Pop, CP cap, Gym Sniping, Nearby, Pokéwalk.
These are just a few of the words I’ve noticed me and my friends using since we started playing Pokémon Go. Pokémon Go is an altered reality game that allows players to explore the real world and locate and capture Pokémon using their phones and tablets. The game also involves battling other players' Pokémon at gyms. It is based on the Nintendo games that started being released in February of 1996.
For me, it’s only been a couple of weeks playing Pokémon Go, but the game has been out since July 6, and plenty of people have put on their trainer caps and running shoes to venture out and catch ‘em all. With the adventure comes a bit of an altered vocabulary when playing the game with other trainers. Just like any other massive multiplayer game, Pokémon Go seems to have manifested its own gamer speak.
Gamer speak has been around for awhile, especially where massive multiplayer online (or 'MMO') games are involved. While Pokémon Go isn’t exactly an MMO, it does involve trainers playing a game with hundreds or thousands of people on collective servers, allowing them to interact indirectly with each other’s Pokémon. It can also cause them to have face-to-face meet-ups as they explore the same areas, visit the same pokéstops and battle the same gyms. This has created a somewhat unique experience in the gaming world, and with that unique experience, a unique vocabulary.
I noticed one night while out on a pokéwalk with my roommate that she said a Pokémon’s name, and without missing a beat, my eyes flew to my phone screen and I was pressing it to try and catch the Pokémon that she had indicated. Not long later, she said another Pokémon’s name, but the way she said it wasn’t the same as before, and I knew that this Pokémon was on the nearby (a sidebar that shows Pokémon that can appear in the area) without even glancing at my screen. The particular inflection in her voice hadn’t held the urgency that it would if the Pokémon had been near enough to pop or pop up on my map. In a span of a couple of days, we had started using words and phrases adapted for Pokémon Go.
It wasn’t a planned or agreed-upon change in our vocabulary, but when one of us blurted out something about a Pokémon popping, we knew exactly what the other meant. It became part of our communication so seamlessly that I didn’t recognize or register we were even doing it until I used the word 'pop' and tried to clarify, even though we’d both been using it throughout the day. Then it occurred to me that it wasn’t something we would normally say. The game changed how we used certain words and created new ones to express specific actions related to playing Pokémon go, like pokéwalking (which is a walk to locate and capture Pokémon, which also sometimes includes going by pokéstops or gyms).
The unique way the game has to be played increases the likelihood that players will meet up face to face and interact with one another, even just in passing. Like while at WWU hearing someone yell out a Pokémon’s name to alert other trainers to its location, or defending a gym your Pokémon is in while another player tries to take it over for their team. These face-to-face interactions increase the chances of players speaking to each other about the game, using and expanding the games vocabulary. It's a pretty cool system.
