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Speaker 1: Get technology. With tex Stuff comes stuff stock Coom. Hey there,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to tex Stuff. I am your host, Jonathan Strickland,

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Speaker 1: and today is the day that I talked about the

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Speaker 1: game that took the world by storm. Everyone was either

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Speaker 1: playing it, knew someone who was playing it, or at

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Speaker 1: least was wondering what the heck was going on. Pokemon Go.

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Speaker 1: It's a thing. It's a big thing. So I want

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Speaker 1: to talk today about where it came from, how it works,

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Speaker 1: where it's going. What are some of the other weird

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Speaker 1: stories around it. You've probably heard quite a few of

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Speaker 1: them already. I'm going to kind of cover a lot

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Speaker 1: of that in today's episode. And yes, I have played

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Speaker 1: Pokemon Go. I am of an age that is over

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Speaker 1: the age of forty, which means that I was too old,

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Speaker 1: or rather too old is probably the wrong way of

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Speaker 1: putting it. I was not the right age demographic for

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Speaker 1: Pokemon when it first debuted, so it missed me. I

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Speaker 1: found myself mostly mystified by what Pokemon was, didn't really

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Speaker 1: understand when, uh, you know, the kids on the lawns

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Speaker 1: started talking about pokemons, which I understand they think is

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Speaker 1: not at all funny, which is the reason why we

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Speaker 1: old people keep saying it that way. Um, I wasn't

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Speaker 1: really in that age group, so I didn't get it.

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Speaker 1: It was kind of like magic the gathering. I didn't

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Speaker 1: get into that. So people who were really into it,

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Speaker 1: I it was like talking a different language whenever I

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Speaker 1: chatted with them. But now I played Pokemon Go a bit,

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Speaker 1: I'm starting to understand. I obviously, UH don't have the

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Speaker 1: depth of knowledge of the players who have been with

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Speaker 1: it since the very beginning, but I'm I'm starting to

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Speaker 1: actually understand what it is they're talking about now, which

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Speaker 1: is interesting. Uh. It is an interesting game, and I

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Speaker 1: see where the appeal is now. So let's talk about

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Speaker 1: a history of Pokemon itself before we get into Pokemon

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Speaker 1: Go and the company that created it. Uh. That goes

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Speaker 1: back to it's when a young man named Satoshi to

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Speaker 1: Jerry came up with an idea that would evolve into Pokemon. Evolution,

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Speaker 1: by the way, plays a big part in the Pokemon universe,

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Speaker 1: but I just happened to have chosen the word evolve

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Speaker 1: there to Jerry had already founded a video game magazine

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Speaker 1: earlier in the eighties with a couple of friends. That

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Speaker 1: magazine was called game freak, and he had even pitched

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Speaker 1: a few ideas to different game companies in the past.

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Speaker 1: He won a competition, I believe for Sega to pitch

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Speaker 1: a game idea in the early eighties. So he had

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Speaker 1: really loved video games for quite some time, to the

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Speaker 1: point where his his academic performance was suffering back when

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Speaker 1: he was in school, and had always been at least

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Speaker 1: wanted to be part of the video game culture and industry.

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Speaker 1: Now to Jerry, also, as a kid loved to catch

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Speaker 1: things like tadpoles and insects. He loved to catch and

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Speaker 1: collect them, and uh, he began to think about maybe

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Speaker 1: making a video game that had a similar kind of

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Speaker 1: purpose to it, like the idea of catching and collecting things.

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Speaker 1: And he had also seen the game Boy mobile device,

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Speaker 1: the handheld gaming console, as well as the game Link

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Speaker 1: cable which allowed two game boys to link together for

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Speaker 1: competitive or cooperative play, and it got the ball rolling.

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Speaker 1: He started thinking, well, what if I created a game

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Speaker 1: in which players seek out creatures to collect, then they

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Speaker 1: could also maybe trade creatures with each other. So let's

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Speaker 1: say I catch two of the same thing, and I

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Speaker 1: have two of them, but my friend doesn't have any

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Speaker 1: of them, but my friend does have another creature I

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Speaker 1: do not have. Maybe we can make a trade happen.

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Speaker 1: And then he thought, well, what if we could also

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Speaker 1: have these creatures compete against each other create a competitive

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Speaker 1: gameplay element, And so he pitched this idea to Nintendo.

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Speaker 1: At the time, he was calling it Capsule Monsters, the

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Speaker 1: idea being that you would use these little capsules to

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Speaker 1: capture the monsters themselves, and then the monsters would emerge

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Speaker 1: from the capsules. This was similar to some uh uh

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Speaker 1: some some Japanese shows that he liked a lot where

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Speaker 1: monsters and and creatures could pop out of seemingly impossibly

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Speaker 1: small containers. So you've got this tight little container that

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Speaker 1: suddenly pops open, and a creature much too large to

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Speaker 1: fit that container is there. He wanted to have that

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Speaker 1: element in it as well too. Jerry initially met with

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Speaker 1: some resistance from Nintendo when he was pitching this idea,

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Speaker 1: but eventually he got the green light to develop the game.

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Speaker 1: So over the next six years he refined his idea

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Speaker 1: and worked with the video game studio Creatures to create it.

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Speaker 1: They changed the name from Capsule Monsters to pocket Monsters

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Speaker 1: or Pokemon after in honoring a trademark Hurdle with the

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Speaker 1: original name, and the game launched in Japan in February

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Speaker 1: nine six. It's a very simple game, where you're simple

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Speaker 1: is being too dismissive. It was simple in concept. You

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Speaker 1: would capture these creatures and train them and and have

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Speaker 1: them battle other creatures and earned badges, and it was

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Speaker 1: really compelling gameplay. It struck a nerve, became extremely popular,

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Speaker 1: and two years later in it would come over to

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Speaker 1: North America and also find a lot of popularity here.

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Speaker 1: Now again that basic idea is simple. Player takes on

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Speaker 1: the role of a trainer. A trainer can seek out

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Speaker 1: and catch Pokemon. There's several broad categories of Pokemon, and

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Speaker 1: some are more effective at battling one type of creature

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Speaker 1: over a different type of creature. It's like a really

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Speaker 1: complicated version of paper rock scissors. So you've got a

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Speaker 1: Pokemon that's of a certain type. It's more effect of

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Speaker 1: against creatures that belong to a different type, and less

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Speaker 1: effective against creatures who belong to a third type. So

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Speaker 1: you want to make strategic use of your Pokemon to

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Speaker 1: maximize your ability to beat your opponent. Now you're not

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Speaker 1: guaranteed to win or lose just because the type of

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Speaker 1: Pokemon you use is matched well or poorly against another one.

