Skip to main content

‘Pokémon Go’ may get its own social network

Pokémon Go
Evertoon
Niantic Labs, maker of the wildly popular Pokémon Go and the augmented-reality adventure Ingress, has acquired social media startup Evertoon to expand its reach across mobile platforms. Rather than an acquisition, it looks like an acqu-hire: Niantic is hiring all five Evertoon employees for their social media expertise and engineering know-how, rather than a desire to take over the Evertoon property itself.

Their experience in adding social media to digital products was the reason for the hire, Niantic founder John Hanke said in a blog post. “Today I am excited to announce that we have acquired the Evertoon team, who bring with them a wealth of talent and experience in mobile products, tools for creativity, and community building.”

Related Videos

Evertoon released a mobile app that allowed users to create avatars based on their own likeness, which they could then manipulate to perform a variety of actions and create miniature movies or music videos. The company was founded in 2014 by Niane Wang, a Google veteran who co-founded Google Desktop.

“Our mission is to use animation to enable video creation for anyone with stories to tell, regardless of their looks, race, or age,” Evertoon said in a statement. “It has been wonderful seeing this come to fruition in our diverse community.”

The company will be shutting down its online support on November 30, although you can still continue to create animations in offline mode on your phone. “As a thank-you, we recently released 60 new animations and 13 clothing items. We hope you enjoy using these in your future videos,” the company said. The latest version of the iOS Evertoon app is now available in the App Store.

The Evertoon team will get to work adding a social platform to Pokémon Go and other upcoming Niantic games.

Although Pokémon Go is no longer the global phenomenon it once was, it still has a huge and loyal user base and generates a ton of money. Augmented reality certainly has a big future in gaming, as more than two million trainers participated in a recent “Pikachu Outbreak” event in Japan. With the release of third-generation monsters and ongoing events, this move could help to reinvigorate interest in the franchise — which remains one of the best augmented reality apps around.

Editors' Recommendations

Apple’s VR headset could launch early, and that’s risky
A rendering of an Apple mixed-reality headset (Reality Pro) in a gray color seen from the front.

Tim Cook has pushed for Apple to launch its Reality Pro mixed-reality headset as soon as possible, despite objections from the company’s powerful design team. The move raises questions over whether the device will be ready for prime time when it launches this summer.

The news comes from the Financial Times (FT), which cites a former Apple engineer as a source. This engineer reportedly worked on the headset project and noted that there is “huge pressure” on Apple to launch the Reality Pro after years of postponements.

Read more
The best Pokémon games, ranked from best to worst
Sprigatito smelling flowers.

For more than 25 years, developer Game Freak has found a way to reinvent the Pokémon franchise for each new generation of gamers. Both brand-new Pokémon trainers and seasoned Pokémon masters are captivated by these cute (and sometimes scary) little monsters. Maybe it's the drive to catch 'em all that keeps players coming back. Or perhaps it's how adorable these little pocket monsters can be. Whatever the reason, players continue to return to or start exploring the Pokémon franchise.

Between new main series titles that bring new regions and Pokémon into the mix -- like Pokemon Legends: Arceus, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, remakes, and spinoffs -- there's a massive library of Pokémon games to choose from. Everyone has their favorites, but some are arguably better than others (just like Nintendo's long-running Metroid and Legend of Zelda series). We divided every Pokémon game into a couple of categories and ranked them accordingly.

Read more
PS5 themes: Can you customize your homescreen?
A person plays Crash Bandicoot using a PS5 DualSense controller.

The PS5 launched with many features we loved from the PS4 missing. Over the years, a few have come back, but one that many aren't sure about is themes. These could be earned, downloaded, purchased, or come included with certain games that gave your home screen a new look and background soundtrack related to different games or concepts. This made customizing your home screen that much more fun and personal. However, is this feature on the PS5? Here's whether or not you can put custom themes on your new console, or change the background.
Does the PS5 have themes?

No, the PS5 does not have any themes. Instead, whenever you highlight a game or app on your home screen, the background will change to art related to that game, as well as show more information on it. While far from ideal, it is the closest we are likely to get to the themes we had on our PS4.
Can you change the background on a PS5?
Again, due to the PS5 dynamically changing the background depending on what you're currently looking at, there's no way to alter your background at this time. Since the background is constantly changing, even if you had a custom image, it would always be changing as you cycled through games. There are a few other ways you can customize your PS5, however, unless Sony gives us the option with an update, there's no way to set a theme on your PS5.

Read more