Media: Ingress: The game that reveals Google's secret war to control London

Ingress: The game that reveals Google's secret war to control London

Google's intriguing augmented-reality game has dedicated players fighting to control locations around the world. We join the players in England's capital

Hatfield, T. (2014). The Guardian. 

We’re playing Ingress, a massively multiplayer augmented-reality game created by Google and Niantic labs and launched last December. Participants download the dedicated app, then use their phones to log into a Google Maps-based interface; this highlights "portals" around the world – almost always well-known landmarks – that the game's two factions must fight to control. When a player is near a portal, they can take it over, set up defences and then link it together with the rest of their side's territory. Over the past six months, players have managed to create huge fields of linked portals that span several countries. 

This is all happening all the time, everywhere. It’s happening right now where you live. Your city centre is probably a vital battleground between the game's two factions: the Enlightened (who believe aliens are using the portals to transcend humanity to a higher state) and the Resistance (who would rather they asked permission first). Your local town hall has probably changed hands three times today.