You know Niantic — it's the company behind augmented reality games like Ingress and the enormously popular Pokémon GO. Today, Niantic announced its second annual Earth Day campaign, which will encourage people to get out and clean up around their communities with fun in-game incentives.
Last year's Earth Day campaign saw over 4200 players pick up 6.5 tons of garbage across 68 events in 19 countries. Those are terrific numbers, but Niantic is aiming to top them this year, and it's teaming up with Playmob and 15 NGOs (nonprofit, non-governmental organizations) to host its 2019 campaign.
Here's how the campaign works: you sign up for one of the events near you, or if there aren't any nearby, you can tag @NianticLabs on Twitter with the hashtag #AugmentingReality to report your cleanup efforts. The more people that participate in the Earth Day campaign, the better the global rewards given to Pokémon GO and Ingress players.
If 2000 players volunteer their time, PoGo players will see more Ground-type Pokémon and Ingress players will be more likely to get heatsinks, multipacks, shields, and power cubes. If 5000 volunteer, Shiny Digletts will appear in addition to the higher rates of Ground-type encounters, and Ingress players will see 2x AP linking.
Lastly, if 7000 people attend and help clean up, Pokémon GO players will receive twice as much Stardust and Candy for Event Spawns and Groudon in Raids, and Ingress players will gain 2x AP fielding — all in addition to the previous perks, of course.
This year's Earth Day campaign will run from April 13th to the 28th, and in-game rewards will be divvied out within 48 hours of the campaign ending. If you're an avid gamer — heck, even if you're not and you just want to contribute — this is a great way to help out your community and have some fun at the same time.
