Ingress is a game based on real world locations. In a game predicated on a relationship between the physical and the synthetic, what becomes or should become of a portal that is no longer anchored by the real world location that informed its very creation?
Should the portal stay as synthetic memory of a once culturally important physical location or should it be removed or allowed to slowly decay and disappear just like any other form that abides the transient nature of physical existence ?
Should the game creators intervene or should the local players who inhabit the physical space battle it out for a synthetic space that really should no longer exist?
Does it even matter when it’s all just a game?
These are the questions I asked when a physical location in my area (that informed the creation of a portal) was demolished.
Photograph of the half-dismembered comic book store that served as the real world location for the Batman Joker Mural portal.
You can report portals which no longer exist in the scanner (portal->photo->edit->report invalid portal), so it seems like the intent is to remove them. Since I like to see the actual location I’d find it frustrating if there is nothing there and wasted time looking for it.
Hiya Cole,
Thanks for the comment and information on how to report a portal. Although it could be a little frustrating for the portal to persist even when the physical impetus or reason for the portal to exist has gone, I actually think it’s kind of cool that it serves as a sort of recording or archive.
Happy Ingressing!
Rowan