Those venerable scientists who devoted their careers to geographical precision would be well and truly mind-blown by the skills of today’s ‘pro players’, whose map mastery seems like pure sorcery. Both Galileo and Newton attempted to work it out, by means of telescopes, and the Greenwich Royal Observatory, source of Longitude 0o since 1884, was established especially. The ability to determine an exact maritime position would save lives and increase profits.
The sum is coincidentally exactly the same amount (except in sterling) as was offered three centuries ago for a global geographical challenge, when in 1714 Queen Anne assented to an Act for Providing a Publick Reward for such Person or Persons as Shall Discover the Longitude at Sea. Its ascent culminated in the first live international tournament in Paris last autumn, when 30 teams gathered to compete for a €20,000 prize. ‘If you have those, you’re fine.’īe that as it may, the game is so compelling that last year saw profits of more than £9 million for the Swedish company behind GeoGuessr, and playing it has become an obsession that for some people absorbs up to 12 hours daily.
The closer you are, the more you score.Īccording to GeoGuessr’s most famous proponent, 24-year-old Trevor Rainbolt, there is a way to make more than haphazard stabs at it: ‘Honestly, the most important thing to learn is the very basic knowledge of telephone poles,’ he says, with typical understatement. Sleuths can click along streets, zoom in on signs, pan the local flora, façades and fashion, before dropping the pin on a map at their best guess of the location. The premise of GeoGuessr – tagline: ‘Let’s Explore the World!’ – is elementary, however: after an on-screen countdown, an image appears of a random spot in any of the 100 countries covered by the panoramas of Street View, Google Maps’ interactive exploration system – the one we can all access by pressing the icon on the top right of the app. What started out as an educational geographic tool 10 years ago has evolved into a phenomenally popular daily test, spearheaded by 150 or so elite players who cram their brains with increasingly obscure information to gain victory in their turbo-speed international race. At any given moment, from Norway to Paraguay, tens of thousands of 20-something gamers are fixated at their desktops roaming the planet’s highways and byways, frantically propelling cursors around screens in search of clues about their online whereabouts.
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