Pokemon Go YouTuber Trainer Tips went farther than ever before to investigate whether one of the most remote human-inhabited places on Earth is home to genuine players, or just a digital hotspot.
Kiritimati, an island in the central Pacific Ocean with a population of less than 8,000 people, sits along the UTC+14 time zone, which means it’s the very first place on the planet to hit each new day. For Pokemon Go players, that makes it the earliest location where global events go live, hours ahead of the rest of the world.
For that reason, it’s become a popular spoofing destination, with players digitally teleporting their locations there to gain early access to timed spawns, raids, and bonuses.
Playing where spoofers only pretend to be
In a July 14 video posted to his YouTube channel, Trainer Tips documented the multi-day journey to reach the island ahead of Pokemon Go’s biggest annual event, Go Fest.
During the event, the YouTuber joined multiple raids with remote and supposed in-person participants. Despite hoping to meet any of the latter, nobody else within physical range of each raid was present.
The closest Trainer Tips came to finding another Pokemon Go player on the island was when he met with two missionaries. One, from Canada, said they had last played “around five years ago.”
While spoofing has long been against Niantic’s terms of service, locations like Kiritimati have remained top spots on spoofers’ maps for early access to events like Community Day and global raid launches.
Considering how much difficulty the content creator had in getting to Kiritimati in the first place, and the challenge he faced in getting a stable internet connection, the island is likely to remain a digital-only haven for Pokemon Go players.
Content shared from www.dexerto.com.