Game developers could make the next Pokmon Go with new widely available Google Maps tools

Google is opening up its Google Maps Platform to everyone so developers can incorporate Maps data into their games, the company announced on Monday. Its tools let developers use Maps data to build games that let you explore a modified version of the real world, similar to Niantic’s Pokémon Go. (Niantic, once a startup within Google, has its own developer toolset for making AR games that use live camera and 3D mapping data, called the Niantic Real World Platform.)

Google first announced the tools in March 2018, but they were only available to a “limited group” of studios and only 10 games have been built with them so far, according to a Google blog post. The company says indie studios and other developers expressed interest in using the...

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