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Speaker 1: There are other elements at play here. It's not just

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Speaker 1: the type, but the type has a big influence. It

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Speaker 1: is definitely much easier to win if your type of

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Speaker 1: Pokemon is better suited against your opponent's type. So not

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Speaker 1: a guarantee, but definitely easier. Now, this idea became a

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Speaker 1: bit more complicated with the game mechanic of evolving Pokemon

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Speaker 1: into more advanced versions of that creature. Uh. In other words,

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Speaker 1: you could end up having your Pokemon transform, kind of

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Speaker 1: like going from caterpillar to butterfly. In fact, there are

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Speaker 1: several Pokemon that have a transformation that is similar to that,

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Speaker 1: and when they evolve, they typically are more powerful, their

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Speaker 1: attacks are different, uh, and generally speaking, they are better

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Speaker 1: than they were before. It's a little more complicated than that,

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Speaker 1: but that's the general idea now. The initial attraction is

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Speaker 1: that concept of collecting. To Jerry knew that lots of

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Speaker 1: people find satisfaction and seeking out and obtaining stuff like

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Speaker 1: almost like a scavenger hunt or treasure hunt. This was

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Speaker 1: one that had randomness inserted into it, so it wasn't

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Speaker 1: that you were absolutely certain to run into a specific

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Speaker 1: type of Pokemon at a specific point in the game.

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Speaker 1: There was a lot of chance that was involved as well,

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Speaker 1: and that led to that phrase that has been associated

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Speaker 1: with Pokemon ever since. I got to Catch them All.

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Speaker 1: You had to catch all the different types of Pokemon

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Speaker 1: out there. And in that initial Pokemon game that came

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Speaker 1: out for the Game Boy or games, I should say,

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Speaker 1: there were about a hundred and fifty one of them.

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Speaker 1: Hundred and fifty of them were published before the game

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Speaker 1: even came out, or announced before the game came out.

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Speaker 1: The hundred fifty first, which was Mew, was kept as

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Speaker 1: a secret until after the game came out, and the

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Speaker 1: games were insanely popular. They inspired manga and anime series,

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Speaker 1: They inspired toys, they inspired a trading card game as

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Speaker 1: well as other merchandise, and there have been multiple games

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Speaker 1: in the series. Typically, later games would add even more

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Speaker 1: Pokemon and more evolutions to the world, so you would

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Speaker 1: get a lot more with the various uh additional versions

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Speaker 1: of the game that came out. So that's the history

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Speaker 1: of Pokemon in a nutshell, a very short version. Let's

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Speaker 1: talk about the technological foundation for Pokemon Go. So you've

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Speaker 1: got Pokemon that's going like gangbusters. It's incredibly popular across

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Speaker 1: multiple forms of media. Uh, it is right for a

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Speaker 1: new implementation into a game. Meanwhile, around the same time,

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Speaker 1: you have a technological development and augmented reality that is

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Speaker 1: creating the opportunity for this game. But that that opportunity

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Speaker 1: didn't just spontaneously happen to To look at the development

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Speaker 1: of Pokemon Go, you have to look at a company

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Speaker 1: called key Hole Incorporated. Now Keyhole started in two thousand one.

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Speaker 1: It was a private startup company in Silicon Valley, and

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Speaker 1: it received financial backing from lots of investors, you know,

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Speaker 1: like Sony was a big investor. Also a big investor

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Speaker 1: was a venture capital fund that was connected to the

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Speaker 1: c i A, the Central Intelligence Agency. So you probably

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Speaker 1: have heard that Pokemon Go was created by a guy

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Speaker 1: who got funding from the c i A. That's an oversimplification,

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Speaker 1: but the CIA was interested in fun Keyhole. And what

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Speaker 1: was Keyhole doing. They were creating detailed maps with geospatial

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Speaker 1: data incorporated directly into those digital maps. In other words,

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Speaker 1: you would be able to create a digital globe that

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Speaker 1: had an accurate representation of what was in any specific region. Um.

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Speaker 1: And as you've got more data about stuff that was

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Speaker 1: in that region, you could add it to the map

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Speaker 1: and make it more accurate. Uh. And so you have

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Speaker 1: think of like a a very accurate local map and

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Speaker 1: then just expand that to be for the entire globe.

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Speaker 1: It was not a small undertaking, but Keyhole went after it.

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Speaker 1: One of their early products was called Earth Viewer, which

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Speaker 1: looked like a primitive version of Google Earth. You probably

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Speaker 1: have seen Google Earth. In fact, it became the basis

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Speaker 1: for Google Earth. The company gained recognition in the early

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Speaker 1: two thousands as news programs ranging from CNN to ABC

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Speaker 1: and CBS. We're using the software to create visualizations of

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Speaker 1: different cities around the world, particular pularly for wartime footage.

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Speaker 1: So you have this very dramatic look as a camera

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Speaker 1: seemed to zoom in on a virtual globe all the

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Speaker 1: way down to a level where you could see specific buildings. UM.

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Speaker 1: It is very effective in that way, very dramatic, especially

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Speaker 1: for the early two thousands. Now, the CEO for a

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Speaker 1: Keyhole Incorporated it was a guy named John Hank who

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Speaker 1: has continued to be a very important part of this

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Speaker 1: entire process. Now in two thousand four, Google purchased Keyhole

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Speaker 1: Incorporated for a cool thirty five million dollars. Google was

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Speaker 1: busy trying to create the Google Earth product and saw

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Speaker 1: the value of acquiring the Keyhole software and expertise. Now,

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Speaker 1: if you've never used Google Earth, it is an interactive

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Speaker 1: digital globe. You can zoom in as if you're descending

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Speaker 1: an altitude over the Earth, so you can look at

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Speaker 1: it from a view of your looking at Earth from space,

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Speaker 1: and then you can zoom in closer, so you start

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Speaker 1: getting details. And those details originally as you descend will

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Speaker 1: be from satellite imagery. As you continue to zoom in,

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Speaker 1: that will give way to images that were created through

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Speaker 1: aerial photography, so you get better detail and definition. And

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Speaker 1: then if you continue to zoom in, you start seeing

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Speaker 1: three dimensional representations of landmarks and buildings. Um So, for example,

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Speaker 1: I took a look at a three dimensional version of

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Speaker 1: the office building we work in, which is at six

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Speaker 1: seven five Constantly and Avenue. If you want to take

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Speaker 1: a look at that in Atlanta, Georgia, and open Google Earth,

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Speaker 1: you can pull up a view of the building we

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Speaker 1: work in. It is enormous. We have a very small

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Speaker 1: space in that very large building. Um it's not a

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Speaker 1: very small space to us. To us, it's large, but

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Speaker 1: in the context of the building it's very small. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: you can get these three dimensional views, so it's like

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Speaker 1: you are virtually at that location. You can even uh

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Speaker 1: do navigation from one point to another and it'll be

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Speaker 1: as if you are going through the streets to get

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Speaker 1: from point A to point B, making all the turns necessary.

