Niantic talks Pokemon GO – how it’s decided which Pokemon appear where, safety, more

A few hours ago, Mashable published a new article about Pokemon GO. The piece contains commentary from John Hanke, CEO of developer Niantic.

While speaking with the site, Hanke touched on topics like how it’s determined which Pokemon appear where, safety, and more. You can find these responses after the break. For more from Hanke, check out the original peice here.

On how it’s decided which Pokemon appear where…

– Ingress portal data set became so robust, it was chosen as the starting point for Pokemon GO

“The Pokestops are submitted by users, so obviously they’re based on places people go. We had essentially two and a half years of people going to all the places where they thought they should be able to play Ingress, so it’s some pretty remote places. There are portals in Antartica and the North Pole, and most points in between.”

– Geographic markers in the map created for Pokemon GO help determine Pokemon habitat

“We assign values based on whether there is a water body in an area — so a stream, a river, a pond — whether areas are designated as zoos or parks, or other kinds of mapping designations.”

– Another data set used in the game is drawn from the geographic classification of an area based on climate, vegetation and soil or rock type

“That gets into more [geographic information system]-type of data … and we utilize that to map Pokemon species to appropriate habitats.”

On safety…

“The goal is they are places that are pedestrian-safe. We also try to limit the spawning of the Pokemon — not to roadways, or in the vicinity of the user so that they don’t have to do anything out of the ordinary. Once a Pokemon spawns, you can tap on it and start interacting with it. You don’t have to go any further than where you already are — the assumption being that you are safe. We encourage people to keep their heads up and be aware of what’s going on around them.”

– When Pokemon GO opens, it launches with a warning message for users to keep their wits about them

“It is something that you would have with exercise apps, or geo-caching apps, or mapping apps, where people are moving about.”

– Niantic wants to encourage people to stay safe, while also building a game that gets people off the couch

On future features…

“We imagine teams building up their gyms and Pokestops in certain ways and tailoring them to their tastes.”

“We think that that (trading) in particular is going to drive a lot of cooperation, competition and social interactions between people. Some of the game design features that we have in mind for Pokestops and gyms are designed with the idea of encouraging cooperation and gameplay between players on the same team.”

On working with AR goggles…

“A lot of those systems will probably only work well indoors in the beginning. But I think certainly within a decade we’ll see that kind of immersive visual eye wear that you could wear outside and play games like Pokemon Go, and see Pokemon appear in a three-dimensional context.”