Pokémon Spy
Spooks in the machine?
Watching you watching us watching you — the CIA connection to Pokémon Go.
You would have been living in a cave not to have noticed the sensation that is Pokémon Go, a free-to-play location-based augmented reality game, that has taken the mobile gaming world by storm. Establishing more than 21 million users within 2 weeks of release, analysts predict that the game will generate $ billions for Google and Apple via their respective app stores whilst generating nearly $2 million per day for the developer Niantic Labs.
The business model for the game is freemium where basic features are provided free and users can use PokéCoins to buy additional features. A pack of 100 PokéCoins costs 99 cents but other feature packs cost as much as $99.99. Apple, Google take their 30% distribution cut, Nintendo take a licensing fee and percentage for the Pokémon brand and characters with the lion’s share going Niantic who include Nintendo and Alphabet (Google) amongst their investors.
In February of this year Niantic announced the appointment of Gilman Louie to their board.
As a venture capitalist, former Harvard man, Louie sits on a number of boards including a number of educational technology initiatives focused on a data-driven transformation of our education systems.
Louie started out his career as a video game designer creating, amongst other titles, the F-16 Flight Simulator game published by Spectrum Holobyte. He is best known for licensing the Tetris game, which became one of the worlds most popular video games, from its developers in the Soviet Union. As a venture capitalist he is a partner of Alsop Louie Partners who invested in Niantic.
Louie is also the founder and former CEO of In-Q-Tel, a strategic venture fund created to help enhance national security by connecting the CIA and U.S. intelligence community with entrepreneurial companies.
He was given the CIA’s director’s award in 2006 for service to national intelligence.
Here’s a 20 minute talk from Louie given at DICE 2014 where he discusses winning the “cultural war” by disrupting gaming. He proposes improving the public image of the game industry by establishing an organisation to advance the interests of the industry as a whole and to provide scholarships to bring new talent into the field. The talk was condemned by the US Entertainment Software Association who, in fact, are an organisation that does just that. Read their statement here:
So what is the CIA doing inside Niantic and Pokémon Go?
It could be that Louie is simply a good patriot but it’s probably worth reading their privacy policy.
Further reading
You can find more of my writing here and join my mailing list here
Thank you for reading. I appreciate feedback so if you like this post and would like others in your network to catch it please touch the heart/recommend button below, share via social media or feel welcome to add your thoughts as a response post.
An entertaining & thought provoking slayer of sacred cows, Graham Brown-Martin works globally with senior leadership teams to help organisations adapt in the face of rapid change & innovation. By challenging entrenched thinking he liberates teams to think in new ways to solve complex challenges. His book Learning {Re}imagined is published by Bloomsbury and he is represented for speaking engagements via Wendy Morris at the London Speakers Bureau.