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Speaker 1: And this sort of stuff has been built up in

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Speaker 1: Google Earth over time. It's not like Keyhole came in

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Speaker 1: and created Google her Google Earth, um uh the way

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Speaker 1: it is now right off the gate. It has been

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Speaker 1: a process, so things like that three dimensional representation of

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Speaker 1: buildings that took time to develop. And over the years,

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Speaker 1: Google offered a few different versions of Google Earth, including

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Speaker 1: a commercial version that businesses would pay for in order

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Speaker 1: to incorporate Google Earth capabilities into websites or programs of

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Speaker 1: some sort. So, in other words, if you were a

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Speaker 1: company and you are creating a a program to show

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Speaker 1: the effects of your business. Maybe you're a construction company

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Speaker 1: and you want to show off some of the buildings

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Speaker 1: that your construction company has built in the past, that

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Speaker 1: might be a good implementation of it and Google actually

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Speaker 1: sold a commercial product, which these days is free, but

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Speaker 1: at the time you had to pay something like four

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Speaker 1: hundred bucks for a copy. So when Keyhole came over,

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Speaker 1: Hank remained on board and continue to work on Google products.

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Speaker 1: In Hank created a department within Google itself called Nyantic.

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Speaker 1: So this was a startup company kind of thing, but

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Speaker 1: it was within Google itself, so it wasn't a separate company.

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Speaker 1: It operated kind of like a company, but under the

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Speaker 1: corporate identity of Google itself, so it's sort of a

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Speaker 1: division slash startup. The group took its name from a

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Speaker 1: whaling ship that operated out of San Francisco during the

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Speaker 1: gold rush days. At one point that ship was dragged

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Speaker 1: onto shore and eventually it was built over. And Hank said,

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Speaker 1: you know, San Francisco is like this. You've got all

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Speaker 1: these ships that were eventually just kind of incorporated into

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Speaker 1: the landscape of San Francisco, or or are underneath San Francisco.

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Speaker 1: And he said that gave him the idea that the

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Speaker 1: world around us often has a lot of treasures that

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Speaker 1: are not evident just upon first glance, that you know,

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Speaker 1: you would have to have this revealed to you. And

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Speaker 1: so he liked the idea of creating technologies that would

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Speaker 1: augment reality so that we could reveal those things to us,

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Speaker 1: or even appear to reveal things that were not actually there.

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Speaker 1: In other words, imagine having an app that can transform

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Speaker 1: the space around you so that it looks like a

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Speaker 1: fantasy medieval setting. That's the sort of stuff that you

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Speaker 1: could do. Or just an app that allows you to

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Speaker 1: walk down a city street and take a look at

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Speaker 1: what it was like a century ago. That's the sort

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Speaker 1: of stuff he was thinking of. Niantic, by the way,

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Speaker 1: is also the name, or at least the Anglicized name,

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Speaker 1: of the Nhantucket tribe, who are Native Americans that lived

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Speaker 1: in New England. Presumably, I would, uh say, that's the

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Speaker 1: source of the whaling ship's name. So Niantic Labs takes

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Speaker 1: its name from a whaling ship, which in turn took

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Speaker 1: its name I assume at least from a Native American tribe. Now,

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Speaker 1: Niantic labs first product was called field Trip, which was

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Speaker 1: a mobile app that provides tips for stuff to do

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Speaker 1: based upon your location. Actually had this on my phone

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Speaker 1: for a while. Uh I felt that it was a

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Speaker 1: little limited in its use, but the idea is kind

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Speaker 1: of cool. Like let's say you're walking down a street

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Speaker 1: that you haven't been down before. Maybe it's even in

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Speaker 1: a city that you're visiting for the first time. Field

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Speaker 1: trip might point out cool places for you to go to,

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Speaker 1: like museums or theaters that you might be interested in,

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Speaker 1: or maybe even that a music group you happen to

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Speaker 1: like also happens to be play being at a venue

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Speaker 1: near you at that time, or it might show you

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Speaker 1: like restaurants you would enjoy based upon your preferences, that

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Speaker 1: kind of stuff. In two thousand and twelve, Nyantick would

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Speaker 1: publish its first augmented reality game, and that was Ingress.

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Speaker 1: So you may have heard that Pokemon Go was kind

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Speaker 1: of built upon the foundation of Ingress, and a large

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Speaker 1: part that's true. We actually covered Ingress back on uh

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Speaker 1: an episode of tech Stuff way back in two thousand

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Speaker 1: and twelve, So you can go back and listen to

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Speaker 1: that classic episode of tech Stuff and listen to what

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Speaker 1: we thought Ingress would be like at that time. It

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Speaker 1: was still i think in beta when it we did

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Speaker 1: that episode. At any rate, the game requires players to

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Speaker 1: visit real world locations in order to participate. Inside the game,

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Speaker 1: you have to walk around the real environment and use

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Speaker 1: your app to interact inside a virtual environment that's overlaid

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Speaker 1: on top of the real environment. That's the augmented reality thing.

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Speaker 1: It enjoyed modest success among certain population. On the whole,

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Speaker 1: I would say that Ingress was rather a niche game.

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Speaker 1: Um people in the tech industry were more likely to

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Speaker 1: play it, I imagine, than folks who are outside of it.

