A new kind of Pokémania playing out in communities around the world has literally hit the streets of Olds.
Curious sightings of people walking head-down, with an IOS or Android device in hand, stopping, turning, wandering in circles, walking determinedly in certain directions, and even celebrating at points have been noted in the town recently.
Released July 6 in certain countries excluding Canada, Pokémon Go became a cultural phenomenon nearly overnight.
“I got it because pretty much everyone else has it,” said Olds resident Ben Hindbow, 13, who joined two friends in the alley behind 51 Street last Thursday evening to play the game. “I didn't want to be the weird guy out.”
Pokémon Go is part of the franchise that featured a video game, TV show and trading cards. Its premise is trainers catch pocket monsters which fight each other to gain experience.
According to SurveyMonkey Intelligence, which tracks metrics for thousands of mobile apps, the free-to-play location-based augmented reality mobile game shot to the top of the app store on the day it was released in the U.S.
Within 24 hours, Pokémon GO beat out indie hit Slither.io and Supercell's blockbuster Clash Royale to become the biggest game of 2016, as measured by daily active users, according to SurveyMonkey.
While the game has still not been released in Canada, users in this country have found work-arounds in order to download the game app.
Some, like Jesse Maetche, 13, have played Pokémon games in the past and were drawn in by the amount of attention the new game was receiving.
“I saw it all over social media,” Maetche said, pausing from the game for a moment near 51 Street last Thursday.
One of his game partners that evening was Tristan Hanna, also 13.
He said he downloaded the game because Maetche had it and it was something they could play together.
Pokémon GO is built on Niantic's Real World Gaming Platform using GPS and uses real locations to encourage players to search far and wide to discover Pokémon. Pokémon GO allows players to find, catch, and train more than a hundred species of Pokémon as they explore their surroundings.
When players encounter a Pokémon in the wild, they can turn on the camera feature, putting the wild Pokémon into the live scene where their camera is facing.
According to local Pokemon Go players, the creatures they are trying to capture are plentiful in the Uptowne area, especially near Mayfair Cinema.
Abe Crawford caught one on 51 Street near Dunrite printing. Shopkeepers closing up for the night heard his excited “I got it!” when he ran across the street to bag the horse-like creature that appeared in his viewfinder.
Pokémon GO is taking up a lot of its users' time, according to SimilarWeb, a company that measures website and mobile app metrics.
As of July 8, the app was being used for an average of 43 minutes, 23 seconds a day, higher than Whatsapp, Instagram, Snapchat, and Messenger, the metrics measurer reported.
Maetche and Hanna had already been playing the game for an hour when they paused last Thursday to talk with the Albertan.
In just two days of playing, the teens had racked up between 40 and 50 Pokemon a piece.
Maetche's prized creature up until that point was a Jigglypuff he described in game terms as “hatched from an egg.” Hanna's was a Vaporeon that he got through collecting coins and evolving.
While gamers are enjoying the new twist on an old game, the mobility the game requires and the places Pokemon are found have caused some controversy and concern.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Arlington National Cemetery have requested that smartphone users stop trying to catch Pokémon when they visit those facilities, as officials deemed it inappropriate for the venues.
In other cases, distracted players have gotten into accidents.
Numerous driving and pedestrian accidents caused by distracted players have been reported in the U.S. and Canada.
"I got it because pretty much everyone else has it. "I didn't want to be the weird guy out."BEN HINDBOW
