AR Game Safari Central wants to Bring You Closer to Wildlife
by Startacus Admin
Humans have been on the planet for six million years. In the past 40 years alone, we have have been responsible for the destruction of a massive 50% of Earth’s wildlife. If that figure isn’t terrible enough, try 93% of big cats lost in the past 50 years, or 85,000 elephants killed in the past 5 years just in Tanzania.
With our every means of environmental destruction - intentional and unintentional - becoming more effective, imagine what the next 40 years could bring, let alone the next six million. This is the unsettling thought that prompted Internet of Elephants to create Safari Central.
Safari Central is an upcoming augmented reality mobile game currently raising funds on Kickstarter. The game is in a similar vein to Pokémon Go, in that players will use AR to search their surroundings for wild animals. 
These animals are based on real animals somewhere out in the world. For example, you may come across Rockstar the Pangolin - the most trafficked animal in the world, due to their scales. Rockstar’s movements in-game will be based on her real-world movements, halfway across the world in Tswalu, South Africa. If she wanders westward for 5 minutes before lying down to sleep, it’s because that’s what the real life Rockstar did in SA.
This tracking data is supplied by Internet of Elephants’ wildlife conservation partners around the world, and precautions are taken to ensure that it cannot be used by the likes of poachers to track down the animals.
Because Internet of Elephants is a for-profit organisation, they have staff to pay and shareholders to please with their profits; however, 20% of proceeds from what players spend in-game will go to carefully selected wildlife conservation initiatives, with a goal of donating $20m annually. For now, the money raised in the Kickstarter campaign will go towards implementing more animals in the game, which in turn will increase appeal for players.
Since 9 July, their crowdfunding campaign has already raised over $55,000 -a good bit more than halfway to their overall goal. With 15 days left (at the time of writing), it could be close, but it looks like they should make it!
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Published on: 23rd July 2017
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