It’s been a couple of weeks since the release of Pokémon Go. Ever since its release people of multiple fandoms in the world have been wanting a mobile virtual reality game for their favorite game, book or movie. Some have been on the comedic side like the following image:
But not all ideas are meant to be funny; some are games that people want. Something that floated around the internet for the last couple of days is Harry Potter Go. There’s even a petition for Niantic and Warner Bros to team up and make the game that has over 40,000 supporters.
Responsible for the widespread of the proposed Harry Potter version of Pokémon Go are uproxx and hellogiggles. A website called JTXH News has a quote from Niantic’s senior developer Marcus Figueroa supporting the claim:
We have acquired the rights for the app. The demand for this title was absolutely insane, so we figured we’d give it a shot. If we’re lucky we might see a launch by early 2017, but it’s hard to tell this early in the project. We want to do something with schools of witchcraft and wizardry, similar to pokestops in Pokemon GO. As wells a quest system, and possibly large scale completely interactive events, but no promises. That’s all I can say.
However, when you search on Niantic’s website and click the blog button, the only name that is ever released is the president, John Hanke. If you search for Marcus Figueroa on google, you will come the JTXH News story I’ve already cited, as well as the article from Gizmodo also about the claim of a Harry Potter version of Pokémon Go coming out.
If that doesn’t convince you, if you click on the home button on to of the JTXH News article, you will see that it is blank. Harry Potter Go is a hoax and there will likely be several more people in other fandoms making there own claims that a game like Pokémon Go is in development for what they like.