Ready? Set? Pokemon GO!

I want to ignore it. I want to pretend it’s not really happening… But there it is. In less than a week, a video game app has taken over the virtual universe and bounced right over into our own reality like a Netflix sci-fi series. Pokémon Go is here and there isn’t a damned thing we can do about it but watch and learn.

Let me start out by saying I hate video games. Right to the core. I. Hate. Video. Games.

Did I download Pokémon Go to my own phone so I could keep up? Yes. What did I think of it? It reminded me of walking my 135 lbs Anatolian Shepherd when the squirrels are running around the neighborhood looking for nuts.  It was entertaining for a moment, then you realize you are getting dragged through your neighbor’s shrubbery after a rodent you (hope) will not come home with you… And you feel like the whole neighborhood is watching from their living room windows.

The difference: Instead of walking my dog, I am attached to my Android Turbo smartphone. I am not in my own neighborhood, I am in the parking lot of the Cape Country 104 studios.  And I am not looking at a squirrel, I am looking at something called a Rattata that looks like a purple cartoon squirrel with a bad attitude.

I really don’t like to snap-to-judge, so I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to consult an expert: Lucy Yang is a student at MIT . Lucy is a Bio-engineering student who founded the MIT Pokémon League which is a student group at MIT. She is also part of an official Pokémon League recognized by Pokémon. They are also open to the public, so you don’t have to be a student at MIT to join. But you do have to know Pokémon.

Lucy Yang

I asked Lucy to explain the Pokemon Go app: “It’s a GPS based game. Your physical location is where you are in the game. You are supposed to go out and catch these creatures called Pokemon which appear randomly throughout the map…And that is why people are going out and about.”

This is the biggest benefit of this game. You can’t play it from your couch. You physically have to be in motion for the little creatures to appear.  This is not the first game like this. The same company that owns Pokémon Go also created a game called “Ingress”. Same idea: You have to move from location to location in order to find objects and earn points. There are only a few Pokémon players who are aware of this… In fact, Pokémon maps have been overlaid in Ingress maps and many of the Ingress “portals” are now Pokémon “spots”.

I asked Lucy if Pokémon Go was relatable to Geocaching.

If you aren’t familiar with geocaching, this is an outdoor GPS based game where you use a GPS device to find “cache” hidden in various locations around the world. They are usually small weather proof containers with a ledger for a geocacher to enter their name and the date the geocache was found. It seems very low-tech, but there are people who have literally traveled around the world in search of the most, the furthest, the most unique geocaches.

Jenn Kunze

My friend Jenn Kunze has been to every state in the continental United States! She has plans to travel to Portugal at the end of the year and has seen landmarks from national forests and parks to the “World’s Largest Ball of String” in Kansas! “Geocaching forces you to look around,” she said. Caches can be in trees or under rocks or in fields. Jenn told me her biggest adventure was scuba diving for a geocache right here on Cape Cod. “I’ve never been scuba diving… It made me learn a whole new process to find that one!”

Jenn also admitted she tried Pokémon Go, but was quick to point out that she was a huge fan on Ingress. In fact, she told me that many Ingress portals have morphed into Pokémon stops … many of which were submitted by Ingress players on Cape. “Ingress is more social than Pokémon”, she said. She explained that you can actually see and interact with other players more readily than Pokémon Go.

Are you lost? Me too.

Here is what I know:

1. Pokémon Go is too popular to ignore. You or your children will be playing by the end of next week, so you may as well have a look.
2. Security and Privacy: Lucy did say that by logging into the Pokemon Go app with your Google account, the gamer company WILL have access to see what you have in your phone. If you are concerned, set up an actual Pokémon account or simply don’t keep important information in your phone like credit card information (which you really shouldn’t have in your phone anyway).
3. It is more family friendly than most video games. You aren’t shooting anything or beating anything up. You are bouncing a ball to “capture” cute little cartoon creatures.
4. There are levels and leagues and clubs and Facebook pages and websites. I am sure there are already t-shirts and dog collars waiting to hit the shelves at the Mall –if they aren’t already there.
5. There are already more FALSE news stories on Snopes.com about gamers falling victim to horrible accidents while playing Pokémon Go than stories about children snatched by dingo’s in the outback. Check the source of ANY news story you see on Facebook…. Please.
6. Gamers are actually stepping outside and meeting up in parks and going for walks!
7. There are things called “Pokémon Gyms” where you can “train” with other players. Wicked Thrift in Yarmouth has earned this badge and has seen a steady flow of people since the spot was revealed. Really.
8. There are some places where Pokémon Go isn’t welcome: National Cemeteries and memorials are asking people to show respect for their surroundings. My friend Jenn suggested that the game makers should create “invisible fences” where the game might not be welcome. She also thought that adding an educational pop-up might enhance the learning experience.  If, for example, gamers were told a little about where they were standing and its relevance or a little history about a landmark, it might give some parental approval.
9. In all reality, the really really smart people I have talked with feel this is a fad. It came on like an avalanche. It’s new and interesting and fun and comedians are already spoofing the gamers walking through live TV shots and walking into unfortunate situations. That said, it’s not likely to go away anytime soon. There will most likely be copy-cats or similar GPS games that will sprout from the virtual world for some time.

If you want more information, or you think you’re good enough to join the MIT Pokémon Go League, here is the link Lucy gave me: MIT Pokemon 

They are tracking where the creatures show up. Apparently they don’t stay in the same location for very long, but there are some
predictable locations, especially if you happen to be in a city rather than rural areas.

Beyond that, you will have to try it for yourself and make up your own mind. As I spoke with moms and gamers and MIT students and other radio personalities, I found opinions and discussions going in circles. It’s still very new and many opinions are based on what has been posted on social media and relayed by news casters who probably spend as much time playing online games as I do.

If you have time to play a video game, the face that you are outside and moving around makes it time better spent than sitting in a closed room playing Super Mario Brothers or Pong.