What actually is it though?
It looks to me like it's just some basic AR thing where you look through your phone's camera and see things that aren't there.
But surely that isn't worth all this fuss?
oh yeah its super basic, looks terrible and barely even works. but it hit something at a societal level.
tbh all of that frightens me at a fundamental level and I'm not really sure why
the thought that ppl need imaginary pokeymans as an excuse to go outside is kinda... uhm...
but hey as long as it DOES get people moving
im not trying to be an evangelist of this or anything, but what it does is turn going outside into an event. you wind up taking different routes on your daily commute and wandering around much more because now there is some motivation to. There are facebook groups for cities, and people will post "I've seen a charmander at south station" "I caught a Metapod at such and such street" or whatever, and the next day a bunch of people will trek over there to try to get one, whereas maybe previously they wouldn't have had a reason to ever go there. It's basically gamifying wandering around, plus the social element of trading info and techniques.
Different pokemon come out at different times of day too, so it encourages you to go out when you wouldn't regularly. I've been going on night walks with my GF the past few days, not because we're weeb pokemon megafans, but because its a fun excuse to do something we don't usually do.
idk, im sure the hype will die down, but for now im really enjoying the moment
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