Our parents are playing Pokemon. No, I am not quoting my future son or daughter. Niantic has figured out a way to put Pidgeys and Porygons into the hands of Gen Xers, and I'm not sure whether to be upset or impressed. It has surpassed Candy Crush as the most played game on smartphone, and with an equally simple model no less. Regardless, the game is ubiquitous and well represented by three age demographics. I wanted to talk about it specifically with Gen X because it appears that its model may appeal to their gaming tendencies the most.
I will start by saying that Pokemon Go is missing some serious features, and its battle system needs to be upended entirely. I understand that we are aiming for something a little more exciting than turn based combat, and we can't have Pokken tournament level fighting, but smashing pound is not and it is repetitive. It is also very easy for our parents to do.
Catching Pokemon seems to be the real appeal of this game, but there is a very large challenge in hunting them. You can go to the park and try to race everyone else to the Charmeleon chilling in the parking lot or you can find somewhere isolated and try not to lose reception. Our parents are impulsive. They will drive around like crazy hunting these things because they don't want to spend in game money on things, but they're burning up gas driving through the suburbs trying to catch them all. This is the app that will replace Candy Crush on your parents phones, go out and play Pokemon with them 10 years after they laughed at you and told you to get a job for enjoying the same thing that's reeling them in an loosening their pockets now.