Niantic introduces the Campfire social network

The creators of “Pokémon Go” and “Harry Potter: Wizards Unite” made their own social network. This is meant to bring players together and “add some magic” to the world.

The American game developer Niantic announced in its blog that it wants to offer its users its own social network. Among other things, players of “Pokémon Go” and other augmented reality titles from the manufacturer must find a new home there to exchange ideas with like-minded people and make new friends.

Campfire, as the network is called, allows players, for example, to locate them on a world map and then arrange to meet for special in-game events from the Niantic universe. In addition, the developers plan to later expand the service to include other games that have been programmed based on Niantic’s in-house technology platform.

Niantic CEO John Hanke sees the technology as an alternative to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s concept of a virtual “Metaverse” world. “We want to use technology to add some magic to the world,” Hanke said. “We don’t want to get in the way of that, the world is a wonderful place.” Hanke hopes to have augmented reality glasses that display digital content directly into the user’s field of view.

Niantic is expanding its in-house AR technology with the ability to locate a user at a location down to a centimeter. This is made possible with scans of the surroundings and 3D models, so that the camera can recognize where the smartphone is at the moment. Technology must be used to more accurately adapt and interact with superimposed digital objects to their surroundings.

Virtual objects can also be displayed in exactly the same place in applications for multiple users. The feature is initially available in locations in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, London and Tokyo, and is expected to expand to more than 100 cities around the world by the end of the year.