I got an invite to Ingress pretty early on, played heavily for several months then dropped it completely. I never got into the lore and didn't particularly care for bar-hopping meetups. As a game it felt really uneven, free to enact sudden changes in some areas but leave others frustratingly untouched.<p>Seems pretty polarizing though, among the people I played with many stopped playing long ago while others remain completely immersed.<p>At the moment, I'm more interested in what Google is/was getting out of it? I haven't kept up, but I can imagine all sorts of interesting data that the game could generate from the obvious cataloging of landmarks to path finding or network effects in the distribution of invites and codes.<p>I can't help but wonder if this feature is a move toward putting the game out to pasture in a way by putting content generation in the hands of the players.
I tried getting into this game early on. One option for players was to submit local landmarks as locations of note for the game. I would photograph and submit whatever landmarks nearby I could find. While waiting some weeks for them to be approved, I noticed one day that a bunch of Zipcar parking spots had suddenly become Ingress hotspots. I was so put off by the obvious advertising ploy that I stopped playing right then, and never touched it again.
The last thing Google needs in Ingress is more content than they need to review. They're currently 130 days behind on reviewing portal submissions and this is either going to take just as long, or delay portal submissions even more.<p>Frankly, I'm shocked that they didn't start with procedurally generated missions first so that everyone can participate and then add hand-curated ones slowly to improve the quality. Instead, they did a big media blitz when a large portion of their player base isn't anywhere near an existing mission.
How's Ingress doing nowadays? I never got into it because it sucked so much of my battery life, but I keep receiving their newsletter and it seems like a surprisingly active community.