Opinions

Bringing an augmented reality to ours

When I first downloaded the new, and now unbelievably popular, mobile game Pokemon Go, it was my day off and I thought, “If there aren’t any Pokemon directly in my house I can catch, I guess I’m not catching any today.” I wanted to do two things and two things only — lay on my couch and scroll through my social network feeds.

However, Pokemon Go didn’t allow me this luxury. The game instead made me do what my responsibilities as an adult can’t even make me do at times — get off my sofa and leave my house.

The mobile game is bringing augmented reality to reality, and it’s the coolest thing ever.

For those unaware of what playing the game entails, the guidelines are simple: go out and track down some adorable Japanese monsters using your smartphone. Once you’ve encountered a Pokemon on the app’s map, you simply tap on it — this is where the Augmented Reality view kicks in.

The Pokemon appears on your screen, overlaid on the camera’s view of your real world location. Now, as a Pokemon trainer, your job is to swipe up in order to throw a virtual pokeball and catch whichever pocket-monster is in sight.

You may have to roam around the area you’re in for a few minutes, but eventually you’ll find some friendly characters which you’ll have to “catch.” In my case, I was roaming around my neighborhood in hopes of finding Squirtle.

Catching a Pokemon while playing is a fun and surprisingly rewarding moment. A passerby had noticed how I was pointing my phone in a direction where there was virtually nothing and asked, “Who’d you catch, bro?”

The fact that a stranger approached me, already knowing what I was up to, caught me off guard. It’s when I first realized this game has people doing something so many baby-boomers complain about this generation not doing enough — communicating and networking, in person.

Pokemon Go delivers a digital world successfully overlaying ours. The game has quickly become one of the most successful mobile apps of all time. Just to put things into perspective, the game has been downloaded over 30 million times on iOS and Android devices, according to mobile app marketing intelligence website Sensor Tower. Not to mention, the game is predicted to exceed Twitter in daily active users, as told by Forbes.

No video game — on any platform — has initiated the kind of global conversation on social media that Pokemon Go has. Yes, there are many who are completely annoyed of the game’s popularity as of now. However, there are millions worldwide embracing this video game phenomenon and are coming together to “catch ‘em all.”

Recently, Millennium Park in Chicago hosted a Pokemon Go “meetup” where 5,000 attendees gathered to play the game. Central Park in New York City is quoted to be “overrun” with people searching for Pokemon on the daily, according to an article by Sports Illustrated. Not to mention, there are plenty of personal experience stories online describing “meetup” events where herds  of people gather, smartphones in hand, ready to catch whichever Pokemon they can.

Are these folk gathering for a great cause? Maybe not, but the fact that they’re coming together is still noteworthy. People are assembling — talking to each other, befriending one another. Although the reason they are doing so may be a bit laughable, peaceful gatherings are popping up across the world because of this game and it’s a great thing.

One Reddit user, who goes by the username TheBirdCop, shared his experience of going to a Pokemon Go gathering on one of the “biggest party campuses.” The user states there were “herds of people of all types out in the streets yelling out what Pokemon were where. There were hundreds of people outside the bars. More outside than in!”

Moreover, the user added: “I watched people who would never interact with each other strike up friendships. I saw old and young people comparing what they had caught, people out on dates, people coming out of the bars to catch something then go back in.”

Pokemon Go has attracted all kinds of people into downloading the game — not only serious gamers or die hard Pokefans.

According to a survey conducted by research firm MFour, minorities have shown serious interest in the game.

Thirty-four percent of survey respondents said they had never played a Pokemon game before downloading Pokemon Go. For 49% of African-American, 40% of Latino and 47% of female surveyees, Pokemon Go is their first Pokemon game.

So not only are these Poke-functions bringing people together, they are bringing a diverse array of people closer to one another.

Scrolling through my social media timeline and coming across a picture of police officers cheerfully looking for Pokemon alongside average citizens is heartwarming. This is exactly the kind of thing I want to see — especially after all of the police malfeasance that we have witnessed as a nation this year, alone.

Pokemon Go is not only getting people out of their houses and having them catch colorful virtual-creatures, the game is helping bring people together. Let’s enjoy this impressive, and peaceful, phenomenon for as long as we can.

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