makes it.
It's a side effect of them being garbage people.
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I had no idea someone would do something like this.
It sounds dangerous. Like your fan or your phone will break or both will break if things go wrong.
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Apparently by selling the real-time 24/7 mapping data from everyone who has it installed. This is a game that requires players to drive around (and fly places too) and also incentivizes allowing the game to run in the background constantly. I suppose in Tokoyo and New York one can take the subway but just walking certainly doesn’t cut it around here.
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Pokémon Go Revenue and Usage Statistics (2024)
Pokémon Go is an augmented reality mobile game tied to Nintendo’s best-selling Pokémon franchise. Gameplay sees users encountering the eponymous creatures in real-world settings, utilising mobile GPS. Users can catch and train the Pokémon, then battle against other users, mimicking gameplay of...
www.businessofapps.com
That has 2016-2022 revenue and active users.
YEAR REV USERS REV/USER
2016 $1030M 232M $4.40
2017 $580M 65M $8.90
2018 $810M 131M $6.20
2019 $890M 113M $7.90
2020 $1230M 86M $14.30
2021 $1110M 71M $15.60
2022 $770M 62M $12.40
It's a lot of money, but also a lot of users... an average user doesn't seem to be spending too much.
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I'm skeptical the game would even register the movement with such a small, fast circle. I think you'd have better luck with a toy train or Roomba.
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If I ever see one of those in my garden, I'll try to ring Kevin Bacon and/or Michael Gross, then I'm moving house.Andrew Cunningham said:
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I, too, was wondering why Ars Technica had a sex toy on the front page.
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As long as OSM accepts input from any contributor - without effective moderating or proctoring, and without a strong user base to continuously validate new inputs - their data will likely degrade over time.
They should consider themselves lucky that these Pokemon biome hacks fall under the category of "annoying mischief" and not "outright malicious intent". This was a minor use-case of finagling the OSM data. When someone discovers a way to monetize gaming this system, a lack of effective moderation could create serious headaches for OSM.
They should consider themselves lucky that these Pokemon biome hacks fall under the category of "annoying mischief" and not "outright malicious intent". This was a minor use-case of finagling the OSM data. When someone discovers a way to monetize gaming this system, a lack of effective moderation could create serious headaches for OSM.
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I stopped playing as soon as they removed the footprint mechanic that showed a very approximate distance to a goal and you had to use "warm/cold" methodology to triangulate the location. That was fun as hell and got me moving, so much so that I've been tempted to make my own game that worked that way.
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People seem to think the slogan "Gotta catch 'em all..." is simply a vague encouragement when it is, in fact, an imperative. The lesser known and dark side of this is the completion of the phrase, which ends "... or else."
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I havnt used OSM, but does it have a 'layering' type of system?
Could they make the concept of a Pokelayer? Where folks can add things like beaches that aren't really there.
It wouldnt pollute the real map data, but Go could use that layer to provide a better distribution of biome-specific creatures.
Could they make the concept of a Pokelayer? Where folks can add things like beaches that aren't really there.
It wouldnt pollute the real map data, but Go could use that layer to provide a better distribution of biome-specific creatures.
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At least in San Diego County, California there are a few of us who note when changes are made and verify that the change reflects truth. I can't say that people do the same in less populated areas.[ edit: see also the post immediately below.]
I can say that there are frequent alterations to map details. The problems are mostly due to errors of users who are not sufficiently familiar with the editing interface. Every month or so someone will make a prank addition or rename something (usually a named freeway segment - J Alfred Prufrock memorial bridge) after a fictional character or someone in the current news cycle. Another prank is turning an area of several city blocks from residential use to a cemetery.
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There's a system by which you can get notified of any edits made within a certain bounding box. Interested map editors often review edits being made in their local area and catch things like spam and vandalism pretty quickly. As long as there aren't any legitimate edits to the same feature to untangle, reverting any given change is so quick you might call it super easy, barely an inconvenience.
Some years (more like a decade ago at this point) I spent a lot of time adding stuff to OSM. Imagine my surprise a week or two ago when my SO asked me about the Overpass API, as she was trying to find the nearest beach.
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