Niantic is opening its AR platform so others can make games like Pokémon Go

Niantic Labs, the San Francisco-based game developer responsible for creating the massively successful augmented reality game Pokémon Go, plans to open up the underlying AR platform behind its products to third-party developers.

In a meeting with reporters yesterday at its headquarters, CEO John Hanke gave a detailed overview of that technology — what Niantic calls its Real World Platform. It's the engine behind the AR experiences in Ingress, Pokémon Go, and the upcoming title Harry Potter: Wizards Unite that company is developing alongside Warner Bros. And Niantic says it's getting better all the time.