What is Pokemon Go?

Nintendo's augmented reality game is catching up with Twitter's popularity

The Japanese company Nintendo on July 6 released Pokemon Go - a game with augmented reality elements, which works on IOS and Android smartphones. The application offers to search and tame Pokemon hidden in the real world. Augmented reality has been used in the games for several years, but Pokemon Go seems to have a revolution: the application beats the records of popularity, and players cannot come off the search for Pokemon even on dates or on protest. "Medusa" tells the main thing that you need to know about the new game.

The game Pokemon Go came out in the form of applications for iOS and Android. This is the first Nintendo game for modern smartphones. The application uses augmented reality: players are looking for Pokemon hidden in the real world. Phones inform the owners that Pokemon is hidden nearby, using a sound signal and vibration. The purpose of the game is to find and train Pokemon in order to then participate in battles with Pokemon of other players. The application can be downloaded for free, but it provides for intra -game purchases. The game is officially available in the USA, Australia and New Zealand.

The Nintendo application turned out to be incredibly successful. For two days, Pokemon GO has become the most popular application in the American App Store; The share of Android users who loaded Pokemon Go to the United States exceeded 5%. According to Similarweb, by the number of downloads the game went around the Tinder dating application, and by the number of active users came close to Twitter. On the day, users spend more time in Pokemon Go than in WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook Messenger.

Pokemon Go users are carried away by the game in earnest. A game mechanic, which involves the search for virtual objects in the real world, was surprisingly successful. Sometimes the “Poksteps” become attractions (parks, museums, monuments), but often users find Pokemon in the most unexpected places: monsters can hide in church, in a cemetery, in a strip club, in a police station. It is impossible to break away from the search process-Pokemon Go play not only at work and transport, but, for example, on protest rally (one of the users in New York tried to catch Pokemon hidden in a police cordon during the demonstration) or in the hospital waiting for birth.

Immersion in the game has already caused injuries and various abuse. Some players in Pokemon Go are so focused on the gameplay that they stop noticing the world around him. One of the first accidents associated with the game was recorded in the United States half an hour after the application in the App Store: the Reddit user, carried away, did not notice the ditch in his way , fell and damaged his leg. Explaining what happened to the doctors, he chose to tell that he was injured, walking the dog. Pokemon, hidden in hard -to -reach places, lead to unexpected finds. So, in Vaiming, a teenager was looking for a water Pokemon in the river and found a corpse . Finally, attackers enjoy the popularity of the game: in Missouri, armed people arranged ambushes near Pokemon hidden in secluded places, and robbed the players who were looking for them.

Pokemon Go is the most successful Nintendo product in a long time. In the wake of the popularity of the game, shares of the Japanese company on the Tokyo Exchange by July 11 have risen by more than 25 percent - record growth from the moment Nintendo exit to the exchange in 1983. According to Bloomberg , Pokemon Go is able not only to bring Nintendo to the game market for mobile devices, but also to correct the financial affairs of the company, whose last big launch - the game console Wii U - failed.