Since PokƩmon Go's initial release on July 6th of this year, the game has taken off with enormous success almost instantaneously. PokƩmon Go broke Apple's App Store record for most downloaded game in one week. The game's soaring popularity brought Nintendo's stock up by thirty-three points on July 11th and the game has only been growing since its initial release date with over 100 million downloads in the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
All of this success is incredibly impressive, with a good amount of credit due to many universities across the U.S., including Midwestern State University.
The MSU campus itself has five PokƩmon Gyms and over fifteen PokƩ Stops. Two of the gyms and seven of the PokƩ Stops are located at the Wichita Falls Museum of Art at MSU, which has been a blessing and a curse.
The Wichita Falls Museum of Art (WFMA) enjoys seeing patrons of all ages come to the pavilion and the museum to enjoy the beautiful weather and to catch and train all the PokƩmon to their heart's content. Over the past six weeks there has been an incredible influx of people showing up on the museum grounds to play PokƩmon Go, which was fine until the amount of trash and amount of people driving while playing PokƩmon Go began to increase as well, near and on the WFMA property.
Before the release of PokƩmon Go, the WFMA was accustomed to approximately 100 people coming onto the property during the weekdays, and 200 people at most on the weekends to take advantage of the pavilion and the Sikes Lake trail. When special events took place, like Live at the Lake, the number of people would go up to about 400. The numbers have jumped enormously since PokƩmon Go's release, with the museum's new numbers ranging from 250 to 350 people on the weekdays, and 600 people when an event is taking place, and over 500 people on any given weekend. The museum's increase in people visiting their property has also seen a parallel increase in the amount of trash being left by visitors.
I asked the Museum Public Programs Director, Mary Helen Maskill, what she thought of the recent traffic and the still increasing amount of players coming onto the property.
"The "trash-leaving" PokƩmon goers have made more work for our small staffed Museum," says Mary Helen. "Many of them do not "get" the idea of "go" in the title!"
Along with a growing trash issue, the museum is seeing more and more people trying to play PokƩmon Go while driving, and people walking around Eureka Circle completely immersed in "being the best like no one ever was" that they are oblivious to the traffic around them. The employees at the WFMA grow more concerned as the museum frequently has children on their grounds. Distracted drivers pose a life-threatening danger to the children, parents and visitors to the museum grounds and Eureka Circle.
"BE AWARE OF YOUR SURROUNDINGS!" Says Mary Helen, emphasizing the importance of knowing who is and who isn't giving the road and the pedestrians around them their full attention.
While PokƩmon Go grows more popular with the students of MSU and the millennial generation inhabiting Wichita Falls, it grows less popular with the employees of the Wichita Falls Museum of Art.
