Alright, so in the first Pokémon Go article I wrote, I talked about what it was, who was playing it, and the fact that I ran into a goddamn rattlesnake. Part two explored Pokémon as a cultural phenomenon. I wanted to discuss what made Pokémon popular in the first place. In this third and last installment, I want to talk about the actual game Pokémon Go, and review the game. The question I’m posing, is Pokémon GO actually a good game?

The short answer is no.

Games for mobile platforms, ie your phone, have exploded in the last couple of years. There are actually too many games for both the Android platform and the IOS platform. Thousands and thousands and thousands of games, most being lousy and poorly thought out. When people started making games for phones, companies and programmers saw that there was a large market for apps, and started going to work. We now have a berth of apps for phones, so many that even if you deliver a quality product, there’s little chance of success.

Now, there’s a reason I’m not particularly a fan of games for the phone. A lot of these games are free to download. You don’t have to pay anything to play these games! You would think that’s some sort of bonus, but most of these free games fall under the ‘pay-to-win’ category. The games are often difficult, but if you choose to spend some money, you can gain access to more of the game faster. You can get potions to heal you, or buy more rounds of a puzzle game instead of waiting, or buy upgrades for your little virtual farm.

Mobile game companies have figured out some pretty heavy psychological aspect of human beings while making these games. Video games operate on the same principle as sports, work, hunting, or pretty much anything. Move towards a goal, face a challenge, then succeed or fail. If you succeed, you get a little dose of happy brain chemicals like dopamine, and you turn to face another goal. Score a touchdown, get a dose of dopamine. Complete a task at work, get a dose of dopamine. Your brain rewards you when you achieve victory. The insidious thing about these ‘pay-to-win’ games is video game companies have figured out that the brain still rewards the player with dopamine if you pay to level up instead of achieving it.

Like most people, you probably haven’t dropped any of your hard earned cash on these free games, and most players don’t. There’s a few people that do spend some money of these games, anywhere from $20 to $100 dollars. The companies aren’t interested in those people, or the people who spend zero dollars. The people they’re interested in are what the industry calls ‘Whales’. You see, Whales will spend thousands of dollars on pay-to-win games. These people aren’t playing a game, they’re addicts who are being taken advantage of.

Pokémon Go isn’t as insidious. Yet. You can still buy upgrades to make the game a little easier, but for the most part it’s still pretty balanced. But this game hasn’t even been released in Canada yet, and it’s only a week old, so there’s plenty of time to upgrade the game into something that might target these Whales.

The other issue regarding Pokémon Go, is it requires what us gamers call ‘Grinding’. ‘Grinding’ is the term used to progress your character’s development by continually repeating the same task over and over again. For hours. There’s a difficult boss you can’t beat? Go out and fight low level monsters for hours until your good enough to face the boss. In the new Pokémon Go, in order to evolve your ‘Mons, you have to catch enough of that particular ‘Mon to level it up. And that doesn’t take effort or skill, it just takes time and a lot of walking around. Some people have figured out a work around. In order to fool the game into thinking they are walking about, cheeky gamers have attached their phones to ceiling fans or stationary bikes. The game thinks you’re moving, and rewards you accordingly.

Because of this, Pokémon Go as a game fails for me. I don’t actually have a phone powerful enough to play it, and I’m not going out anytime soon to rectify this. There’s enough good games out there, that you pay for with money, that are fun all the way through, and aren’t confused with chores. Because if you’re attaching your phone to a bike in your living room, and pushing the wheel occasionally with a stick to trick the game into thinking you’re playing, well, how much fun is that exactly?

At the same time, it’s the most downloaded app. Ever. And it’s getting people out and about, getting exercise and meeting other people, even if it’s to talk about Pokémon. So in the scheme of things, even though the game isn’t for me, it wasn’t designed for me. It was made for Pokémon fans, and there’s obviously a lot of them. Who cares if it’s not a great game, it’s a great way to get in shape and meet some people, especially for those who struggle with that already.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. To all game developers; Are you making a game? Or a gimmic?

