Pokémon GO – The Method and The Madness

Pokémon GO: What it is all about

Pokémon GO is the latest addition to the Pokéverse. It is a triumph in game design, which sees augmented reality (AR) meshing with Pokémon to create a game that people just cannot stop playing.

The game involves walking around your neighborhood and catching Pokémon, the fictional creatures of various species, which carry specific attacks and characteristics. Simply put, the aim as players or Pokémon Trainers is to catch, develop, evolve Pokémon, and battle other trainers with them. You use your phone’s GPS and internet to locate Pokémon in the vicinity, and then spot them on your phone screens, approach them, and catch them by tossing Pokéballs in their direction.

There is even a smart wearable device called the Pokémon GO Plus to go with the game. Currently, the game is available on iOS and Android, and Niantic is phasing their launches of the game by region so as not to overburden their servers.

The game started out the US, Australia and New Zealand, then spread to Japan and Great Britain among others. After a whole host of official launches across Europe, it was recently announced that the game is officially available in 15 more countries, this time in the Asia and Oceania region. This means Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau were all added to the ever-growing list.

You can find more detailed information regarding Pokémon Go, including compatibility and regions on the game’s official website.

How big is Pokémon GO?

It is huge.

How huge?

Well, to give you some context, according to Fortune it has already crossed Tinder in terms of downloads, and may even have overtaken Twitter in terms of daily users!

Here is another snippet from the piece to really drive home its popularity –

“Tracking data shows that 60% of those who downloaded the app in the U.S. are using it on a daily basis. What’s more, the average person is playing it for more than 43 minutes a day, topping popular social and messaging apps, including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Snapchat.”

Forbes ran a story about the popularity of the game as well, citing quotes from Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Facebook’s creator Mark Zuckerberg, and Apple top-man Tim Cook, all of whom have reserved praise for the game. If you still aren’t convinced, check out this page by AppInstitute that shows real-time statistics about how many downloads the game has had, and how much revenue it has earned since you logged on to the webpage.

Pokémon GO, the crazies

You know anything in modern pop culture has a hit cult status when there are a few crazy stories surrounding it, and Pokémon GO has managed to that as well. Here are some of the most famous and most bonkers accounts:

• Olympic gymnast Kohei Uchimura was in Brazil, representing his home nation of Japan in the 2016 Olympics. That wasn’t all he was doing there though, because as  this news story reports, he spent all his spare time playing Pokémon GO, and racked up a phone bill of close to $5000 because of the roaming charges he incurred while chasing the fictional monsters. The story ends well though, because his carrier waived off the extra charge eventually.

• Then there’s Andrew Goldfarb, from IGN, one of the biggest tech websites out there also posted this video about falling of a pier while chasing Pokémon.

• Tech Insider reports of a massive car crash due to the game, when a player drove into a tree because he was too engrossed with the game.

• CNN Money narrated a story of how a teenager in Wyoming even found a dead body, thanks to the game.

• A woman found out her boyfriend was cheating on her, when she noticed her boyfriend had captured a Pokémon at his ex’s house, as the NY Post explains!

• The US Marines and police used the game to track a suspect, as per CNN.