You Might Be Able To Suggest Your House as a Pokestop. Here’s how.

Pokémon Go addicts players, how nice would it be if your house is a Pokestop? You’ll no longer need to wander around aimlessly, or stay in a park to feed mosquitoes to pick up more Pokeballs.

Here’s the thing: you can actually suggest a Pokestop. But of course, there’s a catch: a big catch, in fact.

Before anything, here’s how a Pokestop is allegedly determined: it’s not entirely true that they’re selected based solely on popular landmarks. The developer of Pokémon Go, Niantic, Inc, has also developed another augmented-reality mobile game called Ingress. While the gameplay isn’t about catching Pokémons, it’s played in a similar fashion: players have to physically be in a location to claim “portals”. This is just like players having to be in a Pokestop or gym to get items or fight for the gym.

The locations of the portals were either selected by the company or submitted by players themselves. The company will then review the submissions; according to ingressguide.com, here are the criteria required.

A LOCATION WITH A COOL STORY, A PLACE IN HISTORY OR EDUCATIONAL VALUE
– Interesting story behind the location/object
– Historical significance (apart from just being old)

A COOL PIECE OF ART OR UNIQUE ARCHITECTURE
– Statues, paintings, mosaics, light installations, etc.
– Venues that showcase fine art (e.g., performance art theaters and museums)
– Buildings designed by renowned architects/structures famous specifically for their architecture

A HIDDEN GEM OR HYPER-LOCAL SPOT
– A popular local spot that you would take a friend visiting your community for the first time
-A popular spot where locals gather, but may be lesser-known outside the community
– Tourist spots that showcase local flavor and culture and that make your city/neighborhood unique
– More off-the-beaten-path tourist attractions (i.e., if you weren’t a local, you wouldn’t necessarily know to go here)
– Adventurous tourist attractions – think lookout towers, observatories, signs or markers atop mountain peaks, etc.

PUBLIC LIBRARIES

PUBLIC PLACES OF WORSHIP

And of course, there’s a list of locations that will be rejected immediately:

• Candidates in locations with NO SAFE PEDESTRIAN ACCESS.
• Candidates of PEOPLE, BODY PARTS, LIVE ANIMALS, etc.; please, just don’t.
• Candidates that are NATURAL FEATURES (Includes pictures of landscapes as well as submissions where the subject is a lake, river, stream, mountain, volcano, waterfall, etc.; does not include man-made points of interest – plaques, signs, etc. – near natural features).
• Candidates that are NOT PERMANENT, including SEASONAL DISPLAYS that are only put up during certain times of the year.
• Candidates submitted with a PHOTO THAT YOU DID NOT TAKE YOURSELF (i.e., pulled from a third-party source); these will be rejected even if the candidate itself meets acceptance criteria or is on the list of things we generally accept.
• Candidates on PRIVATE RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY (including farms)
• Candidates that may interfere with the operations of FIRE STATIONS, POLICE STATIONS AND HOSPITALS
• Candidates on the grounds of PRIMARY/SECONDARY SCHOOLS

The game, released in Android on December 2013 and iOS on July 2014, has since stopped receiving submissions since September 2015, although they will continue to look at the backlogs of submissions that were received before that.

Now, here’s the ticket: the locations of Pokestops and gyms are allegedly from the locations of the portals (since there’re players of both games who validated this).

And here’s what you’re looking for: there’s a website for you to submit your suggestions for Pokestops and gyms by the same official company itself.

Here’s the link. But it isn’t working (as of 111 August 2016), isn’t it?

Seeing that the submission period for Ingress is open for about one year, it could mean that the submissions for Pokémon Go could around this period, too. However, this Pokémon Go submission was first reported in Gamespot in mid-July, so it’s less than a month old.

As the page is still active, it doesn’t hurt to save the page in your browser, and once it’s back up again, submit a location immediately?

Since “PRIVATE RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY” can’t be submitted, the trick is to find a landmark near your house (a playground or a basketball court) next to your house and submit it. And as for your office, I’m pretty sure a coffeeshop is nearby, eh?

Oh, you’re welcome.

Featured Image: Stoyan Yotov / Shutterstock.com

This article was first published on goodyfeed.com