Pokemon Go - Getting lots of Attention

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scotland
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Pokemon Go - Getting lots of Attention

Postby scotland » July 11th, 2016, 8:53 am

Pokemon Go, the digital geocaching game of catching the familiar cute monsters of Pokemon with Augmented Reality (AR) is quite the sensation. Its gone well beyond video gaming websites, into mainstream media. Morning gab fest like shows are talking about it, online magazines have articles, its a big topic on reddit, etc. Urban legends are being born of people walking off bridges or just distracted walking in general (or going places that are just not safe. one person did find a corpse while playing), businesses finding benefits of having digital pokestops, even as high tech bait for muggings.

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The game, being mobile, is available to a wide audience. Its free to play (although there are microtransactions). The gameplay is simple (no turn based combat, for instance), and its *social*. People are out of their homes, walking around, doing errands, at different times of day or night, meeting others also out doing the same thing.

This may be the big video game story of 2016.

Its success could also see imitators like a Ghostbusters or They Live themed game. It may inform how Nintendo goes forward. It may also take the buzz off of VR (and those goggles and motion sickness and need for cutting edge specs) to AR instead.

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Rev
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Re: Pokemon Go - Getting lots of Attention

Postby Rev » July 11th, 2016, 5:57 pm

I usually don't hear my coworkers or anyone at my work talking about video games but Pokemon Go was brought up like 10 times at work today. It's crazy. It's also plastered all over the internet. I didn't even know it was released until I went to work today and it's all I've been hearing about. Crazy...

matmico399
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Re: Pokemon Go - Getting lots of Attention

Postby matmico399 » July 11th, 2016, 9:17 pm

It's crazy. Even national politicians have mentioned it!

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scotland
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Re: Pokemon Go - Getting lots of Attention

Postby scotland » July 11th, 2016, 9:24 pm

I miss steer/segatarious Nintendo cheerleading at times like this. He so derided "cheap mobile crap", and here is Nintendo with both a massive Wii-like cultural event, and its a simplified buggy free to play game that is reputed to be just like a Pokemon skin to some game called Ingress.

Amazing how this is tapping into the nostalgia of many a grown up former kid who played Pokemon, or watched the cartoons, or played the card game. Thats great.

Who knows where this could lead? Destinations or events could get exclusive Pokemon to encourage travel for instance...no end of ways to monetize a game like this.

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scotland
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Re: Pokemon Go - Getting lots of Attention

Postby scotland » July 12th, 2016, 8:03 am

Front page on a national newspaper. Nintendo stock up 25%. Most profitable game (currently) on Google Play and Apple App store (without serious advertising even). Its high tech, nostalgic, childlike, accessible. Nintendo, which did not develop the game, will make millions on it.

Is it a fad? Maybe so, but fads make a lot of people happy, and some people rich.

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velcrozombie
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Re: Pokemon Go - Getting lots of Attention

Postby velcrozombie » July 12th, 2016, 11:16 am

I remember reading that the inspiration of Pokemon was to try to replicate the experience that the original creator had as a boy wandering around vacant lots and parks in Tokyo looking for bugs, since urbanization had made those experiences much more difficult to have for Japanese kids; it's interesting to see his wish come to fruition in a way that the older hardware could never hope to fulfill.

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Retrology
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Re: Pokemon Go - Getting lots of Attention

Postby Retrology » July 13th, 2016, 1:20 am

It's a fun game, and I love how creative the poke stops and randomness of the Pokemon locations are. The gyms are confusing but otherwise I like it.

However, there's a problem with Pokemon Go that must be addressed: the game has you give your location to the company and information. In short, that means it has access to what sites you were on.

Or just this reporter from The Weather Channel explain it.

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VideoGameCritic
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Re: Pokemon Go - Getting lots of Attention

Postby VideoGameCritic » July 13th, 2016, 4:37 pm

The question is, will this game last, or be a short-lived fad?

I don't play it but my friend Scott showed it to me.

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ActRaiser
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Re: Pokemon Go - Getting lots of Attention

Postby ActRaiser » July 13th, 2016, 5:34 pm

I went on a family walk last night with the wife, dog, and baby. I saw several people walking with their phones out in front of them and some other guy mentioning Pokemon Go.

It was weird...

I kind of like my hobby being low key, dorky like, and most importantly few people doing it. This whole thing of seeing strangers playing something that I know is a Nintendo game feels weird.

<note> I'm tongue in cheek on this and kind of not.

Heck, the Wall Street Journal talked about it...If only steer were here to tell us about the second coming of Nintendo. He'd swear we were in a new era of mobile gaming that only Nintendo could deliver...ahh, the good 'ol days.

Voor
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Re: Pokemon Go - Getting lots of Attention

Postby Voor » July 14th, 2016, 7:50 am

ActRaiser wrote:
Heck, the Wall Street Journal talked about it...If only steer were here to tell us about the second coming of Nintendo. He'd swear we were in a new era of mobile gaming that only Nintendo could deliver...ahh, the good 'ol days.


Where did he go?


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