Pokemonia! Pokemon Go Takes A Children's Game Outdoors

By combining cuteness, nostalgia and Augmented Reality, Pokémon GO has taken over the world.

- Stuti Agarwal and Siddhartha Mishra

 

Finally, it’s a pleasant evening in Delhi after a summer that didn’t look like it would end. The rain has slowed to an agreeable drizzle; there is a cool breeze in the July air—india Gate hasn’t seen so many smiles in months. Anupriya Mathur, 26, saunters down Rajpath towards Rashtrapati Bhavan, with headphones on, peering into her smartphone. Dusk is creeping in and the crowd has thinned. Suddenly she tenses; she feels a presence near her.

The young graphic designer aims her phone camera at a bush under the jamun tree and spots her “stalker” sitting innocently on a bench next to a young couple. She flicks a ball on her phone’s screen in one clean swipe towards the “monster”, pumps her fist triumphantly. “Yay!”—Rattata is in her “pocket” as far as Anupriya is concerned. The couple, not surprisingly, can’t make head or tail of her pursuit.

Anupriya is playing Pokémon GO, an Augmented Reality (AR) game, developed by American software company Niantic, that has dragged geeks and freaks out of their dens and pyjamas. At last count, these were some 26 million users, from Minnesota to Melbourne, within two weeks of its launch in the US, Europe and Australia. The game has beaten Twitter and Tinder in app downloads. Its Japanese parent Nintendo’s market capital has doubled to $42 billion (approximately Rs 2,823,552,900,000) in seven days, making it more valuable than Sony. Apple alone is slated to make three billion dollars this year through downloads.