I wasn’t exactly sure how big Pokemon Go was going to be. I knew it was going to be a hit with the legions of people who are already Pokemon fans. That was a given. But since its release a few days ago, I’ve been bombarded with questions about Pokemon and Pokemon Go. I’m going to clarify a few things about the craze, so the less informed can get in the know about Pocket Monsters, aka Pokemon.

The game people are playing right now, Pokemon Go, isn’t a new type of game. One of the developers of Pokemon Go, Niantic, released a similar game called Ingress for the Android and IPhone platforms a while back. If you have absolutely no interest in Pokemon whatsoever, but you’re curious to see what kind of game people are playing, then Ingress is your best bet. The game is played in the real world, with your phone as a tool. The game places you on a team, and then you’re encouraged to walk around to find items, located strongholds, and battle for supremacy. Pokemon Go is incredibly similar, but uses the Pokemon franchise as its theme.

Now, Ingress was wildly popular, and it has millions of players. I can almost guarantee Pokemon Go has already exceeded the number of players Ingress has. There was never a number of news stories running about Ingress, people weren’t playing the game at Holocaust memorials, there wasn’t anyone finding dead bodies in low lying areas. What makes Pokemon Go popular isn’t the game itself; there’s a number of games, including Ingress, offering the same sort of game. It’s popular because Pokemon is popular. So how did Pokemon get so big?

Let’s rewind the clock twenty years, back to 1996. The original Pokemon games were released for the Gameboy, the handheld portable game console by Nintendo. The game was based on the creators childhood of capturing bugs. There’s two objectives to the game. One, catch all the Pokemon and complete the Pokedex, an encyclopedia of Pokemon. Two, train a team of Pokemon that’s powerful enough to challenge the other trainers in the game world, eventually going up against the Pokemon Leagues ‘Elite Four’, the best trainers in the game.

The second part of the game is straight forward. The game works on a giant ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ mechanic. Pokemon are strong against some, weak against others. If your opponent is using fire type Pokemon, you can use water type to subdue them. Your Pokemon lineup would included matches for each Pokemon in your opponents line up. If you have a wide enough variety of ‘Mons, you can easily defeat anyone you go up against.

The first part of the game is a little more difficult. You see, in order to catch all the Pokemon and complete this Pokedex, you need to catch all 151 variety of Pokemon. The thing is, there’s two versions of the game that were released. Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue. You can’t capture all the Pokemon with just one game cartridge. You need both copies, two Gameboys and a Link cable. The premise was, if you had a copy of Red, and your friend had a copy of Blue, you could trade the Pokemon that were exclusive to each game.

The game was immensely popular when it first came out, and there was a cartoon featuring Pokemon released at roughly the same time, with a full length feature film not too long afterwards. Kids went crazy over the both the game and the cartoon, and adults who played video games found that the game play could be incredibly complex.

You wouldn’t believe how far the rabbit hole goes.

What you need to remember is the original Pokemon video games were incredibly well thought out games with a very deep strategy system that was engaging. The other point worth remembering is that nostalgia’s a powerful thing, and we all have things from our childhood that we look back fondly.

I grew up with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers and Super Mario. If you ever enjoy any of these things, track them down and give them another look. You’re going to find out two things. First, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Transformers were absolutely abysmal cartoons. They were really nothing more than toy commercials, and the fact that my younger self enjoyed them makes me think less of six-year-old Mr. Charlton. Secondly, Super Mario still holds up. Even after thirty years, it’s still fun to play.

Pokemon has the same nostalgia factor with people thirty and younger. My girlfriend was part of the bracket that got the full dose of Pokemon when she was a kid. So it’s really no surprise to me a free Pokemon game for the mobile platform is doing well. If you’re sick of hearing about Pokemon Go, then read below, and you’ll know how I feel.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. Truthfully, I was always more of a SimCity kind of guy, anyways.