[typing]
Pokémon GO is one of the most fascinating games in recent memory.
Not because it's this amazingly well-made game, because it isn't!
In fact, it's one of the buggiest, most vapid things I've played all year.
No, Pokémon GO is captivating because of the instantaneous effect it's had on popular culture
...and Nintendo's market value, for that matter.
At the time of this recording, this is a game that has overtaken Tinder, Twitter and Snapchat
in concurrent users in the USA,
and is the number one most popular U.S. mobile game to date.
Naturally, the game is also the focus of fear-mongering clickbait nonsense
by traditional media and social media alike,
with people unfortunately falling for hoaxes of
players getting killed over deleted savegames
and ISIS causing server outages and aliens abducting people because of it.
You know, all sorts of crap.
And yet, for every hyperbole-ridden falsehood online,
there are just as many amazing truthful stories
surrounding Pokémon GO.
And it's this stuff that convinced me to dive into the world of Pokémon for the first time.
Yeah, that's right.
Until now, I've never played a Pokémon game.
I don't know the lore, I've never watched the shows
and I had next to zero interest in addressing that.
At least until now, when this free-to-play game showed up Android and iOS
and just took the world by storm
to such a degree that I couldn't ignore it
And you know, I've just never had any interest in it until now, and I think that says a lot
about the effects this game is having on people.
First things first: Pokémon GO is an augmented-reality game,
as opposed to virtual reality, which is replacement
for the audio-visual stimulus of real life.
Augmented reality, or AR, seeks to combine portions of the real world
and the virtual world in a way that sounds cooler than it actually is.
In the case of Pokémon GO, this means that you physically "go" throughout the real world
looking for Pokémon to collect,
using a GPS-enabled mobile device.
When a critter you crave is close by,
you can tap on it and enter a capturing mode.
This can either take place in a virtual environment
or an augmented version of the world around you
by using your mobile device's front-mounted camera.
There's a modicum of skill involved,
but really it's just you throwing balls at their face
until they succumb to your desires, and there you go.
The AR mode for capturing monsters is a pretty neat gimmick at first,
and it makes for some fun screenshot fodder to share online
when you quote-unquote "find" Pokémon in unusual places.
But the novelty wears off fast.
Not only that, but it actually makes it harder to catch them,
since you have to hold the camera in just the right spot.
And it also sucks battery life like crazy.
And the game is already bad enough with the battery murdering,
since you have to have it open in the foreground with the screen turned on for it to do its thing.
I can only guess how much this game has boosted the sales of portable battery chargers.
But yeah, once you have some Pokémon in your possession,
you can rename them, level them up, or evolve them if you have the resources,
or send them away in exchange for some useful virtual candy.
The idea is to horde as many as possible, I guess,
or at least train the ones you do have
up to a level that makes them suitable for battle.
Scattered around the real world are battle locations known as gyms,
and just like the rest of the game, you have to physically travel there
in order to make use of it.
Once you've pledged allegiance to one of three teams at Level 5,
you can go to a gym and challenge any number of players
from opposing teams.
Sounds pretty fun, but right now at least,
this battle system is awful!
You're not actually fighting the other person directly,
it's just a simple tap-and-swipe thing
where you basically beating up an automated version of their choice Pokémon.
Now that's a minor complaint, though, compared to the worse stuff,
which is the controls are often unresponsive,
it frequently bugs out, leaving just one hit point left,
or freezes on the word "go" and you have to force-close the game.
In fact, freezing, glitches and server issues
plague the entirety of Pokémon GO at this point in time.
Even after several patches, I'm getting constant freezing cryptic error messages and major input lag
that make playing an absolute crapshoot.
And don't even get me started on the microtransactions, which of course
it relies on being a free-to-play game.
These wouldn't be so bad if the rest of the game worked,
since most of this stuff you can simply find by going out an exploring the world.
And I love the fact that there are no ads in sight,
which is a rare thing in mobile gaming these days.
But combined with the unpredictable servers and copious instability,
spending money on this right now is ill-advised.
Then again, it seems that isn't stopping anyone, so what do I know?
The one thing that I found the most value in in this game are the Pokéstops,
which like gyms are located at real-world locations.
Once you arrive at one, you can spin this spinny thing
and receive a handful of valuable rewards.
You can also place "lures" here,
which brings plenty of collectible Pokémon to the area,
alongside resources for training them.
And these lures are also active for anyone else nearby, so...
if you place one in a busy part of town, you're gonna see all sorts of fellow players show up pretty fast.
Many of these Pokéstops are proper landmarks, too,
and I found a few pretty sweet locations that I had no idea existed.
But a lot of them seem like strange choices,
with tons of churches, retail stores and weird objects by the side of the road.
And yeah, I know it's because of that previous game that they put out
and people chose these, but it's still weird
that some of these were included in this one.
In fact, this has led to some backlashes.
Several memorials have been overwhelmed with people collecting Pokémon
in places that some consider to be inappropriate.
Another problem is that if you live in a rural area,
chances are you don't have any of these places close by,
which makes progressing in the game difficult, unless you're willing to travel.
Not only that, but the Pokémon themselves seem to spawn more frequently in areas
that are more heavily trafficked than others.
So if you've got a city or a mall or a busy parking lot nearby, then great!
You're probably going to have a pretty good time finding things to collect.
But oddly enough, catching wild Pokémon
"in the wild" just doesn't happen very much.
I walked on a trail in a nearby national forest, and I found, like, two.
Whereas, at a grocery store, I find dozens!
Still, the possibilities of this kind of real-life tie-in with a video game world is utterly enthralling to me,
especially combined with being mobile and having such a massive number of users.
Local businesses are already taking advantage of these gyms and Pokéspots
with discounts for players and planned special events.
There are even Uber drivers and limo companies setting up Pokémon GO tours,
because don't even think about playing this while driving.
Seriously, don't be an idiot.
But while all this is engaging to watch unfold from the perspective of business and stuff,
there's just not much reason for me to continue playing right now.
Outside of claiming gyms for your team and tracking down rare Pokémon,
there's simply not much to do.
It's a novelty, a distraction,
and a fascinating look at the potential future of AR gaming.
But it's just not that good as a game yet,
mostly due to the simplistic mechanics and the overwhelming number of bugs and server issues.
It's got tons of potential, to be sure,
and I'm really excited to see what happens in the future,
but until they add things like trading with other players and proper PVP,
and of course make the game run with any kind of stability,
Pokémon GO is a far more compelling thing for me to study
than it is to actually play.
[moody music plays]
And if you enjoyed this video on this thing,
then perhaps you'd like some other videos on other things.
I've got them, and more are coming in the future every Monday and Friday
here on LGR.
And if you really liked what you saw,
then please consider supporting me on Patreon because... it's a thing.
It helps these videos happen, let's you see them early,
and all sorts of good stuff.
And as always, thank you very much for watching in this reality
and many others to come.