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Speaker 1: It didn't have as broad an appeal as something like Pokemon. Now,

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Speaker 1: important locations within the game Ingress are mapped to real

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Speaker 1: world locations, and you have to go to those real

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Speaker 1: world locations in order to interact with the game, at

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Speaker 1: least if you're as long as you're not like gaming

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Speaker 1: the system by spoofing your phones geolocation, which is something

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Speaker 1: that technically you could do, but it's not with the

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Speaker 1: spirit of the game. So Nyantick was tapping into Google's

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Speaker 1: massive database of geotagged photos in order to populate the

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Speaker 1: game with initial locations. So let's say that there's a

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Speaker 1: famous outdoor sculpture and there's been tons of photos that

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Speaker 1: are geo tagged that have been uploaded into Google's databases

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Speaker 1: Google Photos, or something along those lines. Google could say

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Speaker 1: all right, well, this sculpture is at this particular location,

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Speaker 1: it is of cultural value. We're going to create a

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Speaker 1: portal inside the game that is tagged to that location,

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Speaker 1: and in order to interact with that portal, you have

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Speaker 1: to go to where that sculpture is. The idea being

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Speaker 1: that this will encourage people not just to play the game,

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Speaker 1: but to explore their environments, to go to places that

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Speaker 1: they might not go to before, and to encounter things

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Speaker 1: of historical and cultural significance, and and get a better

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Speaker 1: connection to their the world around them. That's kind of idealistic.

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Speaker 1: You may be thinking, well, whenever I see people playing

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Speaker 1: Pokemon Go, they're just staring at their their phones. They're

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Speaker 1: not looking at anything else around them. But it's not

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Speaker 1: for lack of trying anyway. Niantic also allowed players to

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Speaker 1: take GEO tagged photos of locations that they thought should

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Speaker 1: be in the game. So let's say that you're walking

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Speaker 1: down the street and you see this amazing mural that's

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Speaker 1: painted on the side of the building, and you pull

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Speaker 1: up Ingress and you look at Ingress and there's no

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Speaker 1: portal associated with that mural, and you're thinking, well, that's

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Speaker 1: a shame. This should really be in the game so

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Speaker 1: that people can see it and appreciate it, and also

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Speaker 1: just so it can you know, be part of the game. Well.

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Speaker 1: Ingress would allow you to take a photo of that

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Speaker 1: mural and upload it so that the team over at

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Speaker 1: Niantic Labs could review it and decide whether or not

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Speaker 1: that merited inclusion in the game, and if they thought

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Speaker 1: it did, they would then create a portal inside the

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Speaker 1: game that would be tagged to that physical location. So

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Speaker 1: part of the game was created through the data mining

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Speaker 1: of Google's photos, part of the game was created through

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Speaker 1: crowdsourced information from the players themselves, and all of that

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Speaker 1: data that groundwork that ends up being the basis for

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Speaker 1: Pokemon Go later on. So if you're wondering how did

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Speaker 1: they come up with the idea for these partic or

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Speaker 1: pocus stops or gems, those came from Ingress the work

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Speaker 1: that was done previously on Ingress UH. And so we

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Speaker 1: should be thankful to Ingress players for creating that, or

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Speaker 1: in some cases we should probably be upset at them

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Speaker 1: because there have been some issues with trespassing UH and

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Speaker 1: some UH some overcrowding in certain areas that have irritated

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Speaker 1: certain folks. So both good and bad has come out

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Speaker 1: of that ingress experiment. Also, I should point out that

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Speaker 1: in some cases the sites that have been included are

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Speaker 1: kind of temporary art exhibitions that get replaced occasionally. So

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Speaker 1: often I will see a pokas stop, pull it up,

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Speaker 1: and I'll think, well, that's what this used to be,

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Speaker 1: but it's not what it is right now. In fact,

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Speaker 1: a theater I go to all the time used to

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Speaker 1: be a church, and in Pokemon Go it still comes

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Speaker 1: up as a church. It's not coming up as the theater.

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Speaker 1: But that's, you know, that's to be understood. It's there's

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Speaker 1: The world is a big place, and Niantic keeping everything

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Speaker 1: up to date would be uh, that's all they would

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Speaker 1: be able to do. And even then they wouldn't be

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Speaker 1: able to do it. They'd just be making a tiny

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Speaker 1: dent in an enormous, enormous shield. So Niantic in two

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Speaker 1: thousand and fifteen would leave Google. Google was restructuring at

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Speaker 1: that time. You may remember we did an episode about

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Speaker 1: this about Google becoming Alphabet or creating Alphabet as a

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Speaker 1: parent company and Google being underneath it. During that restructuring,

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Speaker 1: a lot of stuff changed, and one of the things

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Speaker 1: that changed was Niantic got spun off as its own individual,

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Speaker 1: independent company. A month after it was spun off, Niantic

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Speaker 1: Labs announced that it was working on a game called

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Speaker 1: Pokemon Go. So it wasn't long after Niantic became its

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Speaker 1: own independent entity that said we're gonna make a game

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Speaker 1: in the Pokemon universe that is an augmented reality the game.

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Speaker 1: A month after they announced Pokemon Go, they held a

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Speaker 1: round of funding and raised twenty million dollars from lots

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Speaker 1: of different sources, including Pokemon, Google, and Nintendo. In early July,

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Speaker 1: Pokemon Go entered beta testing with a relatively small group

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Speaker 1: of users, and they wanted to test out the various

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Speaker 1: features of the game, make sure that the stuff was

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Speaker 1: working the way they intended it, and also to kind

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Speaker 1: of measure server load. And then they went and opened

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Speaker 1: it up region by regions, so some regions like got

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Speaker 1: the roll out a week or two after others. Nantick

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Speaker 1: noticed that the demand for the game was way beyond

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Speaker 1: what they expected, causing lots of server issues. Early on,

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Speaker 1: there was such a demand on servers that, at least

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Speaker 1: for some of us, more frequently than not, you saw

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Speaker 1: the game was not working, You couldn't connect to a

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Speaker 1: server at all. Very frustrating if you happen to be

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Speaker 1: someone who walks to and from work, and you think,

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Speaker 1: I walk all the time anyway, Now I'm going to

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Speaker 1: get rewarded for it, you know, besides that being outdoors

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Speaker 1: fresh air exercise thing. Who needs that? I want my pokemons.

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Speaker 1: But often I found myself unable to connect to the servers,

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00:24:20,240 --> 00:24:21,800
Speaker 1: and then I thought, well, there's no point in me

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Speaker 1: walking anyway because I'm a sour pus. But what is

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Speaker 1: Pokemon Go? What is the game? Well, currently the game

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00:24:31,680 --> 00:24:37,720
Speaker 1: focuses almost almost entirely on collecting Pokemon creatures. That's the

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Speaker 1: I would argue, the largest part of the game. There

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Speaker 1: are other elements too, but this I think takes the

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00:24:45,640 --> 00:24:50,520
Speaker 1: precedent like it's the top priority, and you collect characters

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Speaker 1: by walking around the real world with the app open

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00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:57,679
Speaker 1: on your mobile device and active. That is an issue

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Speaker 1: for some people because there's a bit of a bad

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Speaker 1: redrain with Pokemon Go. And you can turn some battery

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Speaker 1: save features on and you can turn off augmented reality

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Speaker 1: if you want to help extend your battery life on

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Speaker 1: your mobile device, but you have to have the app

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Speaker 1: open and active in order for you to encounter Pokemon

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Speaker 1: and to interact with Pokus stops and that kind of stuff.

