It’s happening.
Look around town and see – the 20-somethings gathered around benches, huddled in parks, their hands on their phones and heads down, talking what seems like another language.
They’re playing Pokémon Go, a new smartphone game that’s fastly becoming the most used social media app in the country, despite not even being officially released yet. The game allows users to chase and capture cute creatures using the phone’s GPS location to track the player’s movement in the real world in what gamers are calling augmented reality.
Landmarks such as the World’s Largest Dinosaur, information signs at the Tyrrell, and various dinosaur statues and memorials around Drumheller become Pokéstops, where players can collect in-game items, or “gyms,” where Pokémon trainers battle each other to claim the gym for their team, essentially turning Drumheller into grounds for a turf war.
Games have long been an escape from reality for people, but now reality becomes a part of the game itself. Users are interacting and exploring their environment in a new way and the release of Pokémon Go in the US on July 9 will significantly shift game development’s future direction.
The buzz has the same feel as the Pokémon phenomenon of the nineties, with reports saying Tokyo-based developer Nintendo’s stocks have risen 25 per cent since the game’s launch and adding upwards of $7.5 billion to Nintendo’s market value. Nintendo’s value had been slouching since the launch of the Wii U, their recent home console which sold poorly. The game is free to play but money can be used for in-game purchases of items like Pokéballs.
Pokémon Go targets that much sought after 18 to 25 demographic who grew up with the game which still holds high nostalgia. Studies are showing that iOS users are on average spending more time in Pokémon Go than any other mobile social media app.
“It’s fun going out and trying to find them,” said Shane Blair, who has played the game almost every night since first downloading it, trying to catch them all.
“It has me going outside and exploring. You get to interact with other people trying to catch Pokémon.”
On Wednesday at 9:14 pm, this reporter was at the cenotaph in front of the Badlands Community Facility, an in-game Pokéstop, and set up a “lure,” a device which attracts Pokémon to the location and can be seen by any user playing for a half hour. In only a few minutes, people moseyed over to the spot, phones in hand, excitedly talking to each other. Cars were pulling up and parking, the driver’s face lit by the glow of their phones.
But the lure feature has already drawn criticism from some after media reports of muggings and robberies by thieves using the app to lure victims into unsafe locations with their phones in hand.
The feature also has potential for businesses to lure consumers and boost business.
Health specialists are also praising the game for encouraging gamers to get out and exercise.
“Nintendo always has these great ways of promoting exercise, like Wii Fit, and now Pokémon Go,” said player Carley Mayson. “I didnt grow up playing the game but I’m already hooked.”
Although the game hasn’t even been released in Canada yet, only officially released in the US, Australia, and New Zealand, wannabe Pokémon trainers are resorting to craftier ways to load the game on their iOS and Android devices. And judging by the well-developed culture that’s already sprouted up in Drumheller, there is bound to be droves of more players joining in on the quest to become a Pokémon master once the game is finally released on app stores in Canada.