“In terms of the secret history of Pokémon GO, I want to ask you to flash back to last summer,” said Hanke, while showing a video of huge crowds of people walking through the streets of Taiwan. Hanke, who seemed just a little jetlagged, regaled the crowd with the story of the mobile game’s origins, meteoric rise, and teases of the future. Niantic CEO John Hanke revealed the “secret history” of Pokémon GO as part of his keynote speech at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Tuesday. No, there were just some Google Maps programmers who decided they wanted to cut down on their screen time, and in the process, fulfill the dream of the Pokémon’s original creator. We enjoy observing the turtles, small mammals and birds in a series of ponds and streams.Pokémon GO players hike across cities and brave tall grass in an attempt to catch ‘em all, but there weren’t any Pokémon Masters in the beginning. One of the regular Ingress "live events" is coming up this Saturday in Tokyo.Īnother issue: My husband and I frequently visit Colonial National Historical Park, especially the Yorktown battlefields near our house. More women, though, are playing the game all the time, and the internationalization of the game is quite intense. In 2013, the average Ingress player was a 30-year-old male who spoke English as a first language. Early on, locations inside German concentration camps were turned into portals, a gross error that was quickly corrected. Some aspects of Ingress give me pause - or worse. And I've done other similar things both close to home and away on travels. Walking on the banks of the York River and reading about a 200-year sequence of forts on the very land where I was standing was a cool experience that I owe to Ingress. For example, Tyndall's Point Park in Gloucester County, Va., is a small area with trails and historical signs only 3 miles from my house - but I'd never noticed it much. I don't care much about the XM storyline but I'm delighted to be more aware of parks, public art and historic landmarks than I've been before. It's been way more fun than I ever expected. My stats right now don't remotely compare with Stephen's: I'm only level 7, having visited 784 unique portals and walked 81 km. I'm not a gamer at all, and I figured in my free time I'd rather get out in nature while disconnected from a screen, or stay in and read books.īut a few months ago, I started to think: "Why not?" As an experiment, I joined the Ingress Resistance team in February. It's augmented reality, it's mapped and interactive (to achieve certain goals players have to work together), it features 16 levels of achievement with "portals" all over the world to visit up close (and capture from the opposing team).įor years, Wood had invited me to play Ingress. Ingress is played by millions of people in more than 200 countries, divided into two teams set up around a storyline involving what's called XM or Exotic Matter. There's even a hope that " archaeoegaming" will benefit public science and history as more families discover cool sites around them. Suddenly, it seems that Pokémon Go players divided into three teams are everywhere, #PokemonGo is the cool new hashtag on Twitter, there's speculation about the game as a new tool in the toolbox fighting against childhood obesity. Monday's Washington Post headline says it all: "Pokémon Go Craze Sweeps the Nation." By visiting certain sites, including historic landmarks, the play is enhanced some activities become possible only at higher levels of achievement in the game. Played via a smartphone app that pulls in a mapping function, this is a "real world" game that requires players to consult the Pokémon Go map of their neighborhood (or wherever location they are visiting), then capture Pokemon characters. jointly released the augmented reality game Pokémon Go. Last week, The Pokémon Co., Nintendo and Niantic Inc. Ethan Kespert, 8, of Scarborough, Maine, plays Pokémon Go with Hawk Reynoso at Deering Oaks Park.
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