The muggings are what hooked me.
Yeah, I’m that girl: I only picked up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone because an acquaintance emailed me about how the Antichrist used the books to lure children to Satan. It makes sense, then, that when my boyfriend read me a news item about people mugging Pokémon GO players, I grabbed my phone and downloaded the game. For journalistic purposes, of course.
For the past week, I’ve played Pokémon GO. I am — how shall I say this? — not good at it. I’ve reached level six, which, if you don’t play, means nothing. For old-school gamers, let me put it this way: I can get to the second Pac-Man screen with one guy. After that? I’m hopeless.
What did I learn? Well, primarily, that it’s a colorful, graphic, somewhat more random form of geocaching. In geocaching, you use your phone’s GPS (or, if you — like me — geocached before the advent of the iPhone, you use a handheld GPS) to locate certain coordinates where you will find a landmark, physical reward or, in many instances, a new thinking spot. Like geocaching, Pokémon GO relies on maps, coordinates and smartphones to make the adventure fun.
And make no mistake about it: Both games take the player on an adventure. They make you move and they make you look around; they bring you to new places, and they have rewards at the end of each quest. They may have slightly different ways of making these things happen, but at the end of the day, geocachers and trainers (the cool term for Pokémon GO players) alike get out in the world, which is more than I’m doing right now as I sit inside and tap out a story, so who am I to judge?
In these times of such stress with horrible things happening every day, why can’t we just have harmless fun without people being so annoyed? Isn’t there enough crap in the news without adding a simple video game to the list?
Although the game has no shortage of those who will judge both the game and its players. One of my friends asked me (on Facebook): “How’s the Pokémon search coming? SMFH.” This friend, I should note, has spent a not-insignificant amount of time playing Ingress, a location-based game that uses augmented reality (more on that in a moment) to send players on quests. Change the name and the look a bit, fast forward a few years, and you have Pokémon GO. The same company — Niantic — even created it.
Others are harsher; I watched people on a Facebook thread liken players to the shambling adversaries of The Walking Dead and question why people weren’t doing more important things. This thread prompted another Facebook user to post her defense of the game:
“I am not a zombie, a crime magnet, nor creepy. I don’t understand why all of a sudden everyone is mad because people are only paying attention to their phones, not paying attention to where they are going, or on their phone while driving. How exactly is this different from two weeks ago?” Daun Fletcher, who works at Eckerd College, asked. “Why is Pokémon Go SO [sic] stupid, but corn hole, ultimate frisbee, fishing, or karaoke aren’t? It is a pastime. It’s fun, but I guess if you are too busy bashing it, you wouldn’t know. Why is it so offensive? In these times of such stress with horrible things happening every day, why can’t we just have harmless fun without people being so annoyed? Isn’t there enough crap in the news without adding a simple video game to the list?”
Steve Miller, a comedian who appears regularly at Side Splitters, poked fun at the critics Sunday night.
“We are a grumpy group of people, aren’t we?” Miller said. “For years we complained that kids never go outside to play, then they go outside to play and we complain that they’re doing it wrong: ‘No, you’re supposed to be riding bikes without helmets and playing with incredibly dangerous toys. Go back inside until you learn how to be outside the right way!’”
Here’s the rundown on how the game works, in case you aren’t one of the 21 million players. You use your smartphone to search for Pokémon; when you get near one, your phone vibrates and you catch it by throwing Pokéballs at it. You collect Pokéballs at Pokéstops, which also appear on your phone. You gain levels by catching more Pokémon, and when you get to a high enough level, you join one of three teams: Instinct, Mystic or Valor. At this point the game feels a touch like a a Myers-Briggs test, because the game encourages you to pick a team based on which of those three characteristics you most value. After a few more levels, you can “fight” at “Gyms” and defeat opposing teams. This happens on a graphic representation of the world around you; the playing field is a colorful map of wherever you are.
The alleged hook to Pokemon GO is its augmented reality feature, whereby the game uses your phone’s camera so that when a Pokemon comes into view, it gets superimposed over whatever your camera can see. For me, this meant I had a lot of Pokemon superimposed over the passenger-side dashboard in my boyfriend’s car (I only had a week to level up quickly enough to write the article, and if you can persuade someone to drive you around, you can catch far more Pokemon than walking).
Niantic and Nintendo, the two companies behind the game, have added another feature, one that, to me, makes the game much cooler than its AR capabilities: Many of the Pokestops lead you to public art or other landmarks, so this game, that has so enraged so many of those who don’t play it, has the ability to lead you on a cultural tour. I’ve played mostly in St. Pete and Gulfport, so the murals and public art installations aren’t new to me, but the beauty of this comes into play when you travel.
Pokemon GO has its drawbacks, too. While it has similarities to geocaching, where you enter coordinates in your phone’s GPS and navigate to a certain place, it lacks the “look around to discover cool things” feature — you can certainly look around (you don’t have to keep your face glued to the phone, as so many social media postings and criticisms suggest). But it isn’t necessary — as it is with geocaching — to do so to find the Pokemon, Pokestops or Gyms.
The interfaces, too, differ. Geocaching (the app) uses a less colorful interface; the focus is on the hunt rather than the phone. Pokémon GO uses all the colors and makes your phone a tool you use to collect the things you need to fight at Gyms (which also require a phone). Geocaching, while it requires a GPS, does not require a phone: You can get the coordinates off geocaching.com, grab a GPS and go. You cannot, however, play Pokémon GO without a smartphone.
Pokémon get placed at the whim of Nintendo and Niantic (or, more likely, their algorithms); geocaches — which can be virtual or physical — get placed by geocachers. Anyone with an account can leave a weatherproof container filled with prizes and a logbook for other geocachers to find; while players can create elements of Pokémon, they can’t create Pokémon themselves. The placement, too, is more random with Pokémon (which could account for reports of Pokémon appearing in inappropriate locales); most geocaches have locations with meaning.
So what’s the verdict after a week of playing? I’ll probably continue to play Pokémon GO, at least until I get bored — you can play Pokémon GO anywhere, but if you aren’t near a geocache someone has hidden, you can’t play, period. However, it lacks the appeal of reality-based geocaching, where the hunt is real and the treasure is, too.
Either way, as long as I’m outside and moving around, I’ll be happy.
This article appears in Jul 21-28, 2016.