I'm Finally Ready to Talk About Pokemon GO...
YOU SHOULD NEVER LOSE YOUR GRASP ON WHO YOU WERE AS A CHILD AS
THIS IS WHERE YOU PULL FROM FOR YOUR ENERGY, YOUTHFULNESS AND CREATIVITY
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I think I am finally ready.
Pokemon GO has been out in Toronto for a a litte over two weeks now and has been a global property for roughly a month. If you still don't know what Pokemon GO is here is the lowdown:
Pokémon Go (stylized Pokémon GO) is a free-to-play location-based, augmented reality game developed and published by Niantic for iOS andAndroid devices. It was initially released in selected countries in July 2016. In the game, players use a mobile device's GPS capability to locate, capture, battle, and train virtual creatures, called Pokémon, who appear on the screen as if they were in the same real-world location as the player. The game supports in-app purchases for additional in-game items.
Thanks Wikipedia, always saving me time on writing since early high school. Now back to the blog post...
Yes, I have played the game. I've enjoyed it, I've got bored of it and have now become completely indifferent towards it. I'm also fine with many people likely thinking less of me now and am also okay with my dwindling amount of dating potential after this.
Who knows, I might have hit a niche market with the lady Pokemon fan base and to be honest, ComiCon looks pretty sweet.
I've walked by the Harbour Front downtown and I have seen the collection of the somewhat 200+ plus fans sitting in the park and "catching 'em all". I have also been stopped on the sidewalk by a dude in a 1996 Toyota Corolla asking me if I "found the Squirtle" because I just happened to be glancing at my phone at that very moment. For some perspective, this man was in his early 30's and I begun to get concerned that he left his daughter's ballet recital to find this thing.
I'm not very quick to jump and make a judgement on apps like this, or really any kind of product for the matter. I took my review process of Pokemon GO very similarly to the way I operate during my consulting client review process. We have our own "discovery period", to put it simply. Over the span of four weeks - we collect all of our clients materials, market research, sponsorship criteria and operations plans and we sit there and review them while we also collect more data and understand the market a little bit better. We then make an informed decision after this process and are ready to make our strategic recommendations.
So after two weeks of playing, reviewing and gaining some perspective on the matter here are my thoughts...
1/ IT'S GETTING PEOPLE OUTSIDE AND MOVING AROUND
People may still be glued to their screens but at least they are outside while being glued to their screens. The premise of Pokemon GO is that you have to walk around your city and find where the Pokemon are hiding and of course catch them. You can also be incredibly lazy and sit in your bed and purchase "lures" or "incense" to draw the Pokemon to you (this is recommended for the people that consider a sloth as their "spirit animal").
Sure, people are bumping into each other and getting hit by the odd car here and there but the likelihood of this happening is no different than the people walking around downtown reading their e-mails, checking the score or replying to a text message. If you're going to cross the street without looking, while staring at your phone - that's not Pokemon GO's fault, that's natural selection.
Take the Harbour Front in downtown Toronto again as an example. I walked down there as I heard from a few friends that the Harbour Front, as the kid's are saying now a days was "lit", for Pokemon GO.
I kid you not, there were 200+ plus people (kids, teenagers, adults) crammed into the park in this area swiping away on their phones and catching Pokemon. To say the least, I was unprepared for this and should have had my elbows up the whole time fending off people that weren't paying attention.
But the fact that this collection of people, who would usually be cramped up in their condos at this time of the day, were all outside and moving around because of this game is already a positive in it's favour.
2 / IT CERTAINLY HAS SOME MARKETING POTENTIAL
As a member of the marketing / sponsorship community, it's easy for one of us to get rock hard about a platform like Pokemon GO that is based off location services, creates a real-time user database, draws in a massive fan base and has an immense amount of shareabilty through augmented-reality (have you laughed at the meme of the Pidgey next to a pan of sizzling eggs? Me too).
McDonalds has already jumped on this band wagon and made a deal with the games developers to make many McDonalds a PokeStop (I should have explained what this was earlier, but it's essentially a locater set to significant landmarks in your city and provides users with items for the game once they are in the vicinity of it) which allows every McDonalds to be able to attract players in the hopes of finding Rare Pokemon. It's a great partnership and I expect more and more companies to begin buying in.
This also works for just about any business looking to get involved with Pokemon GO to increase visitors and sales. I have noticed restaurants that have been marked as PokeStops have more people in the shop and are now leveraging this new platform to increase sales by introducing Pokemon themed products, menu items etc. This form of reactionary marketing bordering on "tribe marketing" is a great way for these businesses to relate to the consumer, create an emotional connection and become better suited in their minds when it comes to their next purchasing decision.
3 / IT TUGS AT THE NOSTALGIC CHORD
Let's be honest, if you were a kid that was born in the late 80s / early 90's you likely either watched, played or breathed Pokemon. Most of us dragged our parents to the convenience store to buy trading cards or rushed home after school to catch an episode of the television series.
Then there was the courtyard at elementary school, that was Pokemon card dealing central. I specifically remember a kid having his card stolen at recess and then the school's principal coming over the P.A. system saying, "Michael's Gyarados has been stolen...it is shiny and blue and who ever has stolen it must return it immediately". Oh, memories.
Personally, six-year-old Dave has been waiting for this day to come ever since he picked up his first pack of Pokemon trading cards. There is probably a photo in my parents basement of me cuddling a Pikachu plush doll or that classic picture of the kid showing off his 1st edition holographic Charizard with his hat on backwards.
So yes, when i saw this game come out and as a guy that usually doesn't get very excited over things...I was mildly to moderately intrigued.
These late 80s / early 90s kids are now functioning members of society. We have jobs, probably have a studio apartment in the "trendy" part of town that we secretly don't like...but hey, your place is close to the new, hip idea of a farmers market, so you put up with it. We have got shit on our plate, so why not take a little trip down the nostalgic road and visit the little versions of ourselves when life wasn't so damn difficult?
So I ask you, the people immensely hating on this gaming platform: why not just let people enjoy things?
Unless that thing is killing people, which I strongly suggest you intervene and not let them enjoy this thing.
If something you cherished as a child suddenly made a comeback, you would probably want to investigate and give it a go around. You might not go to the extreme that some Pokemon GO users have but you certainly would investigate. If you don't, you might have lost "it".
You should never lose your grasp on who you were as a child as this is where you pull from for your energy, youthfulness and creativity. The moment you lose that feeling is when you begin to age in the wrong way.
By all means, Pokemon GO is likely at the peak of it's gaming existence. It's going to be going downhill in popularity during the next couple of months and will likely fizzle out until some spectacular update comes through. Until then, we will all crawl back inside and rediscover what the inside of our apartment looks like.
But for the time being, enjoy it. And enjoy the memories of your younger self that it brings back.
Happy hunting folks, catch 'em all.
- D.
