If you see packs of people staring at their phones, flicking their fingers across the screens, followed by either shouts of joy of groans born of frustration, you may be watching folks playing Pokémon GO.
Pokemon is a Japan-based media franchise that’s been around for two decades, and Pokémon GO is its latest offering. The smart phone app takes gamers, known as Pokémon Trainers, out of their lair and onto the street to catch Pokémon. The Trainer’s mission is to catch as many Pokémon as possible and then train them to do battle with each other.
When Nintendo released a version of the game earlier this year, the response was so great the company’s servers shut down. Nintendo made millions in record time and many gamers saw the sun for the first time in a while.
Material culture contributor Gianofer Fields thought that this distinctive niche of material culture, video gaming--and, specifically, Pokémon catching -- was worth exploring.
To come up with this report, she spoke with an avid gamer, Forrest Herschelman, who worried about getting too wrapped up in the new game; his new wife, Roza Smagulova, who had her own concerns; and psychiatrist Gene Yang at the VA hospital in Madison. Fields also tried her own hand at the game.
Smagulova, who was originally a skeptic, decided, "if we go traveling in another city, it will be an awesome way to explore the new city as a cheap guide."
The Radio Chipstone series is funded by the Chipstone Foundation, a decorative arts foundation whose mission is preserving and interpreting their collection, as well as stimulating research and education in the decorative arts.
