Updated

Updated · The Verge · Jul 10

Pokémon Go Draws 2,000 Players for Mega Mewtwo Raid in Times Square at 10-Year Mark

Updated

Updated · The Verge · Jul 10

Pokémon Go Draws 2,000 Players for Mega Mewtwo Raid in Times Square at 10-Year Mark

Q: With player AR data no longer sold, what are Scopely's new plans for the billions of world scans it collects?

Scopely does not appear to have new commercial plans for those scans because it does not control the historical trove in the way the question suggests. The billions of AR and “world scan” images were collected under Niantic, not Scopely. When Scopely bought Niantic’s games business in 2025, the spatial-technology arm was spun out as Niantic Spatial, which retained the historical scan data and used it to train its geospatial AI systems. That is the data tied to reporting about partnerships such as drone-navigation work. Since the transition, Pokémon Go’s AR scanning tasks have been discontinued, and Niantic Spatial has said Pokémon Go data is no longer shared with it. Scopely has also framed its strategy around running live-service games and community experiences, not around building a spatial-data business. So the available evidence points to a simpler answer: Scopely’s plan is not to monetize player scans externally, but to move away from that pipeline altogether and focus on the game itself. Publicly, the company’s priorities are player retention, live events, social features, Campfire, Wayfarer, and new in-game experiences that strengthen local and global communities. In short, the old scan archive stayed with Niantic Spatial, while Scopely’s post-acquisition direction for Pokémon Go is centered on gameplay and community, not selling or repurposing player AR data.

3 articles · Updated · The Verge · Jul 10

Nearly 2,000 players packed Times Square on Thursday for a staged Mega Mewtwo battle, with billboards darkening and relighting to reveal the encounter during Pokémon Go’s 10th-anniversary event.
Scopely said the raid was designed to finally deliver the community spectacle imagined in Pokémon Go’s 2015 trailer, when large-scale cooperative battles were still only a concept.
The event also underscored how far the game’s live operations have come since its glitch-plagued 2017 Chicago gathering, which drew thousands but was derailed by network and software failures.
Pokémon Go has now topped 800 million downloads and generated $1 billion in 2025 alone, as Scopely credits community-focused events for sustaining a game whose core mechanics have changed little.
That strategy faces its next test this weekend, when the global 2026 Pokémon Go Fest is expected to send millions into more Mewtwo encounters and cooperative challenges.