Pokemon Go: A Nostalgia and Reward Fueled Enigma
Like many 20-somethings, my first exposure to the Pokemon series was through Pokemon Red and Blue Edition (released on September 28, 1998 in North America).
Following it’s release, Pokemon garnered a monumental fanbase amongst the children (and adults) of the “milennial” generation.
The success of these games can’t be attributed to exceptional graphics or visual aesthetics, but instead was a direct result of it’s ability to craft a satisfying and rewarding experience for it’s users. Pokemon fulfilled an intrinsic desire for millions of people; a desire to explore, a desire to be a part of a community, a desire to belong in a world that was more desirable than our own.
Fast forward nearly 20 years, and a lot has changed. But not as much as we might think…
We live in a world that is interconnected in ways that never seemed possible in the distant past of 1998. The age of social media has taken hold, and as a result we can communicate and share information in ways that were not previously imagined. However, these innovations have impacted our inclination to interact with each other and the world around us. More and more, we look down at our devices, ignoring the world around us.
On July 6th 2016, Pokemon Go entered the Android and Apple Store. Only a week later and it is widely considered by many to be the most popular mobile game of all time.
Pokemon has always had a substantial amount of brand equity, and it’s no surprise that this joint venture between Niantic and The Pokemon Company would be popular; but the immense popularity of the game has been surprising to many.
It is absolutely not without it’s flaws, there are still many, many bugs that need to be tackled. The game has an immense impact on battery life, servers are constantly down, the app often crashes during play, and some of the interactions (such as transferring Pokemon) are far from convenient.
So how does a game with so many flaws succeed in such a major way?
Pokemon Go succeeds because it taps into our sense of nostalgia, our need to belong, and our desire to be a part of the world in which the handheld games, TV shows, and movies took place. The original cartoon series instilled us with the desire to go on our own adventure, meets new friends and characters, and to be apart of a population aspiring for a common goal. Pokemon Go is helping it’s audience make this aspiration a reality even if the Pokemon they’re looking for don’t really exist.
Pokemon Go has changed the way I live and experience the world around me. I walk more. I meet new people. I go out of my way to get outdoors and go to new, exciting places. Outside of the nostalgia factor, the underlying motivation fueling this change in my lifestyle is a simple desire for reward.
The app makes the action of catching Pokemon just as captivating as it was in the handheld games. In addition, they’ve done a great job with providing users with a sense of accomplishment when completing a task such as beating a gym, encountering a pokestop, or hatching an egg.
It’s rewards also extend beyond the in-app experience because it instills it’s users with a sense of belonging and accomplishment. Each user wants to have the strongest or most desirable Pokemon, and each user also wants to be around friends and strangers that share this common purpose.
Similar to the original 1995 games, the success of this app can’t be attributed to a flawless interface or experience design. Instead it’s a direct result of Niantic’s success in crafting a satisfying, rewarding, nostalgia-fueled romp which taps into their audience’s need to, “be the very best, like no one ever was.”
