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: 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.

Cell Phone Transitioning

As of late, the only description you would have heard erupting from my mouth in vulgarity when asked to describe my Samsung Galaxy s2 would indeed consist of vulgar words, limited to cuss words and disrespectful phrases which demean the inventors of it. 

And very recently, you will hear me scream otherwise. This is so because today, I received my cousin's old iPhone Four to borrow and use to my liking because of the amount of times I had complained about my Samsung. I think I complained enough to score myself a momentarily free iPhone. It is in great condition. It is clean. It works excellently. It downloads and opens applications at the speed of light. Its accessibility is perfect, its screen a good size, and its camera spectacular - so what, then, is my problem?

I miss my old phone. I am beginning to have withdrawals, and the weight of this phone is weighing down my comfort. I appreciate iMessage and the ability to talk to important people in my life with ease, but I admit, it will take me a lot of time to get used to this phone. I am one of those strange ancient people who has never before owned an iPhone. I started off with a Nokia, another Nokia and another until they became outdated, and I spent thousands of dollars on a brand new Samsung Galaxy s1 and was immediately blown away and hooked. 

Swype is one thing I now have to learn to do without. I can no longer swiftly glide my finger across the screen to display what I want. I can no longer use a back button, or send and receive things via a smart and handy Bluetooth functionality. I can no longer apply widgets to my screens, as far as my knowledge extends, and now I have to get used to having to type my password every time that I want to download an application. I also, to add to my dilemma, have to forget the fact that my once wonderful Samsung Galaxy s2 has the original edition of Flappy Bird on it, a now extinct and rare game. Not to mention 60% of my story ideas. 

It is just difficult to move on. There are a lot of changes that will probably scare me back to my Samsung Galaxy s2, despite how much I despise it and despite my continuous need for conformity when it comes to cell phones. I loathe conformity in any sense, but I rid myself of this hatred when I purchased another Apple product earlier this year- a MacBook Air. It is the best laptop I have ever owned, and that sounds bias because I've only owned one, a large-screened HP laptop. Though I adored it, the second I purchased my MacBook Air that all changed. 

This is different, though. Yes, I am compelled by FaceTime and iMessage to stay, however the Samsung Galaxy s2 is a difficult competitor - I wonder if I will go back to it! 

Life After Flappy Bird

So it appears that sneaker investments on eBay are not the only things soaring – now, used phones with the game Flappy Bird installed on it are also soaring, soaring less and for more money than Flappy Bird itself had soared through in its small life.

An eBay bid for a white iPhone with Flappy Bird installed on it has rocketed up to ninety-four thousand dollars. Other used phones with the game installed are now being placed on eBay, ranging from four-hundred dollars to almost three-thousand, with one seller asking for ninety-six thousand. The game itself can still be played, only if it is installed on a phone or tablet. The problem is that those who have deleted it can no longer play it, and those who have never played it and now yearn to play it have no choice but to purchase a used phone on eBay, in hopes of getting their own taste of the game that devoured many.

The most fascinating thing about this whole happening is that Dong Nguyen, the creator of this silly game, is allegedly angered at the amount of ‘negative’ popularity his game had reeled in. Mind you, Kim Kardashian was not happy with the negative popularity that her pornographic film had reeled in, yet Kanye West is not fighting to get rid of it. One can imagine how much a phone with the clip of this banned pornographic movie’s cost if it ever were to sell on eBay like Flappy Bird – people would trade in their Nike Air Yeezy II’s, or their very souls.

Taking just three days to make, Flappy Bird was placed on the iPhone market in May 2013, but it gained sudden popularity in January 2014. Conspiracy theories are now placing conspiracy theorists, among the vast majority of amateur eBay investors, in the limelight again, allowing them to make up and spread theories about this happening – some say that Dong took the game down because of it looking like Super Mario Bros, avoiding a possible lawsuit. Some say that Dong took it down as a marketing skit to enhance its downloads before it was taken down, and to prepare his wallet for the second alleged installment of the game. Some are alleging that Dong had manipulated computer bots to download the game and rate it highly In order to bring it up to the top of the download charts quicker.

But Dong says otherwise. “It ruins my life. So now I hate it.” “I cannot take this anymore.” Please, it must be so hard to deal with people in order to make a name for yourself. It must be so hard sitting behind a computer screen, clicking away, and making money. It must be so hard living with the fact that so many teenagers are giving your pixelated bird flight, ever so carefully between green pipes. It must have been so very hard earning fifty-thousand dollars a day from a game that took three days to make. Jesus, Dong, please, by all means, retire and float effervescently into the sunset on your inflatable Flappy Bird piece of merchandise, and paddle yourself to a nearby island with oars made of the money you made, and hide under a big luscious palm tree, away from the social media you sold yourself into, and away from your troubling fans who are doing nothing but installing and “overusing” your game. Be sure next time, that when you release a game, place a ‘DO NOT DOWNLOAD BECAUSE I CANNOT BE BOTHERED DEALING WITH PEOPLE PLAYING MY GAME’ sign beside the download button.

