Pokémon Go, explained

[mia]

You may have heard stories of people hunting down Pokémon on their office desks, in hospital rooms, and even in bathrooms. One teenage girl even found a dead body while looking for Pokémon. And police in Missouri claimed that four suspected robbers lured in victims with the possibility of Pokémon.

What the hell is going on?

Well, after a few years lying relatively low, Pokémon is making a bit of a comeback. The Nintendo-owned franchise, which exploded in popularity in the late 1990s, is again taking America by storm — this time through Pokémon Go, its biggest entry into the mobile space, now available for a free download on Android and iOS. It’s so popular that it’s on the verge of overtaking Twitter in terms of daily active users on Android.

In simple terms, Pokémon Go uses your phone’s GPS and clock to detect where and when you are in the game and make Pokémon "appear" around you (on your phone screen) so you can go and catch them. As you move around, different and more types of Pokémon will appear depending on where you are and what time it is. The idea is to encourage you to travel around the real world to catch Pokémon in the game. (This combination of a game and the real world interacting is known as "augmented reality." More on that later.)

So why are people seeking out virtual creatures while at work and as they go to the bathroom? Part of the reason Pokémon Go is popular is that it’s free, so it’s easy to download and play. But more importantly, Pokémon Go fulfills a fantasy Pokémon fans have had since the games first came out: What if Pokémon were real and inhabited our world? But to understand why people are so enthusiastic about the idea, we first need to go back to the late 1990s — to the original Pokémon games.

http://www.vox.com/2016/7/11/12129162/pokemon-go-android-ios-game

[rjsquirrel]

1. The robbery story's a hoax

and many other such tales are hoaxes or marketing publicity or both. See:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/11/the-pokemon-crime-wave-is-a-hoax.html

However using the app entails a huge privacy risk and data security risk, see:

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_578433a4e4b07c356cfe46a2


I wouldn't do it.

[TDale313]

2. It's a very cool idea for many reasons.

The bringing Pokemon to "our" world is one. The collecting aspect and scavenger/treasure hunt aspect is another. And I like the fact that it aims to get the player (often kids) moving. Where most games would have time passing for tasks to complete, it uses movement/distance (an egg hatches after you've walked-actually walked- 5k for example)

That said, there have been privacy/security concerns. It granted the app full access to your Google account on ios systems if you log in that way. You can (I did) revoke that permission. The company has said it was an error and that they're working to fix the level of access it gets/asks for. I won't be playing anymore till they get that issue resolved.