Pokémon GO: how Evolving Pokémon is Devolving us

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Last night, I joined my sister and her partner on a journey through the urban jungle that is Melbourne, looking for additional great spots to discover and catch Pokémon in Pokémon GO. Since it has become most everyone's pastime, in order to feel somewhat of a human connection I have been left with no choice but to bribe fellow persons to spend time with me via luring them into an augmented world. Since joining the sheeple, I have noticed that the only form of 'social time' I have acquired is when we communicate to one another about the spotting of new Pokémon, as well as the locations of the Pokéstops that sit closest to one another so as to spawn more and more of these digital creatures. Ultimately, all form of communication has been used within and for the purpose of excelling within the game, especially when it comes to adventuring to the nearest junk food distributors to re-energize and to leave behind human waste.

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But through partaking in this newfound madness, I have found that my need to observe has overcome my need to play, which has lead me to witness firsthand the decay of socializing and of basic human function. Because my endeavors mainly take place on evenings, I have been staring in awe at multiple strangers' faces, aglow with their phone screens, necks strained as heads are bowed in subservience to technological advancements. It is a worrying sight. It is moreso worrying that I have spent so much time seated in the same position with my head down. And to what gain? I am yet to feel fulfilled. If anything, the game is for one minute of pleasure and a lifetime of pain because we have found ways to deter its initial partial objective, which is to explore the world around us, by sitting in a car and driving to locations and waiting for Pokémon to come to us. Despite the obvious mental and physical health concerns, however, my primary concern is that players are spending more time playing the game than considering a creation of their very own. That is the very niche of what it is like to follow rather than lead.

The only people who have impressed me are those who are finding and using special source codes to hack the game in order to spawn their own creatures and discover the game's limitations. Users who perform this are showing a higher level of thinking, one that manipulates an already-made platform so as to render it unique. Another set of impressive people who have revealed themselves in lieu of those who follow are those using the game to commit crimes. In both circumstances, we observe that offenders are ones who divulge from the original intended path that the game was primarily created for. My central argument is that divulging from a set task, divulging from the main activities of the status quo is beneficial for one.

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No. I am not condoning illegal actions, rather I am condoning actions that do not leave one to follow, rather to lead. An instance of this within a game occurs in Garry's Mod, a sandbox physics game based on the idea of a literal sandbox: the aim of the game is to create a variant of the game itself by tweaking the virtual world so as to make it your own. As its website states, 'there aren't any objectives - you can't lose, and you definitely can't win'. Firstly, the game boasts the lack of competition. Objective is based on what the player sees fit, and therefore leaves the player in a realm of safety from outside pressures. Here, one is free to perform without the constraints of set goals, maintaining the feeling that anything is possible. And anything is indeed possible, as the game reaches far to the nether regions of each budding player's creativity. It is a collaborative experience, teeming with opportunities to be discovered.

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Pokémon GO, in juxtaposition, is based on the premise that you 'gotta catch 'em all', or in the avant garde premise, 'capture as many Pokémon as you can' - but if you as well as millions of others indeed catch them all, then what? Yes, if each of your Pokémon reach the maximum combat levels and you conquer gyms and you catch legendary Pokémon then all you are doing is competing with millions of others with the same objectives, thus making the game painfully repetitive and not at all rewarding. One, in Pokémon GO, only panders to the game's initial objective, straying away from the utter fact that one is constantly repeating motions, duplicating actions and reciprocating two mutual feelings: loss or defeat. Conquering is somewhat impossible for you cannot conquer something designed to leave you scrambling for more. It is in this sense that the game is indeed totalitarian. One is subservient to Niantic and the motives that have framed the most downloaded app in a first week ever.

If anything, the inflation of virtual reality that is Pokémon GO is deflating our sense of humanity. We are struggling to collect little forms of data in order to evolve them into new forms of data and in turn, are devolving ourselves, devolving from our advances. This is surely something to add to our sense of lack of purpose, lack of raisons d'etre, and soon we will reach a new low; though, hopefully the new low will be reached with our dignity, and not with our degenerating postures.

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Pokémon GO: the hunt for Pikachu: a narration by David Attenborough*

A hunched back, an aching neck, legs overworked, both hands grasping the smartphone, eyes glued to its phone screen and all attention waiting on a single beep or a change of pixels, the human is on the prowl for more Pokémon. This human, mind you, has scarcely found initiative to leave its habitat prior to this. It had no reason to leave the comforting glows of its television or computer screen, after just having gotten over the glow on its phone screen. First, Netflix, and now Pokémon GO.

