July 6th. A day to remember in the life of many -youg and not that young- Taiwanese. PokemonGO is officially launched in Taiwan.
For the good -and not so good, this game resuscited after 8 years from the original Game Boy hit, now to come to life for millions of ‘lost’ souls [don’t get offended I played too] throught their mobile screens.
First thoughts:
How has already passed over Facebook on online users?
Why people falled like crazy for PokemonGO?
What makes it so addictive?
Everybody is talking about it, and talking about how much we have to learn from it -supposedly in a positive way. If you know me, you know I prefer to see it through my own eyes rather than be satisfied with an opinion, and so I did.
Look at this.
#1. a group of friends addicted to the game in HSRT station in Taichung City.
#2. three friends in the park in search of Pokemons
#3. father with kids in the park, searching for Pikachu?
#3.1. same father no kids. He, his phone and the Pokemons. All he needs to live
#4. a bunch of friends sitting in front of a convenient store [no idea why is showing upside down]
#5. midnight time. PokemonGO fans go ‘high’
Other situations I’ve witness are people playing in the mall; ridding bikes while playing and couples on scooters -one driving and the other searching!
Tha figures of PokemonGO after 5 days of its launch are 1 death caused by a car accident while playing, and an incident where a person fall into the river with his bycicle while playing the game.
The concept of mixing real world with virtual world seems exciting, but aren’t some people taking it too far? [Two kids chasing his possessed father through a park because he’s in-search of the next Pokemon, are you kidding me?].
And what’s the fun part about it? You get the 140+ ‘dolls’ and then what? Go and show off to your friends you are the greatest slacker for being able to collect a bunch of cute multicolored ‘dolls’? Where is your dignity? Where are your Poke balls?
I’m cool with the gaming industry. No doubt its the king of entertainment. But seems we’re missing the point. Every now and then a new social media network, app or whatever, appears to supposedly short distances between people, to keep in touch, to stay connected. Reality is we’re getting even more disconnected. In a globalized world, its more about ‘us’ than ‘me’. So gaming tendency shouldn’t be more about playing together? More social rather than asocial?