Developer Niantic is now letting people request new locations to be made into PokeStops and gyms for the AR mobile game Pokemon GO.
This is great news for anyone who lives in rural areas. For example, my nearest PokeStop is an old church in an area where it’s near impossible to actually get a signal – not ideal when I just wanna be the very best.
To submit a request, simply head over to this Pokemon GO support page, where you’ll need to include your email address, the name and location of your desired PokeStop/gym, and the reason you want it.
Obviously you can only request a business or landmark as a new location – although it would be hilarious to troll your neighbours by turning their house into a hot spot for local trainers.
Niantic hasn’t mentioned how quickly it’ll respond to these requests, or what criteria it’ll use when deciding to accept or reject each one.
You can also use the new request form to let Niantic know if you’ve seen a PokeStop or gym that’s in a dangerous area, or remove one that’s on your personal property.
Hopefully the bloke from Massachusetts who had his converted church home labelled as a gym makes use of this new request form ASAP.
Pokemon GO continues to dominate the public’s attention with all manner of wild and wacky stories, such as the two marines who accidentally caught a wanted criminal while out playing.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.