Hatching an Egg: Pokemon GO
Gaming’s 30-Year Journey from Forsaken Runt to Gym Class Hero
By Niko Alino and Dennis Xu
Niko: June 2006. It’s a sunny Saturday morning, and my alarm is ringing. Eyes bleary, I wonder, “Why did I set this so early?” Then I remember. I get up, grab my Gameboy SP and load in a blue cartridge while I rush down the stairs to our TV. I turn it on just in time to hear “I wanna be the very best…” For the next hour, I’d pull off the seemingly superhuman feat of playing on a little screen in front of me while paying perfect attention to the show.
You can probably think of a similar experience. Remember the days of Torchic, Treecko, and Mudkip? I’d bet you can recall elements of the plot, too. It’s a classic underdog story, detailing the adventures of Ash Ketchum as he travels the world, trying to catch ’em all and become the best Pokemon trainer like no one ever was. I spent hours upon hours of my childhood discovering the world of Kanto and discussing tactics while battling with friends. We all used to wonder, “What if there were Pokemon in real life?” but like any childhood fantasy, this was quickly forgotten as we grew up.
Over the past week, you might have wondered if a magical spell has been cast on the world around you. Your commute to work might have been met with more accidental brush ups with strangers than normal. You might have seen men and women in business attire who would previously walk as if they were on a mission suddenly begin to wander aimlessly around random street corners — their heads buried in phones and hands furiously swiping away. You’ve probably seen more teenagers and adults than usual on your Monday night walks to the park, milling about in packs.
Did Tinder push an update that suddenly made it ten times more popular? Does the above-average weather explain the sudden influx of people to the great outdoors that you once enjoyed in solitude?
It’s possible that you’re finding yourself asking these questions (the answer to both is no). But chances are, with overwhelming probability, that you’re more likely to be one of the people exhibiting this strange behavior than an outsider observing it.
Just three days after its official launch, Pokemon GO officially surpassed Twitter in daily active users. It’s easy to see why the game is so popular. For fitness enthusiasts, the game rewards you for each step you take to work. For restless adventurers, the game rewards you for exploring cool places in the real world. And for those of us who have played games our whole lives, it offers a return to the nostalgic memories of a blissful childhood. As part of a multi-generational, two-decade franchise, Pokemon GO is establishing itself as the perfect bridge to bringing mainstream acceptance to a once forsaken pastime.
At this point, we could go into the story of how Niantec, the company behind the Pokemon Go phenomenon, went from a Google 20% project to a behemoth overnight. Or we could talk about how Pokemon Go is actually the second iteration of a far less popular game called Ingress, released in 2013 and made by the same company, absent the Pokemon narrative. We could even talk about Pokemon GO as augmented reality’s first killer app. But there’s a larger story at play — one that is not three days nor three years, but more than three decades in the making.
From Super Mario Galaxy to Summoner’s Rift, and now the real world
In 1980, the Space Invaders Tournament held by Atari attracted more than ten thousand competitors. The media hailed the event as a “sensation” — how could it possibly get any bigger?
Then, in 2015, the following happened:
- The League of Legends World Championship held by Riot Games attracted more viewers than that of the NBA finals
- An ESPN magazine article written about SK Telecom’s star player, “Faker”, won a journalism award for being one of the year’s best sports pieces
- 459,000 years of gaming content was consumed on the streaming platform, Twitch
- Celebrities like Shaquille O’Neal, Alex Rodriguez, and Rick Fox spent millions of dollars to purchase League of Legends teams
Despite being a multi-billion dollar industry for many decades, gaming has only recently become interwoven into our social fabric. It’s no longer a reserved activity for antisocial nerds in their parent’s basement. You play games. Your family plays games. Your friends play games. Your dog plays games.
Gaming is no longer just about “pwning n00bs” and 360 no-scopes. For many, it’s become a way to connect with friends and explore a new world (or a familiar one). The emphasis is the same: we want to create meaningful memories with those we care about. Once a solitary endeavor, our digital games have become irreversibly tied with social interaction — initially through LAN parties, then through online chat rooms, and now, via real world encounters at Poke Stops. Perhaps more than anything else, Pokemon GO has created a causal relationship between succeeding in a virtual world (catching Pokemon, hatching an egg, defeating gyms) and beneficial outcomes in the real one (exploring new locations around you, walking 5 miles to stay healthy, meeting new people).
Some have expressed the concern that the game has taken over our lives. In reality, it is our lives that have taken over the game.
As any avid gamer would attest, succeeding in a virtual world often feels far more satisfying than succeeding in the real one. The fundamental innovation of Pokemon GO to gaming is in allowing you to do both without sacrificing either.
A multi-generational, cross-globe phenomenon
Dennis: Just a month ago, I went home to see my parents in Canada. In the three years since I’ve left, my mom has picked up a new hobby every time that I’ve visited — probably to fill the void of her only son leaving for college. The first time it was Netflix. Candy Crush followed soon after. The latest installment? A new feature on WeChat called “Red Packets”. In a 500-person WeChat group consisting of university friends and their extended networks, my mom and dad dutifully upload the number of steps they’ve taken each day before they go to sleep.
The rules of the game are simple — surpass 10,000 steps walked on that day or pay up. For those who don’t meet the requirements, they upload their payment in the form of a red packet that others in the group can rush to claim. The first 10 people to claim the packet receive some random amount of Chinese Yuan that collectively sum to the penalty paid.
The beauty of this game is that it keeps people engaged the entire day, as various people living in different timezones upload their scores, and therefore their red packets, at different times. Every 15 minutes, I’d hear my mom yell from the living room to my dad across the house: “Red Packet! Red Packet!”. In fact, if you read their text conversations, you’d be hard pressed to find anything other than those two exact words in their last 200 messages. In the last six months, they’ve missed their target a collective total of four days.
The same parents that once scolded me for spending too much time on DoTA and League of Legends because they lack utility, have taken up a gaming obsession of their own — and their health has never been better.
Over time, the sustained, obsessive hobbies of small (but not too small) groups of people will, in some bastardized form or another, find their way to mainstream acceptance.
Today, gaming and mainstream cultures have become virtually indistinguishable.
A short while ago, such a claim would have been both corny and impossible to believe. Now, it is just corny. Many will look at Pokemon GO as a novelty that will soon disappear. But the evolution (every pun intended) of this phenomenon has implications that reach far beyond the game — or games — itself. As technology continues to evolve, real-world integration with our games will become increasingly seamless. Maybe one day, work really will be play.
An egg has hatched — a culture is being rewritten. I’ll see you at the next Poke Stop.
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This is part one of a series of excerpts from mine and Dennis’ upcoming book on gaming and eSports. We’ll be publishing more of these over the next few months. If you enjoyed this piece, follow us here on Medium and on Twitter (@DennisHXu & @NikoAlino) for future updates.
Thanks to Mike Yu, Zach Rosenthal and Kevin Moody for reading drafts of this throughout the writing process.
