Saudi Arabia Buys Pokémon Go, and Probably All of Your Location Data
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A Saudi Arabian company that was created by the Saudi Arabian government just purchased Pokémon Go, the most popular augmented reality game of all time, with a collective worldwide player base of more than 100 million people and their locations in the real world.
Niantic is selling Pokémon Go, Pikmin Bloom, and Monster Hunter Now to Scopely, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of a Saudi Arabian company called Savvy Games, which itself is owned by the Saudi Arabian government’s Public Investment Fund. Scopely, Niantic, and Savvy Games have collectively published six separate blog posts about the $3.85 billion deal, none of which specifically address what is happening with the location data of Pokémon Go’s 100 million players and none of which address how location data collected in the future will be handled under Scopely and its Saudi Arabian owners.
Two other apps, called Campfire and Wayfarer, are also part of the deal. Campfire is a tool that lets people meet up in the real world to play Pokémon Go (or other Niantic games) together, and Wayfarer is an app that specifically leverages the players of Niantic games to map real-world locations for Pokémon Go. Niantic will keep Ingress, its first augmented reality game, and another game called Peridot.
