The stakes aren’t all that high for me with the recent release of Pokemon Go as a mobile app.  It’s at least two generations removed from what was important to my childhood (I draw the first line at the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but that’s a conversation for another time).  App-wise, I’m already a few trendy app-releases behind to have much interest in it (that first line got drawn at Snap Chat).  But I get the excitability of the app.  Even last night a (younger) friend asked if I had downloaded the game because he thought I’d be good at it considering my approach to transportation.  And while one should never say never . . .

It’s been interesting to watch the cultural gatekeepers of the fourth estate try and make sense of the fad.  Lots of humor about it, which is good.  McSweeney’s got into it with this mash-up of the game and Anthony Bourdain.  They also posted something of biting satirical piece with this “memo from the CIA” concerning the release of the game at this particular moment in history.  The folks over at Vox have a running list of articles about the topic.  You’ve got a look at the possibility of the game’s origin being rooted in Japanese bug collecting.  You’ve also got an article giving a rundown of the awkward and inappropriate places that those little pocket monsters keep popping up (think the National Holocaust Museum and Arlington Cemetery).

Two particular articles caught my attention yesterday (thanks to Twitter).  The first has to do with the economics of the game, particularly its place in the trend towards financial growth of disembodied businesses.  Consider:

But the Pokémon Go economy also has some real downsides. One has to do with regional inequality. Nintendo and its partners are rumored to be earning more than $1 million per day from Pokémon Go. That money is flowing away from small and medium cities and toward big technology companies concentrated in big cities.

And obviously Pokémon Go isn’t the only example of this. Amazon is doing something similar in the retail industry, diverting business away from local retailers and sucking cash into its corporate headquarters in Seattle. Companies like Google, Facebook, and Vox Media are drawing ad dollars that previously went to local newspapers and television stations.

and

But the Pokémon Go economy is different. Nintendo and its partners obviously needed to invest some cash in hiring programmers and designers to build the game. But the sums involved here are tiny compared with the cost of building a new car assembly line. And Pokémon Go seems unlikely to produce very many opportunities for complementary local businesses. People play on their smartphones, so there’s no need for Pokémon cyber cafes. Smartphones are too cheap for smartphone repair shops to be a good business.

The comforting thing is that this is just the next extension in the way the world works in the 21st century.  And there are those that are suggesting that truly creative/entrepreneurial types are finding ways to profit from the manic moment.  This short article from The Ringer points to those making money driving (younger) players around (slowly) to maximize both safety and gameplay.

The second Vox article is the one that I find most interesting.  The article starts by briefly discussing the importance of talking about the game, kids-game that it might be.  From the article:

The backlash to Pokémon Go coverage is understandable. How can it be worth expending all this energy on some video game? But Pokémon Go isn’t really a game. It’s a new technology.

Venture capitalist Chris Dixon has a line I like. “The next big thing will start out looking like a toy,” he says. Welp, Pokémon Go looks like a toy. Hell, it is a toy. But it’s also the first widespread, massive use case for augmented reality — even though it’s operating on smartphones that aren’t designed for AR. So what’s going to happen as the hardware improves, the software improves, and the architects learn to use these more immersive environments to addict us more fully?

The author paints a kind of bleak picture, which is both unfortunate and helpful.  His concern is the ascendance of augmented reality, which amounts to another way for people to check our from what is most real.

Augmented reality begins with Pokémon. It begins as a toy. But it won’t remain a toy. It’s going to become an industry, a constant, a coping mechanism, a way of life. It will change how we spend our time, how we compete for status, how we interact with our loved ones. It will change the behaviors we think of as normal — already we’re seeing Pokémon Go run into racism; it won’t be long until AR cuts across other fault lines in our society.

Technology is about to change how we live once again. That’s why Pokémon Go needs to be covered.

You can read the whole article here.

The last few weeks have reminded me that life and culture can still throw some unexpected curveballs.  Who knew a game app could be one of them?

(image from bgr.com)