New ‘Pokémon Go’ Game Explodes

The latest tech obsession is Pokémon Go. If you haven’t heard of it, you probably don’t have teenage children, or millennial friends, or a social media account littered with strange pictures of animated creatures in various locations. Or you just don’t ever go outside.

The newest game has inspired multiple generations to reignite a love with the cross-platform story known as Pokémon.

It’s not every day that a video game actually encourages people to go outside and meet other actual people.

The new game, released last week, is not your usual video game. First, it’s on your phone, not on a Nintendo console. This new Pokémon Go requires people to leave their houses. While praised for getting players up and exercising as they walk around looking for digital monsters, Pokémon Go has also been involved in some strange happenings — including a string of robberies and a teenager finding a dead body.

Just how popular is it? The app is now on more phones than Tinder, the popular dating app, and running neck and neck with Twitter.

Pokémon was created by Sathoshi Tajiri in 1995. A franchise that spans multiple mediums, it began as a video game for the original Nintendo handheld Game Boy system and then became a card game, television shows, movies, and more successful games.

Pokémon are various creatures that inhabit an alternate world where “trainers” try to search for and catch every Pokémon they can until they become “masters.”

With the height of its cultural popularity mostly left in the ’90s, Pokémon is now making a huge comeback of sorts with Pokémon Go, an augmented reality game that takes advantage of your phone’s GPS and camera capabilities to help you actually travel through, and interact with, the Pokémon world.

After you create a character, Pokémon Go provides a fake map that corresponds with real-world locations. Hence, the game encourages people to leave the house and go to specific spots in order to “catch” Pokémon. The game also allows players to work in teams and to meet up to “battle” with their Pokémon.

It’s not every day that a video game actually encourages people to go outside and meet other actual people, but Pokémon Go’s motivation to move within the real world has also led to some odd occurrences.

One teenager received a little too much reality while trying to capture a virtual Pokémon in Wyoming. While searching for her Pokémon, Shayla Wiggins, found a dead body lying in a body of water. She called the police — and she revealed she did not end up catching her Pokémon.

There was also a story going viral that a man had caused a massive car pile up while playing the game, though the story has since been debunked. But it seemed so plausible.

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Others have been taking advantage of Pokémon Go’s features and putting people in real danger.

Three men out of O’Fallon, Missouri, were using the game’s PokéStops — virtual locations that correspond with places like churches or parking lots — to predict where victims would be. The men robbed eight people at gunpoint before being arrested by police.

Still, the strangeness is not stopping the game’s popularity or keeping people from indulging in society’s latest oddball obsession. Nintendo, the makers behind the game, have a rising stock, and Pokémon Go sits atop the iTunes apps chart.

“Every time I go for a walk and my phone vibrates and a Pokéball pops up on my screen, 10-year-old me pops out, turns my hat around, and decides that he’s going to be the very best and catch them all,” says player Jordan Dupuis, making reference to the popular Pokémon cartoon.

Allen Moore, another player of the game, says Pokémon Go has been a long time coming and therefore appeals to adults who once loved Pokémon and kids just getting into the franchise. “Pokémon Go is what, as a kid, you always wanted Pokémon to be like … I think it’s about time Nintendo dropped an official Pokémon app into the mobile game world.”

Read any Reddit page or Facebook group related to the game, and you’ll find strangers planning real life meet-ups, giving each other tips on locations to visit, and people going above and beyond normal, stagnant gaming.

Pokémon Go has faced obstacles beyond creepy stories of dead bodies and robberies. Various server malfunctions from around the world have somewhat stalled Pokémon Go’s massive launch. But it’s also revived Nintendo: Shares in Nintendo Co. Ltd. have soared 32 percent, bringing market-value gains to $7.5 billion in just days.

There are still bugs in the game to be worked out as well — but, for now, fans don’t seem to mind. They’re too busy running around catching Pokémon. “It doesn’t seem to matter,” says Dupius. “There’s Pokémon to catch and no one is stopping until they’re the grand master.”