Rating: B-
When I was younger, my family used to go to this beach at Kaka Point near the Catlins. My brother convinced me that if I open my eyes underwater in the ocean I would see Pokémon. I never did – because, you know, salt water and stuff – but for whatever reason I one hundred percent believed him. My family still rips me out about it to this day. Well, now the JOKE’S ON THEM because now you CAN see Pokémon underwater… if you have an Android or iOS device with a waterproof case.Pokémon Go is a free-to-play mobile app that lets you roam around and catch Pokémon using augmented reality. This app makes you as close to a Pokémon trainer in real life as you can be. This is basically a dream come true: I used to pretend-play Pokémon all the damn time. If I told my younger self that this would be a thing in the future she would lose her damn mind.
This app was released a little over three weeks ago in New Zealand, Australia and the US. This is what is called a “soft launch”, where a few countries gain access and essentially test play a game. And, boy, did we play. This shit has blown up. It’s been taking over the Internet, news articles, television coverage, people have been finding dead bodies while hunting for Pokemon, and it’s being made fun of in every single form of meme.
Despite the huge hype, there isn’t that much to the app itself. The gameplay is very simple. You walk around, Pokemon appear on your screen, you tap the Pokemon, and then boom: there it is on your device in your real life environment. It’s pretty cool seeing Magikarps on the water and Caterpies in the forest, but the coolest thing is seeing them just hanging out inside. I’ve had a Goldeen, Dratini and Electabuzz all turn up on my desk, and it’s just as adorable and hilarious as it was the first time.
You can travel to places called Pokéstops, which give you items like Pokéballs, Potions and Eggs. If you place lure modules on the Pokéstops, you increase your chances of rare Pokémon appearing. The more people there are, the more likely they will appear. This is also a really cool way to see places in the city you might not have come across before, and seeing dozens of people on their phones around landmarks is really funny. I’ve never seen Monkey Bar pop off as hard when it was just a night club as it does now that it’s a Pokéstop.
Pokémon Go has its flaws. Constant server issues mean you can’t log in all day. The app sometimes crashes, causing you to miss rare Pokemon. You can end up in the middle of the ocean when the app loses your GPS location. I can forgive this. Working in the industry has made me absolutely empathetic towards free-to-play companies. Niantic only has roughly 11-50 employees according to their LinkedIn, which is very small considering the scope of Pokemon Go’s audience (daily active users is at 21 million!). This is probably why they are advertising for a ton of job positions right now…
The best time to be playing Pokemon Go is right now. If Niantic don’t constantly release new Pokemon from other generations or add new features soon, the hype is going to die down as quickly as it was built up. Thankfully, Niantic has announced that they are aiming to update every two weeks. While I assume most of these will be bug fixes and fine-tuning the core features of the app, I’m still optimistic that they will try to innovate and keep the game fresh. All I really want to see is the ability to battle your friends with the AR and use actual moves similar to that in the original games, rather than just constant tapping and rock-paper-scissors type advantages. With the support of their huge partner Nintendo (and my unconditional love of Pokemon), I have faith that it will continue to be as fun and widely-loved as it currently is. Seeing people walking the street playing Pokemon Go is a regular occurrence now, and it warms my heart. I’ve seen every kind of demographic playing, and I’ve talked to so many different lovely people at PokeStops. I’m convinced this how we are going to achieve world peace guys, honestly.