I don’t think I need to introduce Pokemon GO. News has done that for me already. In fact, odds are you’ve already seen a PokeStop sign at a physical place you pass by. I find this specific part of the phenomenon the most interesting one by far. As I’m writing this episode, I’m listening to the Dropped Frames podcast by itmeJP where hosts are sharing their own stories of various places — cafes, libraries, etc — putting up various promotions that interact with the game. “-10% for Team X”, “-10% for Pokemon GO players”.
This is perhaps the most fascinating part of the phenomenon this game has become.
Augmented Reality has often been approached as a form of technology that overlays something virtual — something not real — over a representation of our physical world, be it a photograph, a map, your field of vision. However, Pokemon GO has perhaps turned this concept around.
Sure enough, the game is based upon the map of our world itself — a representation — and moreover, the game uses an “AR” feature to overlay Pokemon over camera input. But Pokemon GO is not just augmenting representations of our world — it’s literally augmenting the world itself.
Every story I hear — about gyms being tied to places in amusing ways — about PokeStops advertising themselves — more importantly, about people meeting each other over the game… The players are nothing less but Pokemon Trainers, meeting fellow trainers, searching the (urban or otherwise) wilds for Pokemon, travelling the world, having adventures. The spirit of the original games is not only preserved — it’s brought out into the real world, in a tangible form with very real, physical consequences.
Using maps and GPS to create games is hardly a novel concept. A game by the same developers — Ingress — has been around since 2014. It hasn’t had the same impact. It’s not Pokemon — quite the opposite, it’s a brand new IP specific to the game itself. Unsurprisingly, I haven’t heard about it until the same developers started releasing Pokemon GO worldwide. It’s really exciting that we’ve had the opportunity to see what such a game can accomplish when you have enough players. The game’s success is mostly owed to the fact that it’s leveraging Pokemon IP — there’s no doubt about that.
I think that’s one part of its success. The other part is that a game like this needs enough players for it to augment reality directly. The hype train of Pokemon GO is so huge exactly because the social phenomena surrounding the game are drawing people in. The meat of the game isn’t very exciting by itself, but you have to be out in the physical world to play it. It’s a lot more exciting, a lot more motivating to go and play the game when you’re aware that you will, almost certainly (depending on how populated the area is, of course), run into fellow players.
And Pokemon GO has achieved that — in huge part just by being Pokemon.
In fact, the simplicity of the game makes it even easier for it to impact the world. Most people, at very least, have heard of Pokemon. This makes it easy to explain to everyone — “it’s just a game where you walk around, catch and raise cute monsters”. This time, however, since the gameplay involves physical action, it gives the idea of hunting Pokemon and travelling to Stops and Gyms a much more tangible meaning — the core idea of going out on a hunting trip is sufficiently simple and relatable that anyone can empathize and lend a hand to Trainers. It’s not just sitting around and pressing buttons on a console. The world inside that console is closed off, hermetic. The world of Pokemon GO, well… it’s our world. It’s much easier to get involved, even without playing the game itself, since you’re already included.
As of writing, I’m already planning to hit up Warsaw tomorrow and see for myself how many interesting people I’ll meet, how many interesting things will happen as I catch imaginary monsters and visit real places just to gather imaginary items and defeat other imaginary monsters. While my area seems to have fairly decent Pokemon coverage, all the PokeStops and Gyms are spread out and pretty far in-between, hence the necessity. But once I come back, I plan to install modules in my local PokeStops and see if I can lure anyone out — and not just Pokemon.