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Speaker 1: So when you come into range of a Pokemon critter,

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Speaker 1: typically you get a little sound effect and maybe your

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00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:28,320
Speaker 1: phone vibrates if you've set that on your on your device,

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00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:31,760
Speaker 1: and it alerts you. You pull up your phone, you

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00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:36,959
Speaker 1: see it represented on the map, and you push the

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00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:41,080
Speaker 1: screen in order to activate the sequence that would allow

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Speaker 1: you to attempt to catch it and add it to

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Speaker 1: your collection. If you do collect it, and you had

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00:25:46,920 --> 00:25:50,320
Speaker 1: never collected one of that Pokemon ever before, you add

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Speaker 1: it to your Poka Dex, your lexicon and Pokemon creatures,

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00:25:54,200 --> 00:25:56,199
Speaker 1: so you've added it to your Poka Dex. After you

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00:25:56,280 --> 00:25:58,840
Speaker 1: encounter it and capture it for the first time, you

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00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:01,280
Speaker 1: get a little bit of an experienens bonus with that,

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00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:03,080
Speaker 1: so you can level up a little faster if you

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00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:06,040
Speaker 1: start encountering new Pokemon. And of course the more new

432
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:08,959
Speaker 1: ones you encounter, the fewer there are left for you

433
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:12,120
Speaker 1: to encounter, and that that kind of adds into that

434
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:15,479
Speaker 1: feeling that you have to go out and find the

435
00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:19,040
Speaker 1: ones that you have not yet tracked down. Catching a

436
00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:22,520
Speaker 1: Pokemon in the first place involves swiping a poke ball.

437
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:25,119
Speaker 1: These are those capsules I was talking about that can

438
00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 1: encapsulate a Pokemon, even though the ball is much smaller

439
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:32,040
Speaker 1: than the creature you're using it on, typically in some

440
00:26:32,080 --> 00:26:36,120
Speaker 1: cases way smaller. If you read up on the various

441
00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:40,200
Speaker 1: sizes of the of the monsters, and the ball appears

442
00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:43,600
Speaker 1: at the bottom of your screen, you swipe your screen

443
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:47,960
Speaker 1: so that you throw the ball at the Pokemon, and

444
00:26:48,520 --> 00:26:51,240
Speaker 1: if your a R mode is turned on, the Pokemon

445
00:26:51,359 --> 00:26:55,399
Speaker 1: is superimposed on the environment around you. Your your phone's

446
00:26:55,480 --> 00:26:58,480
Speaker 1: camera will be on and the screen you look at

447
00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:01,720
Speaker 1: will actually be a video like a not quite it's

448
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:04,200
Speaker 1: not like it's recording, but it'll it'll be a live

449
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:07,640
Speaker 1: view of whatever the camera's pointed at, and the Pokemon

450
00:27:07,680 --> 00:27:09,320
Speaker 1: will be super imposed on top of that. If you

451
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:12,119
Speaker 1: turn a R mode off, it's just a little cartoon environment.

452
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:15,840
Speaker 1: And then either way you start swiping the ball toward

453
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 1: the Pokemon and the Pokemon needs to hit the monster.

454
00:27:19,920 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 1: There's a little circle that will appear on the monster,

455
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:24,640
Speaker 1: and it will be a different color depending upon the ability,

456
00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:29,159
Speaker 1: the strength of that Pokemon, and how hard it is

457
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 1: to catch. So a green circle means and relatively easy catch,

458
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:37,600
Speaker 1: and the circle gets smaller until it gets down to

459
00:27:37,680 --> 00:27:39,560
Speaker 1: until it shrinks down to you know nothing, and it

460
00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:43,200
Speaker 1: starts over again at the larger size. If you throw

461
00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:45,000
Speaker 1: the ball in such a way that lands in the

462
00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:47,439
Speaker 1: middle of the circle, you get a bonus, and depending

463
00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:49,959
Speaker 1: on how big the circle is, the bonus can go

464
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:53,119
Speaker 1: higher or lower, like if it's a smaller circle and

465
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:56,880
Speaker 1: you hit the center, you get more points, more more

466
00:27:56,920 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 1: bonus experience points. Just because you hit the a the

467
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:02,680
Speaker 1: pokemon with the ball doesn't mean you capture it, though.

468
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:05,479
Speaker 1: The pokemon can have an attempt to escape, and if

469
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:08,359
Speaker 1: it does you have to keep on trying. Sometimes it

470
00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:11,919
Speaker 1: can actually just get away and you're just left with nothing.

471
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:15,240
Speaker 1: Um it could be kind of tricky to catch some

472
00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:18,679
Speaker 1: of these pokemon, even if they are relatively easy you

473
00:28:18,720 --> 00:28:22,400
Speaker 1: know to catch, like if the circle is green, particularly

474
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:24,840
Speaker 1: if you're walking a dog, because my dog Timble doesn't

475
00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:26,760
Speaker 1: understand that he needs to be still when an ev

476
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:31,760
Speaker 1: is in the area. He hasn't feared that part out yet. Um.

477
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:35,879
Speaker 1: So you can actually increase your chances now catching pokemon

478
00:28:36,119 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 1: within the game by using various items. There are berries

479
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:44,160
Speaker 1: that will decrease the pokemon's um desire to escape. There

480
00:28:44,160 --> 00:28:47,520
Speaker 1: are better poke balls that have a better chance of

481
00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:52,200
Speaker 1: keeping a Pokemon captured, but that's the basic idea is

482
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:55,479
Speaker 1: just collect as many of them as you can. Now,

483
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:58,400
Speaker 1: once you collect them, you can also upgrade them. You

484
00:28:58,440 --> 00:29:02,960
Speaker 1: can spend some points called star dust and some pieces

485
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:06,080
Speaker 1: of in game currency called candy that are specific to

486
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:10,840
Speaker 1: each type of Pokemon, So you can use those points

487
00:29:10,840 --> 00:29:15,920
Speaker 1: and candy to increase your Pokemon's ability to to do

488
00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:19,360
Speaker 1: more damage in combat or to withstand more damage in

489
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:23,560
Speaker 1: combat as well. Uh you can also use that candy

490
00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:26,840
Speaker 1: to evolve a Pokemon if you have enough of them,

491
00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:30,320
Speaker 1: and if that Pokemon in fact has an evolved form.

