Pokémon GO came out last week and slowly took over every young adult's life (I have experienced it first hand -- I sat in a McDonald's parking lot for a half hour while someone had a lure set up). You can easily see hoards of people, phone in hand searching for a Charmander or Pikachu in a park, or street corner.
The concept is simple. As a Pokémon trainer, you catch Pokémon in real time thanks to the technology of GPS. They pop up around your neighborhoods. Water types show up near lakes, ghosts come out late at night. You battle at gyms, which are usually local points of interests, like train stations or post offices.
The one catch is simple -- this game knows when you are walking and when you are standing still. To catch Pokémon, you have to keep moving.
This app is a game changer, for so many different reasons.
For starters, this was not Nintendo's first attempt at a game that encouraged kids to get up and walk, but this is their most successful.
In 2010, Nintendo launched the Pokéwalker, which was basically a pedometer that looked like a Pokéball. It came bundled with every Pokémon HeartGold or SoulSilver game for the DS. The more steps you take, the higher chance you have of running into rare Pokémon or items during the game.
The Pokéwalker wasn't very popular and didn't stick around for very long. Gamers would rather just level up their Pokémon during game play then get up and actually move to do it.
Pokémon GO is different, by not giving you a choice. If you want to be a successful Pokémon trainer in this game, you have to get up and move. You can't battle at a gym unless you're there and you can't collect items at Pokéstops until you arrive in range of the location. They more or less force you to get off your butt and start walking.
And for once, it's actually working. Just this morning, I saw a group of twenty-something year old guys wandering around a nearby field, holding their phones out. I can guarantee you they were searching for Pokémon.
This might seem like an insignificant detail, but it's the one aspect of the game that makes it impactful and important for those who are playing it.
Whether you realize it or not, this game is making people exercise. For the first three days, I think I walked everywhere I possibly could just so I could build up my Pokédex.
People with mental illness have repeatedly reported on social media how great the game is for their health because it makes them get out of bed everyday and socialize with other players. A number of them have cited the app as a reason to look forward to waking up and starting the day.
I'm not sure if Nintendo knew they were creating something so impactful. Pokémon GO will be remembered for a very long time for exactly what it was: different.
