Yup. I am one of the zillions of people playing Pokemon Go and I love it! I am an 80s kid, so I kinda missed Pokemon when it first hit North America in the 90s. I mean, even though I was busy being a 20something, I couldn’t really avoid it either, so before this week I could have still named a half dozen or so Pokemon. That said, I wasn’t into the handheld games or the card game, so this is the first time I have felt like part of the Pokemon phenomenon.
I’ve also never been big into gaming in general, aside from casual games. I never got into the big online things like WoW or Minecraft, or any of the console biggies (thanks, motion sickness; no first person shooters for me!).
Outside the typical casual games, I have one longtime gaming love: Packrat which started on Facebook and now lives on its own servers. It is a card collecting game with a dedicated following and I’ve not only been playing that for as long as it has existed (since January 2008!) but I have made some great friends through playing it. More recently, Neko Atsume took over my casual collecting game time as I collected cats.
So, Pokemon Go made sense to me immediately. Adding the incentive of walking, I was surprised that initially I was getting about 5 k per day! That’s a huge increase in activity for me. And I get to battle! I suck at it, but I still try. I’m talking to more people and enjoying being knee-deep in the phenomenon. How long will I stay on the bandwagon? Hard to say.
In the meantime I am fascinated by reactions (positive and negative), the marketing wins and fails, and the breadth and depth of the reach this game is having. Plus, it just makes me smile!