It all started as an April Fool’s joke in 2014, at Google, as most of these things usually tend to. A funny video released by Google in which it mashed Google Maps and Pokémon went viral, drawing more than eighteen million views in all. The company behind- Niantic, was then a project inside Google, which later became an independent company leaving Google behind.
Two years in a row and that joke has got turned into a reality. On the historical date of 6th July (which surely has become historical in the app histories now) Pokemon Go got released. An augmented reality game that make players catch Pokemon characters by finding them by going places and pointing them out on their mobile screens. Multiple players battle against each other in the same game (we are sure you don’t need a primer for this).
Within two days of its release, Pokémon Go had been installed on 5.16 per cent of App Developer in the United States. In less than a week it has become the most downloaded app of the moment in Apple’s App Store. Look at the stats below which show that Pokemon Go has even left WhatApp and Snapchat behind –
It has become a cultural phenomenon. Has clogged social media feeds ( which even became irritating at some point of time), obsessed kids and adults, brought people together, and even inspired clever thieves. This app for sure is something new.
And as Wired puts it, “It was weirdly social. Strangers, recognizing what everyone was up to, turned into collaborators or competitors. They chatted about the unreliability of game servers. Kids talked to adults. At the end of a week that seemed to focus on people’s differences—even fatally so—a game turned at least a few different people into, if not friends, at least people unafraid.”
This game has turned tables. Broken previous records. Made people leave their couches and visit market areas, parks, streets, fields, forests and what not? Another reason to gaze onto their phone screens and bump into each other on the roadsides. More crowd at the local coffee stores. More visitors at that almost abandoned museum down the street. It has given us a topic to write a blog about. A reason for potato couches to leave their homes. A reason for neighbors to gather and find Pokemon together. A reason for meme-makers on the social media to draw and post out art. A reason to keep the talk going. A reason to add some more pages in the Mobile application developer history.
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