Armed with two portable phone chargers, some in-game incense and Pokéballs, the human makes the call to fellow humans. Together, they enter its automobile and drive at 30mph through its neighbourhood, careful, the driver too, not to miss any Pokémon on their way, and also mindful to cheat the Pokémon egg hatching system. Humans are cunning creatures, outsmarting the smartest of devices in order to exploit what they offer for what seems to be no benefit. At the end of each hunt, each human comes home empty handed, but with a digital archive full of animated rarities. Outside of the vehicle, many other humans can be seen glued to their phones, embarking on yet another day's journey, their young also joining them on their own phones, as offspring so little as just three years old have also joined the journey to be the very best, like no one ever was.

Today, after having spent almost an entire week on their phones, this group of humans is after one particular Pokémon: the ever so elusive Pikachu. This short yellow rodent, stubby in stature, is thunderingly charismatic. Armed with a cute looking face, do not let it fool you for innocence. Stored in its seemingly innocent reddened cheeks are thunderbolts, ready to strike out and smelter any who step in its path. If that's not enough to scare you, perhaps its five tiny fingers at the end of its short arms will. Like Australia's dropbear, the Pikachu has the capability to, in quite a cute manner, erratically claw at you. Luckily, we have sedated one today for the purpose of showing you its features up close. We found it gnawing on a powerline, and my team managed to catch it before a hoard of Poké-trainers rolled in. They are standing by now for its release. What you cannot see, photographed below, is the minute after this photograph was taken, wherein it blasted me to near death after its sedative wore off. You also cannot see its thunder-bolt shaped tail, which follows it swiftly wherever it goes. But what you can see is its tiny little ears, with a black tip on their ends. A mighty creature, so delicate in features. 

After releasing it, we headed back to our campsite behind the field where multiple Pikachu sightings have taken place. This may have to do with the multitude of lures that have been used by avid Poké-trainers. The group of humans observed earlier mumbled harsh nothings to one another. It looks as though they are having an argument. "I'll uninstall, you all better do the same because I don't think either of us will catch one unless we start over!" one screamed. The others seemed to have follow suit. According to our cameraman across the field, he heard them saying something about creating new email addresses and accounts to start this process, a process that has only recently been discovered. This process states that if you abandon all starter creatures over five times, a Pikachu will appear. The humans separated. We followed their ringleader, watching him leave behind several starter Pokémon.

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Surely enough, after abandoning Squirtle, Bulbasaur and Charmander five times, the human spotted the Pikachu we caught earlier. Unbeknownst to him, in a few minutes, this field will be teeming with them. But in order to allow him to retain his dignity, and to keep our camera crew safe, we chose not to notify him, and instead, watched him burn off all the calories months of Netflix binging have added to him. The human leapt up in delight with his mouth agape, and screamed, "I GOT HIM, I GOT HIM!"

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The humans he came with quickly gathered around him, trying to look at his phone screen. He held it up; a modern day Lion King, and shook. "Throw it!" some yelled. "Quick!" 

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The Pikachu, after having thought that its first encounter with these abhorrent humans would be its last, stared in horror as it began to count down its final minutes of freedom. It thought to flee, but it was programmed, once found in the game, to withstand the throwing of three Pokéballs before fleeing. Unable to turn itself away from the group of frighteningly excited humans, it turned towards it potential captor, and decided that the only thing left to do, since this was not a formal Pokémon battle, was fight off his Pokéballs.

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And surely enough, it did. The human threw the first Pokéball, and Pikachu swiftly tapped it away. "Shit!" he exclaimed. Another human said to it, "try again! Quick!" Pikachu almost had no time to evade the second, but did just in time. It frowned, and put itself in an attacking stance in order to try to intimidate the humans. But it was outnumbered, and more wannabe explorers joined its human rival, throwing bits and pieces of advice. One bit of advice stood out, "Use a Razz Berry!"

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The human complied. He threw a Razz Berry in front of Pikachu. Pikachu hesitated for a while, and then went for the bait. Just as he did, the human decided to throw the third and possibly his last Pokéball with a twist. He placed his finger on the screen, waved the Pokéball in a circular motion, and it leapt up in the augmented air. He threw a curveball. "GREAT" his phone flashed at him. 

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Pikachu panicked. His world turned a bright white and then a deep, velvety red. He was trapped inside the Pokéball. He strained. He wriggled. He punched its inner walls and screamed and even thunderbolts, it appears, could not help him. He cried out in surrender. One of my cameramen shed a few tears. This is a sad moment for all digitalised creatures. 

