Niantic’s CEO John Hanke has revealed that Ingress supported the developer when they approached The Pokemon Company about creating Pokemon Go; according to him, developers at the Pokemon Company had been playing Ingress previously.
It was this combined with the pitch from Niantic that sold the idea for creating Pokemon Go; the initial idea for the game came from the 2014 Google Maps April Fools prank that added Pokemon to Google Maps for one day.
The joke gained a lot of attention from gamers and the media which sparked hopes for a real game like that one.
The Pokemon Company loved the idea and thought that this concept worked perfectly with the Pokemon franchise. Niantic spent two years developing the game before it was released earlier this year and it’s certainly gone beyond all expectations placed on it by the developers, critics and gamers.
While Ingress helped Niantic pitch their idea for Pokemon Go, it’s also formed the basis for the locations of PokeStops and Gyms around the world.
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