492
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:33,680
Speaker 1: Not all of them do, but they do, you can

493
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:36,840
Speaker 1: continue to collect those candy and use them to evolve

494
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:42,120
Speaker 1: your Pokemon. Typically, you get three candies of a specific

495
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:46,720
Speaker 1: type every time you catch up pokemon. So if I

496
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:49,440
Speaker 1: caught a Rotata, which are one of the most common

497
00:29:49,480 --> 00:29:52,560
Speaker 1: types here in Atlanta, then I would get three Ratatta

498
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:55,719
Speaker 1: candies for capturing the Rotata, and if I transfer the rotata,

499
00:29:55,800 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 1: if I trade it in because I don't need it

500
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 1: and I already got a billion other retatas then I

501
00:30:01,400 --> 00:30:05,040
Speaker 1: get one more piece of candy in return for that trade.

502
00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:08,440
Speaker 1: If you save up enough pieces of candy, then you

503
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:13,320
Speaker 1: can you can evolve your retata to its next form.

504
00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:16,280
Speaker 1: As the general idea and as of this recording, the

505
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:20,560
Speaker 1: creatures from the original Pokemon game are the only ones

506
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:23,640
Speaker 1: that you can find in Pokemon Go. And also some

507
00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:26,360
Speaker 1: of those are legendary and will only be available during

508
00:30:26,400 --> 00:30:29,960
Speaker 1: special times of the year, at specific events or particular locations,

509
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:33,920
Speaker 1: so they will be exceedingly rare. It will be very

510
00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:35,320
Speaker 1: like you have to be in the right place at

511
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:37,200
Speaker 1: the right time, and you have to be lucky to

512
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:42,080
Speaker 1: catch them. So, for example, in North America, there are

513
00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:45,800
Speaker 1: one two of the hundred and fifty one Pokemon that

514
00:30:45,840 --> 00:30:49,360
Speaker 1: are available. If you wanted to catch any of the others,

515
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:52,840
Speaker 1: you would have to travel to other continents. It's a

516
00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:55,920
Speaker 1: little complicated. A few players in North America have already

517
00:30:55,920 --> 00:31:00,800
Speaker 1: caught all of the ones that are available in North America. Um,

518
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:04,760
Speaker 1: it is not easy to do. Niantic did have some

519
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:08,160
Speaker 1: legendary Pokemon get out in the wild by accident. It

520
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:10,760
Speaker 1: was a coding thing. They shouldn't have been there, and

521
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:13,640
Speaker 1: some of them were caught. So some people caught legendary

522
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:17,560
Speaker 1: Pokemon before it was supposed to officially be possible to

523
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:21,560
Speaker 1: do so, so what did Niantic do? They erased them.

524
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:25,400
Speaker 1: Those Pokemon are no more. If they were in someone's collection,

525
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:28,080
Speaker 1: they are no longer there. And that raised the ire

526
00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:31,080
Speaker 1: of some players. Why are you punishing me for a

527
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 1: mistake you made? And niantics response was, well, it it

528
00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:37,480
Speaker 1: kind of breaks the game. They're not supposed to be

529
00:31:37,520 --> 00:31:41,720
Speaker 1: out there, so we we erased them. That was a mistake.

530
00:31:42,080 --> 00:31:44,360
Speaker 1: We're sorry for it, but they're not supposed to be there.

531
00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:47,520
Speaker 1: Niantics made a few updates to the game that have

532
00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:50,000
Speaker 1: upset people. I'll get more into that in a second. Well,

533
00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:51,920
Speaker 1: one of them I can talk about right now. There

534
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 1: used to be a an indicator on your screen that

535
00:31:55,960 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 1: would show which Pokemon are closest to you, and there

536
00:31:59,200 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 1: were a little acts that appeared below them, and the

537
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 1: tracks were supposed to get be an indicator of how

538
00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:08,160
Speaker 1: close or far away are those Pokemon, and the tracks

539
00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:11,040
Speaker 1: were supposed to range from one to three, one track

540
00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:13,840
Speaker 1: presumably meaning that it's closer to you, and three tracks

541
00:32:13,880 --> 00:32:15,600
Speaker 1: meaning that you have to walk a little bit a

542
00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:18,959
Speaker 1: bit further to find them, but it's wasn't really working.

543
00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:21,720
Speaker 1: All the tracks would show up as three, or you

544
00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:25,000
Speaker 1: wouldn't get any change in the number of tracks, So

545
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:27,680
Speaker 1: you'd start walking in a direction, but you couldn't tell

546
00:32:27,720 --> 00:32:29,800
Speaker 1: if you're getting closer or further away from the ones

547
00:32:29,840 --> 00:32:34,320
Speaker 1: you were looking for. So eventually Niantic removed the tracks entirely.

548
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:38,400
Speaker 1: You still have an indicator that shows which pokemon or

549
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:40,400
Speaker 1: in your general area, but you have no way of

550
00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:44,040
Speaker 1: knowing what direction to go in. Another thing that Niantick

551
00:32:44,120 --> 00:32:46,720
Speaker 1: removed was the ability of third party sites to help

552
00:32:46,760 --> 00:32:51,040
Speaker 1: you track specific Pokemon. There were some third party applications

553
00:32:51,320 --> 00:32:55,680
Speaker 1: that would give you a notice saying, hey, there's this

554
00:32:55,720 --> 00:32:59,280
Speaker 1: particular type of Pokemon at this particular spot that's not

555
00:32:59,360 --> 00:33:01,280
Speaker 1: too far from you. You should go there and try

556
00:33:01,280 --> 00:33:05,160
Speaker 1: and catch it. Those capabilities have been removed now, and

557
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:08,560
Speaker 1: Niantic has had a lot of backlash from that as well.

558
00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:13,360
Speaker 1: Their argument was that it kind of allowed people to cheat,

559
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:16,240
Speaker 1: that they weren't really going out and exploring the way

560
00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:20,960
Speaker 1: Niantic had intended the game to uh to cause people

561
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:23,280
Speaker 1: to do. Never mind the fact that a lot of people,

562
00:33:23,360 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 1: even when they are out and about and quote unquote

563
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:27,520
Speaker 1: exploring they're really just looking at their phones and not

564
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:30,880
Speaker 1: looking around them. To replenish your supply of poke balls,

565
00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:35,480
Speaker 1: those are the things you're using to catch the Pokemon Pokemon, Pokemon.

