Pokemon GO developer teams up with NBA for "real-world metaverse" mobile game

Big companies love to throw with marketing words that don’t mean anything to consumers. Since Facebook announced it’s trying to build the so-called “metaverse” and went the extra mile as to rename the company, everyone is pouring resources into metaverse projects.

Since each company has its own take on the metaverse, Microsoft, Meta and other tech giants formed a group that aims to make the digital world they’re trying to build compatible with each other. Members of the Metaverse Standards Forum will be working to together to achieve “real-world interoperability” of what is now just a concept.

Despite not joining the new organization (just like Apple), Niantic continues to build AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) worlds, as one of the pioneers of these technologies. Today, the studio that gave us Pokemon GO announced a new partnership with another giant, the National Basketball Players Association (NBA).



Niantic and NBA will build an original AR mobile game called NBA All-World, which aims to place fans of the sports game into “the real-world metaverse.” This will be a free-to-play officially licensed geolocation basketball mobile game (Android and iOS) where players will be able to find, challenge, and compete against some of the best NBA players, and then recruit them to their team.

Also, Niantic announced that NBA All-World will allow fans to outfit the basketball players in the game with custom apparel. There’s no mention of a release date, but players can sign-up to be notified when NBA All-World is available in their country by visiting the game’s official website.