Remember how
our eyes used to get glued to the TV Sets back when we were kids, sharp at 5 PM
in the evening. Such was the craze of the Japanese anime television series,
Pokémon. The story majorly revolved around Ash Ketchum’s journey to become a
Pokémon Master and training and capturing his Pokémon’s. Bulbasaur, Charmander,
Pikachu were some of my favorites. It became one of the most significant part
of the children’s lives with playing cards, soft toys and other merchandise
related to the TV show became immensely well liked by them, all contributing to
its brand. It
was a TV Show that was considered a children’s entertainment powerhouse and was
rarely liked by adults back then. But since July 2016, adults have been valuing
the game like never before with the launch of its Mobile Gaming Application
called “POKEMON GO!”. It speedily became
one of the most popular Smartphone games in the history. The game has been so
well received by people that they have started playing it on the daily basis.
The game combines already known Pokémon characters and concepts such as
fighting of Pokémon characters and training them. In order to understand how
Pokémon Go! Works its important to know about the concept of Augmented Reality.
Augmented Reality allows video game players in virtual world to connect with
the real world by mapping that game to the real world. But this is not the
first time the game with the Augmented Reality concept has become so popular.
Other popular games are Zombies Run; Ingress etc that use your nearby locations
as a part of the game. Playing Pokémon Go is extremely simple. You just have to
hunt for the Pokémon’s surrounding you, after you download the application.
Pokémon’s can be traced anywhere and if the player goes to many more locations,
he/she is more likely to catch them all. To capture a Pokémon, a player throws
a Pokéball at the virtual reality figure that appears on his mobile screen due
to the augmented reality concept. It becomes more engaging if you keep a track
of the Pokémon’s being caught by your friends or neighbors.
While there
were critics who consistently tried to ridicule the game as a witless fad, it
really has some really unquestionable pros that its fanatics are quick at
identifying. The most obvious benefit is that it allows you to explore and
encourages a player’s physical movement unlike other video games where you are
required to sit at one place for hours and watch till you qualify the end.
Furthermore, many popular game characters are violent and terrifying but Pokémon
Go! Characters are non-violent, the Pokémon’s can conquer but they do not cause
any harm to one another.
It’s not hard
to spot the winning ways of the Pokémon go developers (Niantic), but it is
impossible to ignore its negatives. Since the game involves a lot of usage of
the public places like café’s, malls, police stations etc it has become a
nuisance for the people working there. Distracted players have received
injuries most notably the road accidents. Pokémon go takes the world by storm,
but sparks controversies. It has driven extensive media coverage. Recently, two
men had to be rescued after falling off a 90-foot ocean bluff in California.
Even India witnessed its first Pokémon Go! Accident in Mumbai. Jabbir Ali was
playing Pokémon Go on his mobile phone when an auto rickshaw bumped into his
Mercedes. After the incident Mumbai Police tried to spread the awareness
amongst people specially targeting youth saying, “Life is not a game,
especially not one to be played on the roads” #unnecessary
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