566
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:37,200
Speaker 1: I knew it was a matter of time before I

567
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:41,480
Speaker 1: said it accidentally without irony, and there you go. But

568
00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:44,040
Speaker 1: if you wanted to replenish your supply of poke balls

569
00:33:44,120 --> 00:33:46,840
Speaker 1: or other in game items, one of the ways of

570
00:33:46,840 --> 00:33:48,880
Speaker 1: doing that is to visit pokas stops. Now, these are

571
00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:52,080
Speaker 1: associated with those real world locations to have some sort

572
00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:56,560
Speaker 1: of cultural or historic significance, like public art or historic sites, landmarks,

573
00:33:56,600 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. These are the same sort of

574
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 1: locations that you found the poor les in Ingress. It

575
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:05,520
Speaker 1: was built on that same foundation. Uh. And you would

576
00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:09,319
Speaker 1: visit these and spin a little graphic in your in

577
00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:13,200
Speaker 1: your app, and that would generate the items that you

578
00:34:13,200 --> 00:34:17,040
Speaker 1: would collect at. So, if you are in an area

579
00:34:17,080 --> 00:34:19,439
Speaker 1: that has a lot of these places, it's pretty easy

580
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:23,520
Speaker 1: to very quickly fill up your inventory with all those items.

581
00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:25,640
Speaker 1: If you aren't in an area that has a lot

582
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:30,799
Speaker 1: of those locations, it gets pretty frustrating pretty quickly. Uh.

583
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:32,759
Speaker 1: And there are other items in the game that do

584
00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:35,959
Speaker 1: things like increase the number of monsters you'll encounter within

585
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:38,360
Speaker 1: a certain amount of time or in a certain area,

586
00:34:39,040 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 1: or the amount of experience you gain for each in

587
00:34:41,760 --> 00:34:45,680
Speaker 1: game action you take uh little things that tweak the

588
00:34:45,680 --> 00:34:48,400
Speaker 1: the experience of the game. And of course, as you play,

589
00:34:49,040 --> 00:34:51,840
Speaker 1: your character levels up. Once you hit level five, you

590
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:54,800
Speaker 1: can pick one of three teams. They are Team Instinct,

591
00:34:54,960 --> 00:34:58,239
Speaker 1: Valor and mystic Um Team Mystic if you must know,

592
00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:02,919
Speaker 1: go Blue. The team's really only come into play when

593
00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:06,760
Speaker 1: the games are other mechanics pops up. That's Gym battles

594
00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:10,640
Speaker 1: Gem as in g y M. That's the only other time.

595
00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:14,440
Speaker 1: That really the only time that the team identity matters

596
00:35:14,640 --> 00:35:17,359
Speaker 1: right now as of the recording of this podcast. So

597
00:35:17,400 --> 00:35:20,960
Speaker 1: at certain real world locations there are Pokemon gems. Sometimes

598
00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:23,040
Speaker 1: they're actually associated with real gems. One of the ones

599
00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:25,799
Speaker 1: that's close to my neck of the woods is at

600
00:35:25,800 --> 00:35:28,160
Speaker 1: a yoga studio, So it's kind of funny to see

601
00:35:28,200 --> 00:35:32,480
Speaker 1: people fiercely competing outside of a place where other folks

602
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:37,480
Speaker 1: are saying the musta and very hushed and relaxed tones. Anyway,

603
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:40,800
Speaker 1: if a gym is unclaimed, it shows up as gray

604
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:42,960
Speaker 1: and you can claim it on behalf of your team,

605
00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:46,560
Speaker 1: whichever team you have chosen, and then you would choose

606
00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:49,920
Speaker 1: a Pokemon from your collection to guard the gym and

607
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:52,800
Speaker 1: hold it. Holding a gym for a certain length of

608
00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:55,920
Speaker 1: time will start to get you prizes. I have never

609
00:35:56,560 --> 00:35:59,640
Speaker 1: ever had a Pokemon hold a gym long enough to

610
00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 1: earn any of those prizes I have. I have claimed

611
00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:05,200
Speaker 1: a couple of gyms in my time, but they have

612
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:08,320
Speaker 1: not lasted very long. So if a gym is already

613
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:11,320
Speaker 1: owned by another team, it'll show up in that team's color.

614
00:36:12,160 --> 00:36:15,719
Speaker 1: You can battle for control of that gym, and the

615
00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:19,799
Speaker 1: opponent will be an AI controlled version of whatever Pokemon

616
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:25,080
Speaker 1: the gym owner chose to guard that spot. You will

617
00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:28,920
Speaker 1: have six Pokemon to try and take the gym, and

618
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:30,879
Speaker 1: there can be more than one guard, so you might

619
00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:34,040
Speaker 1: spend all of your six guys defeating one guard, and

620
00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:36,680
Speaker 1: then a second guard shows up and wipes you out.

621
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 1: You'll still get experience for defeating the first one, but

622
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:42,799
Speaker 1: you are kind of stuck. You know you you you

623
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:45,040
Speaker 1: won't win the gym. You win the battle, but not

624
00:36:45,080 --> 00:36:49,000
Speaker 1: the war. In other words, if you do win the gym,

625
00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:53,560
Speaker 1: then you designate which of your Pokemon will stay there

626
00:36:53,640 --> 00:36:56,640
Speaker 1: and guard the spot so that other people can't just

627
00:36:56,719 --> 00:36:59,799
Speaker 1: take it away. And if you come across a gym

628
00:36:59,840 --> 00:37:03,480
Speaker 1: that already owned by your team, you can train your monsters.

629
00:37:03,800 --> 00:37:07,719
Speaker 1: You still have to defeat the one that's in that place,

630
00:37:08,440 --> 00:37:11,720
Speaker 1: um and maybe even take its place and and beef

631
00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:16,800
Speaker 1: up the defense of that gem. But uh, you aren't.

