Augmented reality idea is a fantastic idea. Nintendo pulls back the curtain and (abra)Kadabra, they’ve brought real life into gaming and the evolution of gaming takes a major step. I, for one, am quite Krabby about it all and want to Raticate anyone over the age of 30 playing this game.
I take you back to my high school years and the release of Pokemon Blue and Red in 1998 (I was 15). The console was the GameBoy which if you are too young to remember, was a handheld, piece of shit displaying 8 bit grainy graphics (I think I had GameBoy Color). HOWEVER, Pokemon was huge on the television and “catching them all” was the thing to do. Ask Sam about his trading cards.
Here’s where my head starts spinning. I was 15 at the time and I knew internally that I was WAY too old to be playing Pokemon. There was 0 chance I’d ever let any other kid in high school know I was playing Pokemon or else I’d have gotten Hitmonlee. So when I see grown adults traveling around in packs, catching virtual creatures, I know it’s freaky. I’ll add that Pokemon Porn on XHamster has skyrocketed which is even more worrisome.
I truly understand the allure of Pokemon Go. Being able to find these “rare” creatures in spots where you’ve never traveled before is a natural high. You want to catch that ElectaBuzz and it’s exciting. It’s a freaking Pokemon though. Maybe if I was on a treasure hunt trying to find a pot of Goldeen at the end of the rainbow would I get out my phone and start my search, but at the end all I come to is self destructing Voltorb and I want to Exeggcute myself before he can kill me.
I read Barstool and the Pres is doing a schtick where he is playing the game because he always takes the side that his readers think is ludicrous. His love for Bieber. His love for Tiko Texas. His hate for LeBron. It’s all schtick to him and he knows millions of people play this game and that his readers probably hate the game. So he knows he has to take the side of loving it. It’s all a show and once you know it is, it’s no longer funny.
Which brings me to the average age of the Pokemon Go player. If you’re fresh out of school on summer vacation, it’s fine that you play Pokemon Go. If you work in an office, it’s not ok. Aside from Pokemon Go supporting local businesses and inventing a HUGE new way of advertising, catching Pokemon offers nothing to society (I suppose you could make this argument with any video game). It has actually caused more problems with people getting mugged and falling on train tracks to catch a Diglet. Not to mention the huge security invasion you open up by allowing Ninantic to collect all your personal data (apparently this has been fixed).
I have no problem with Pokemon Go. I couldn’t think of a better platform to gain as much exposure to as many people unless you start placing cocaine in random places. I just can’t figure out why people in their 30’s and 40’s are walking around like zombies glued to their phones looking to get Machoked out.
We had the original Gameboy, Gameboy Pocket, and Gameboy Color. You didn’t have the Gameboy Color, I had the Gameboy Color. I distinctly remember because when I bought it I gave the guy in the store $100 or whatever and walked right out without the actual product. It was so embarrassing.
The short term burst of usage, economic growth, and whatever else has come from this is great. But as I said in my post (Brookes feel free to disagree), it’s just a freakin’ fad. No one will be playing this shit in a year.
However, it does open the door to what’s next, and has probably given a million people ideas about how to create the next fad.
Yes, eventually this will probably be noted as a “fad” on some VH1 retrospective show. However, I think this game is very different than your CandyCrushes (hello – just Dr. Mario!!! Wake up sheeple!), etc. All of those games had to BUILD a relationship with their users. Pokemon already has a long standing relationship with many of its users.
Sam, if there was an augmented-reality version of Diablo that came out, you wouldn’t play it?
“Dungeon Keeper” and “Advance Wars” were two of the best games I’ve ever played. 2 of my top 5. The beauty was in their simplicity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Keeper
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_Wars
I think the Pokemon Go thing will eventually fade, as it has to. But I don’t think it will disappear the way you think it will. It activates too many different arenas at once to die off quickly…
For instance, this was LITERALLY the concept I mentioned yesterday – today on a Home Builder website: http://blog.thebdx.com/heck-pokemon-go-builders-care/?_cldee=ZGtldHRsZXJAa2V0dGxlcmZvcmxpbmVzaG9tZXMuY29t&urlid=2
Everyone wants to “engage” with the “next Facebook” – which Pokemon is not. Facebook grew organically, not with a giant spike. So it’s lasting power is probably reduced. However, Nintendo is releasing 2-3 new (more traditional) Pokemon games this year. Worse comes to worse, Nintendo stock will go up prior to these releases, and if all this was was a marketing strategy – then they just added a ton of users who may be interested in purchasing the product.