The Pikachu was then registered to the human's Pokédex. "Good work, bro!" "Well done!" "Awesome!" the humans cheered. As hastily as they were to find and capture a Pikachu, so too were they haste in leaving, and moving on to capture yet another. Pokémon all over the world now seem to be in danger of being ensnared in a Pokéball, forever indebted to a life of digital servitude towards humans who too are ensnared in the augmented reality joining the lives of Pokémon and humans alike. 

And in the mere flick of a finger, in a mere miss, in a mere additional flick, in a few mere pieces of advice and a mere  third try, Pikachu too seemed to be just a mere Pikachu to all present onlookers. The once elusive and highly desired Pokémon became just another Pokémon, and soon this game will be just another game. 


*not actually narrated nor transcribed from any narration by David Attenborough. This entire article is completely fictional and hypothetical. Read in the style of David Attenborough's voice to achieve full effect. 

Pokémon GO: augmented economy

Since 1995, kids and kids at heart all over the world have wanted to be the very best, like no one ever was. Armed with Gameboys, Pokéballs and trading cables, young wannabe Pokémasters ventured through pixels of fields of wild Pokémon, hoping to indeed catch them all. As technology developed and new consoles began to take place of the old, Pokémon continued to live on yet lost its state of prominence.

What started as an April Fool's prank named Pokémon Challenge back on the 31st of March in 2014 (see video below), Pokémon GO has most literally taken over the world, both enhancing it and making it weirder. The team at Niantic found a way to merge what we love with what we do all day whilst retaining our sense of mobility. People of the twenty-first century are seldom seen without their mobile phones, and seldom seen away from other technological devices, and are, in turn, lacking movement, lacking exercise and lacking an exposure of the sun - not to mention the lack of a social life, or a physical social life at that. The developers of Pokémon GO, Saturo Iwata, Tsunekazu Ishihara and Tatsuo Nomura have collectively found a way to merge the lack of these human needs into one technological hybrid monster, attracting clusters of fanatics and non-fanatics alike. The three have combined the concept of Pokémon, the use of mobile phone interfaces, along with Google Maps to create a cyber world that nestles neatly into our real life world, allowing users to immerse themselves in a reality that incorporates the realities of their friends and other users, as well as the cyber-reality of several pixelated beings which humans, for some reason, wish to have in their polarised possession.

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If there is one thing I have noticed about the new digital craze that is Pokémon GO, it's that these lucky developers have found a successful way to reel in augmented reality into our realities without yet harnessing other popular digital crazes, such as virtual reality (VR). Since its release, Nintendo's stock value has increased. This economic combustion of an app has brought increases that Nintendo have not acquired since 1983, adding a whopping 7.5 billion dollars to its shares, and has been acquiring a daily revenue of 1.6 million dollars. But what does that mean to us, the people who have been sucked into this virtual world? Well, nothing. Yes, you Aussie, New Zealander or American, can shrug it off, because all you did was jump onto your app store, whether you are an iPhone or Android user, and downloaded this eccentric app for free. Who cares, though, right? It's Pokémon and it's awesome and it's yours at the touch of a screen.

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It may be hard to believe, but Pokémon GO has even defeated the popularity of social networking monsters Tinder and Twitter, based on recent figures. It seems that chasing and collecting imaginary monsters is more popular than chasing our lives and goals and building our relationships with other people. While this game allows you to be social and to leave the house, it also ensnares you in a world that merely represents your own. 

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But I hold mixed feelings about Pokémon GO. While it annoys me that people choose to invest in the abandonment of reality, it still utilises an aspect of reality. People are lacking creativity because of thriving as far as the creative bar that Niantic has raised instead of creating their own modes of existence, however some people are already finding ways to add to this digital jungle. It seems, though, that ultimately, people are veering further and further away from being human and redirecting their journeying towards partaking in a uniform robotic monotonous society. I mean, isn't that what capitalism is all about? This is another example of the nerdy sector of the bourgeoise luring in the nerdy proletariats, but on a far greater scale. Don't be fooled by the so-called 'benefits' an augmented reality has to offer, because at the loss of allowed monthly mobile data, at the stopping of wifi and at the death of your mobile phone battery, you will come to realise that you have not at all actually progressed, and that your digital accolades actually amount to nothing at all. Really, what are you getting out of this, apart from a bout of procrastination from whatever it is that you have put on hold? I wonder what Karl Marx would think of Pokémon GO. 

Pokémon GO.
Capitalism GO.
Humanity GONE.