When I downloaded Pokémon Go on launch day, I didn’t think I would be hearing about it on the news, nor did I think I would see candidates running for president making references to it (Pokémon “Go” to the polls? Are you serious?). I didn’t think anyone besides the gaming community would care about some simplistic mobile app, since the game was teased over a year in advance over a Nintendo livestream aimed at the core community. After all, the original hype from the old games and TV show had mostly died down (except in Japan, of course, where Pikachu is hailed as a near-godlike figure). I was seeing strange headlines such as “I got caught cheating through Pokémon Go”, “Teen plays Pokémon Go, finds dead body”, and “Cops called, eggs thrown at Pokémon Go players”. Even local businesses in my area promoted the game, giving discounts to players and encouraging them to use lures on their Pokéstops. It was like a fever dream come to life. The whole world seemed to be playing Pokémon.
I knew that people who had grown up playing the video games and collecting the trading cards would like the game -- and yet in the coming weeks after the game released I would see stories about government officials, grandmothers, and the rest of the world enjoying it just as much as I did. Even my mother, who had always referred to any of my video games as a “Nintendo” and never cared much for me playing them, asked what all the fuss was about.
And for a moment, I had to wonder that very same thing to myself. Even though the game is slowly leaving national coverage about two months later, I questioned why the whole thing escalated in the first place. Why was the whole world so engrossed in Pokémon again for those few weeks, and what happened as a result?
Let’s start with the statistics. The sheer scope of Pokémon Go’s sales are staggering and offers some insight into the scale of its popularity. As of August 1, 2016, the app has been downloaded 100 million times and makes about $10 million a day. This sudden burst can probably be partly attributed to its accessibility. Any of the main Pokémon games require a console and the game itself-- which can cost upwards of $150 to $200 total, whereas the mobile app is totally free to play for all iPhone and Android users.
The popularity of Pokémon Go semi-reflects the boom that the first games brought with it. I was born just after the original games released, so I never quite experienced the explosion of merchandise and popularity of that time. I did, however, play all of the games that came out afterwards. Pokémon FireRed was one of the first video games I ever finished. As the years went on, fans like me kept on playing the games -- but it seemed that most everyone else had moved on.
The sales of the newer games seem to reflect this thought. Pokémon Red and Blue (the first games released in 1996) sold 31.38 million units worldwide. The later games have never sold better than that. The newest generation of games, Pokémon X and Y (released in 2013), sold 14.98 million units worldwide. To compare, the Call of Duty game that released that same year sold 27 million units.
As a longtime player, I can say that the games haven’t changed much. Small improvements and tweaks to the mechanics and more Pokémon have been added with each new iteration (There are 721 Pokémon total, but you can only catch the original 151 in Pokémon Go), but other than that, Pokémon has always been Pokémon. Did people outgrow the games? Maybe. Someone that was ten years old in 1996 is now thirty in 2016. It would make sense that some people naturally put down the game when they age. When Pokémon Go released, people that were fans as kids probably saw it as an opportunity for nostalgia, and in turn introduced it to their children and family.
On the other hand, it was probably the mechanics that brought people to the game, whether as a new or returning player. Even though Pokémon Go is a simplified version of the base games, the concept is still the same: encounter a Pokémon, catch it, use it to fight. I have to admit, it’s really satisfying. You tend to favor certain members of your team after a while, especially the ones that pull through for the victory in those close gym battles. There’s some sort of natural instinct to become the best trainer the world has ever seen. I wouldn’t be surprised if these experiences contributed to the longevity of the franchise.
Looking back, I guess it was to be expected that a game with as large of a player base as Pokémon Go would have some sort of effect on the national scape. I mentioned local businesses and politicians utilizing the game to their advantage and the strange headlines already. Of course, when anything big or relevant happens, the Internet tends to spread memes and personal stories about the topic. I saw plenty of jokes poking fun at the differences between the app and the main series or lightheartedly highlighting the social effects it’s had on all of us.
With the inclusion of the three teams in Pokémon Go came the same behavior that Americans have over their football teams (or everyone else in the world with their soccer teams). All of a sudden, I heard cries of “Team Valor sucks!” or “Team Instinct for the win!” when I went within earshot of a gym. People bought shirts and hats displaying the logo of their favorite team and wore them while they were out catching Pokémon.
I also noticed people becoming more social with the random people around them. Strangers playing the game would go up to each other and ask what team they were on, or give advice on where they found the Eevee they just caught. When everyone had something in common, they socialized more with people they had never met before. I even heard of a few instances where people started dating because they met through the game.
Of course, it wasn’t all positive. Just after release, it was discovered that the developer had access to personal information through a bug in the iOS app (this was later fixed). If the game had gotten hacked, that information could have gotten leaked to the world, causing massive issues. There were stories about people benefiting from the game, but there were also stories about people getting robbed or hit by traffic while playing the game.
With anything new, there is always opposition and negative incidents -- but it’s up for history to decide where it leans. Wherever Pokémon Go lands, it will at least be remembered as one of those phenomenon trends that the world rarely sees. For myself, among other things, it stands as an example of people coming together to have some fun and the sheer strangeness of the world.
