I liked Pokémon when I was a kid. I didn't love it — I wasn't one of the kids sitting under a tree at recess playing the trading card game, and as I didn't own a handheld gaming device until I was in high school, I didn't play much of the game. But I did have a stack of Pokémon cards that I kept neatly stacked in a Barbie lunch box throughout elementary school — perhaps the only thing in my room that I didn't allow to get trampled on — and I have fond memories of having box seats at a White Sox game when I was seven, during which my cousins and I played Pokémon Red on a game boy and ate ridiculous amounts of junk food while our dads watched the game.
It wasn't a love affair. For me, Pokémon occupies the same fond space in my childhood memories as American Girl Dolls and Beanie Babies: I enjoyed them, but eventually they lost their luster. Perhaps that was one reason why, when I heard Pokémon Go would be coming out, I wasn't overly excited.
As an advocate for casual gaming, I thought I would probably play it at some point so that I had something to say about it. But every time I thought about playing it, I just winced. I work an office job and as my fiancé and I are both gamers, we spend far too much time staring at a screen as it is. The thought of yanking my phone out during the few free minutes I have left in the real world was not exactly enticing.
I know myself well enough to know that if I were to play Pokémon Go, I would become obsessed. Did I really want to be obsessed with some virtual game during my walks with my fiancé? On family vacations to exotic locations, did I want to be yanking out my phone so I could capture a cartoon?
It was as these thoughts were circulating my brain that the stories started coming in. Armed robbers used Pokémon Go to isolate victims. A couple left their toddler home alone so they could search for Pokémon. Right in Brewer, Maine a woman intentionally hit a player with her car.
Pokémon Go is not to blame for these crimes. There's no reason why playing a mobile game should lead to crime and death.
Unfortunately, we live in an imperfect world. As important as it is for us to try to make the world a better place, it is equally important for us to acknowledge the imperfections of the world we live in to keep ourselves safe. The blogger who acknowledged that he could not safely play Pokémon Go as a black man was not saying that he should not be able to play. Rather, he was acknowledging the fact that racial bias exists in our world.
Even if I didn't already think that playing a phone game 24/7 brings us a little too close to living like the chair-bound people in the movie, "Wall-E," the recent crimes surrounding Pokémon Go have led me to believe that our current world is not ready for this game. Our world is still too imperfect and, until we have improved conditions, playing Pokémon Go seems unworthy of the liability.