But Dong Nguyen, I would like to send you my personal thanks. Because before your deletion of Flappy Bird, my mindset towards my phone was that it was another piece of utter crap that I would have to abandon somewhere in my bedroom and move on to another phone that would cost me twice as much as it, and that would be worth less than it in another five months time – alas, I mistakingly had downloaded your game, Flappy Bird, thinking that I could beat my sister’s score in it. Now that I have acknowledged that I cannot beat her score-wise, I know that I can beat her financially. She is yet to know of her phone’s value and my phone’s value now that we both still have the game, and in a couple of month’s time when my crappy phone holding your crappy game is sold, I will watch her slowly but surely delete the game she once reveled in, and delete the potential of money she could earn. Thank you for doubting your ability to mentally thrive with a daily income of fifty-thousand dollars. My future profession will give me that much in a whole year, so I can understand how getting all of that money in just one day could impact negatively on me and my life and the life of all of those that I know! Now that you know what it like to earn fifty-thousand dollars in a day, you could probably remind Jay Z in a vivid manner what fifty-thousand dollars is to a person like him.

I think the world owes an apology to Dong Nguyen, for giving his game attention and giving him a lot of money. On behalf of the world, I would like to apologize for making you and your game excessively popular with its constant crushing of our egos. I would also like to apologize for being part of the reason why you will never know of poverty again. Sorry for pressing ‘install’. I will be sure not to next time I see a game developed by you. Also, thank you for the increasing valuation of my crappy Samsung Galaxy s2.

Flappy Bird: Tap Tap Tapping Your Way into Despair

Tap. Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap tap tap. Tap. Game Over. “Damn!”

Tap. Game Over. “That's it, I’m never playing again!”

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…Tap tap. Tap tap tap tap…. Tap tap…. Tap… tap tap tap tap… tap… Game Over. “Aw, damnit! So close!”

Seated in the fetal position on his sofa, his phone gripped in sweat and tensing fingers, the teenager stares at his screen with a look so angry it could set a fire more powerful than a phoenix’s fart.

The teenager has been in this position for almost half the day. His eyes have not wandered anywhere beyond the screen, and his phone is so hot that it can warm a snake’s enclosure for an entire decade. His head has a bald spot - not in the normal place where men lose begin to bald, and it is not at all hereditary, but it is a bald spot caused by continuos tugging of hair in frustration. But the teenager presses on. For all over Facebook, sit the varied scores of his peers, all higher than his highest. This is another chance for him to be better that someone at something unimportant to the next month of his life and after. He must take this opportunity, seize it, for if he does not, he will lose the chance to be marvelled by the girls that he has on his Facebook.

Again, he tries, and again, he fails. He cannot see any harm in sitting there all day. The only harm he sees is the inability to hold a record score. What he does not realize yet, though, is that his battery is running out, and if he were to score a high score, his battery might no last enough for him to see it, screenshot it, share it, and bask in all its glory. ‘Get Ready!’ his screen beams, lit up with a dull background colour, ensuring that the teenager keeps his eyesight after the long hours he spends playing this game.

The bird on the screen is flapping slowly in mid-air, next to the two ‘tap’ prompts, awaiting the teenager’s touch. The teenager finally sighs, and presses again his finger to the screen, thinking that this time, this time will grant him the score that he is after. A bold white zero sits on top of the screen, waiting to be changed, and taunting the teenager at the same time. In the distance are skyscrapers, with lit windows, probably filled with people shaking their heads at how long the boy has spent on this app.

He lost again, a loud thud noise tells him so. ‘It is a game of skill,’ he thinks to himself. ‘If that is the case, then I guess I have no skills.’ This game does just that. It puts the teenager and every other person with it downloaded down. It deems them useless. If they cannot get a score higher than ten, it does not display a medal on the scoreboard after they lose. In fact, there sits an empty hole where the medal would have sat, indicating that the player does not even deserve to view its pixels. And beneath the scoreboard, sits an innocent looking white button with a green arrow-head in it – ‘go on, play again,’ the game taunts. And so, the teenager does.

The winged bird with no tail and huge eyes is led by the teenager through seemingly narrow pipe openings. One mere touch of any part of a pipe, and the game is well and truly over. It is a game of balancing skills, the skill to know when to tap or let the bird freefall – let it freefall for long and soon enough it will have its pixelated beak planted in the Super Mario-esque grass. Tap the screen an additional tap and the bird will become a Flappy Turd, gliding down a pipe until it is nestled on the hard floor.

There is no pause button - one must not think once to ever pause it and get on with the game at a later time, be there some form of distraction at a time where a good score might be evident. The teenager must continue playing despite the needs of anyone around him depending on where he is in the duration of high score attempts. The washing will have to wait, dinner will have to get cold, the dog will have to walk itself, for there is no pause button and he again, must press on.

While the teenager taps away, other teenagers tap away too. During work breaks, lunch times at school, meeting conferences, restaurant gatherings, parties or an entire day, all people become teenagers at heart when playing Flappy Bird, tap tap tapping their lives away, for that high score that will most likely never come.