Three Ways Pokémon GO is Changing Everything (For the Better)
I swear, I’ve got whiplash. I have never seen anything take off as fast, or with such relentless virality, as Pokémon GO has. This thing spread faster than a Caveman Spongebob meme, faster than any Game of Thrones spoiler, certainly faster than any app or game has ever spread before. It’s now on more Android phones than the Twitter app. It’s Pokémon, of course, so we knew it would be at least somewhat successful back when it was announced a year ago. But we didn’t expect this. Nobody, I think, expected this. There’s never been anything like this, ever.
People have talked about augmented reality for years, but it’s always seemed like just one more embarrassing Google Glass-esque mistake after another. Niantic, the developer behind Pokémon GO, cut their teeth on Ingress, a similar AR game that struggled to pick up more than a handful of dedicated players.
That hasn't been a problem here. Local businesses and churches have begun giving away prizes and designing special deals for Pokémon hunters. T-Mobile has announced that they will begin waiving data charges for GO players. Schools and museums have had to put up signs reminding attendees not to play when it isn’t appropriate. This has all happened in a few days, mind you. The zeitgeist’s flow has apparently shifted up a gear.
There are a lot of different reasons I could point to for the game’s unprecedented success. It’s free, for one. It’s Pokémon, which gets it a few points automatically. It’s novel, but tempered with nostalgia, an extra ingredient that probably saved GO from Ingress’s fate. And hell, it’s just fun. I've never played a Pokémon game before this one, and I still can’t resist it. That old, simple impulse, to just catch one more, find one more is simple magic. Plus, you can’t help but want to suck it to those Valor meatheads.
But it’s not just about how many Pidgeys you’ve got in your Pokédex. Pokémon GO is changing our relationships, our communities, and even the world (and that’s not hyperbole). Here are three reasons why:
It’s Making Us Healthier- In a Few Different Ways, Too
Video games have been trying to trick us into exercise for years. Dance Dance Revolution was the original calorie-burner, followed by Wii Sports and Microsoft Kinect. Wii Fit didn’t even bother trying to fool us with fun. But none of those have had the revolutionary success that Pokémon GO has had. It’s ingenious, really, how it works. You get rarer Pokémon the farther you travel from where you open the app, apart from some random drop-ins. You hatch eggs through walking or running certain distances. You can get rare items by visiting far-flung Pokéstops. Going on a run or long walk, often with friends, accomplishes all of these things at once, and hundreds of people are opting to do just that, and all without any annoying prompts or reminders. We can actually see an uptick from Cardiogram’s fitness data starting where Pokémon GO was released.
It’s helping us feel better mentally too. People are making friends, meeting new people, organizing citywide “Pokéwalks” and much more. Although it’s not a necessity, the game cries out to be played with other people, and most players are obliged to do so, and having a great time. Social anxiety be damned, there’s an Onyx by that Walgreens, and I’m going to go join the circle of people trying to catch it.
A Game is Making Us Explore Our Own City, Not a Virtual One
Listen, for most of my time at CSU, I’ve been a local and world news reporter. My job involved knowing where things in Columbus were, what things might be coming, and what cool history all these different things have. Since playing this game, I’ve found no less than six incredibly cool locations within a few miles of my house that I had no idea were there. Columbus is a really cool, exciting city, and there is so much happening here right now. I’m always sad when people don’t take advantage of it, or aren’t excited about it. But this game is causing people all over the world to get away from their house, their dorm, their apartment, and actually go see all these different places in their cities. Local small businesses have been reporting huge upticks in sales as GO players discover new coffee shops, stores and restaurants. People are starting to look around and see their homes in new ways- ways that might lead them to get involved and start making them even better.
We’re All Equals in the Eyes of Professor Willow
It doesn’t matter if you’re a little kid, a high school senior, a college student, a working mom, a Fort Benning soldier or a police officer. Everyone is playing this game, and everyone is having a great time doing it. If someone is looking at you funny as you walk down the street flailing your phone about, it’s actually more likely that the person is wondering which Pokémon you’re looking for than assuming you’ve gone a bit wacko. Whole families are taking walks along the river together, hunting for Pokémon. Couples are going on grand adventures to distant gyms to capture them for anyone-but-Valor. This is something everyone can share, together. No fine print necessary.
Pokémon Go will go out of style, eventually. It will. It will fade, as all fads do, especially as our internet-age attention spans have shortened to the size of a caterpie. But it will leave our thoughts and our phones having done real, tangible good for our health, for our communities, and for our notions of what’s possible with digital entertainment. That’s more than any of us expected of a Pokémon game, and I’m happy to be along for the ride.
