In Pokémon GO, a Pokémon can recently be found that can only appear on the beach. To avoid going to a beach, trainers are simply bringing the beach to them.
What kind of Pokémon is this? Recently, there is a new Pokémon in Pokémon GO that you can only find in a specific biome. This is Schligda, which can only appear in the beach biome and at coastlines.
To avoid having to travel to such places for capturing the Pokémon, some trainers have come up with a special idea: They manipulate the mapping service OpenStreetMap to bring the beach to them.
Beach, Beach everywhere!
What’s the deal with OpenStreetMap? OpenStreetMap is a free, open-source tool that resembles Google Maps. A major difference is that the data and locations in the real world are compiled by the community and not by a company.
This means that anyone can help document and register places on OpenStreetMap.
What does this have to do with Pokémon GO? Pokémon GO relies on OpenStreetMap to create its in-game world. If a location on OpenStreetMap is a beach, it will be classified as a beach biome in Pokémon GO as well.
Some Pokémon GO trainers are now taking advantage of this fact by marking beaches on OpenStreetMap where there are none. They hope to catch Schligda without much effort.
This distortion of OpenStreetMap data is especially annoying and frustrating for the volunteers and supporters of the service, who invest their free time in creating the map data.
As reported on Kotaku.com, this sad phenomenon could already be observed at the launch of Pokémon GO. Schools and landmarks were added to the map, even though there were none. Here, the reason was also to gain advantages in the game.
What do you think about this? How do you feel about an open mapping service being manipulated to gain advantages in a game? Feel free to share your opinion with us in the comments.
If you want to know what is happening this month in Pokémon GO, take a look at our overview of the events in May 2024 in Pokémon GO.