632
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 1: You aren't resting control for your team. Your team already

633
00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:24,080
Speaker 1: has control of that one. Oh and h. Then there

634
00:37:24,080 --> 00:37:27,040
Speaker 1: are the eggs. Once in a while, you'll find an egg,

635
00:37:27,120 --> 00:37:28,960
Speaker 1: and you can place an egg in an incubator. You

636
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:32,800
Speaker 1: have one incubator automatically that has an unlimited number of uses,

637
00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:36,200
Speaker 1: and then you can find or buy other incubators that

638
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:39,000
Speaker 1: have a limited number. So you can put one egg

639
00:37:39,120 --> 00:37:42,279
Speaker 1: in an incubator at a time, and eggs will hatch

640
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:45,120
Speaker 1: when you hit a specific distance, so that will depend

641
00:37:45,160 --> 00:37:47,839
Speaker 1: upon the egg. There are two kilometer eggs, five kilometer eggs,

642
00:37:47,880 --> 00:37:50,719
Speaker 1: ten kilometer eggs, that kind of thing, and as you

643
00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:54,319
Speaker 1: walk that distance, you hatch those eggs. So if you

644
00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:56,719
Speaker 1: have a ten kilometer egg in an incubator, you walk

645
00:37:56,800 --> 00:38:00,120
Speaker 1: ten kilometers, that egg will hatch hopefully into something thing

646
00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:05,879
Speaker 1: really useful. So I'm guessing that I haven't seen any

647
00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:08,520
Speaker 1: direct confirmation, but to me, it looks like the game

648
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:13,120
Speaker 1: relies both on GPS and predometer like accelerometer type stuff

649
00:38:13,120 --> 00:38:16,879
Speaker 1: and smartphones to figure out how far and how much

650
00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:20,600
Speaker 1: you walk. Some people have said that they have placed

651
00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:25,120
Speaker 1: their phone on a turntable, an old vinyl turntable, and

652
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:28,560
Speaker 1: been able to simulate walking by just having the phone

653
00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:30,799
Speaker 1: spin round and round with Pokemon go open, and it

654
00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:33,040
Speaker 1: thinks that they're walking and they've hatched eggs that way,

655
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:36,080
Speaker 1: I call that cheating. But I've also noticed that if

656
00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:39,520
Speaker 1: I walk with my phone and I'm not and the

657
00:38:39,560 --> 00:38:43,080
Speaker 1: app is open but I'm not particularly walking in a

658
00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:45,839
Speaker 1: way that jostles the phone too much, I often don't

659
00:38:46,719 --> 00:38:49,840
Speaker 1: see the distance reflected accurately in the app. It seems

660
00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:52,120
Speaker 1: like I've walked much further than the app will grant me.

661
00:38:52,600 --> 00:38:54,080
Speaker 1: I find that if I hold my phone in my

662
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:56,840
Speaker 1: hand and I swing my arm while I walk, it

663
00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:59,759
Speaker 1: ends up being far more accurate. So I think it's

664
00:38:59,800 --> 00:39:03,320
Speaker 1: both that's both GPS and predomin at least to some extent,

665
00:39:03,719 --> 00:39:06,160
Speaker 1: to mark how far you've walked, and once you do

666
00:39:06,239 --> 00:39:09,800
Speaker 1: reach that distance and the egg hatches you're like yay,

667
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:11,440
Speaker 1: and then you have to do it all over again,

668
00:39:11,600 --> 00:39:14,799
Speaker 1: so you're just gonna keep on walking. Ultimately, the game

669
00:39:14,840 --> 00:39:16,920
Speaker 1: is supposed to be about exploring the world around you,

670
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:20,359
Speaker 1: not that that sucks people from keeping their head down

671
00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:23,640
Speaker 1: and walking into traffic or into a telephone pole, which

672
00:39:23,680 --> 00:39:26,919
Speaker 1: I have almost done a couple of times myself. I'm

673
00:39:26,920 --> 00:39:30,520
Speaker 1: not being super snarky here. I am as guilty, if

674
00:39:30,560 --> 00:39:33,840
Speaker 1: not more so, as anyone else. One thing I can say,

675
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:36,640
Speaker 1: I have never ever looked at my phone while going

676
00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:40,839
Speaker 1: across a crosswalk. Whenever I'm crossing a street, I do

677
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:43,800
Speaker 1: not look at the phone because I've seen too many

678
00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:46,399
Speaker 1: near miss accidents and I don't want to be one

679
00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 1: of them or worse right, So just be safe out there.

680
00:39:50,160 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 1: I mean, the phone tells you, like, if you don't

681
00:39:52,080 --> 00:39:54,240
Speaker 1: pay attention, you will get eaten by a water dragon.

682
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:57,919
Speaker 1: It happens. It's on the screen and when you open

683
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:02,840
Speaker 1: the game. Now, there's some planned expansions that should be

684
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:07,440
Speaker 1: coming out over the next few months, maybe further, depending

685
00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:10,080
Speaker 1: upon how long it takes Niantic to develop the gameplay.

686
00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:13,480
Speaker 1: One of those expansions are one of those features that

687
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:16,319
Speaker 1: should be coming in the future is trading. A big

688
00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:20,200
Speaker 1: part of earlier Pokemon games was trading trading Pokemon too

689
00:40:20,640 --> 00:40:23,520
Speaker 1: to beef up your own collection, but that's not part

690
00:40:23,560 --> 00:40:26,120
Speaker 1: of Pokemon Go. As of the recording of this episode,

691
00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:30,000
Speaker 1: Niantick has said that it's a planned future feature, assuming

692
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:32,480
Speaker 1: they can find a good way to implement it so

693
00:40:32,520 --> 00:40:35,720
Speaker 1: that you're not you're not finding a way to game

694
00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:39,880
Speaker 1: the system or just make the game less enjoyable. A

695
00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:42,719
Speaker 1: lot of people really like the idea of catching each

696
00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:46,160
Speaker 1: of the Pokemon, although I can get very frustrating if

697
00:40:46,160 --> 00:40:48,560
Speaker 1: you've been looking for a specific type and just cannot

698
00:40:48,560 --> 00:40:50,440
Speaker 1: seem to find it, or whenever you find it, it

699
00:40:50,480 --> 00:40:54,800
Speaker 1: gets away. Uh. But some folks are worried that with trading,

700
00:40:55,120 --> 00:40:58,560
Speaker 1: it would just all the accomplishment would go out the window.

701
00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:02,160
Speaker 1: That's the fear. I honestly don't know how I feel

702
00:41:02,200 --> 00:41:05,040
Speaker 1: about it, because this is my first time experiencing anything

703
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:08,880
Speaker 1: with Pokemon, and at that right now, I'm not terribly

704
00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:10,880
Speaker 1: social with it. I am not one of those folks

705
00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:12,600
Speaker 1: who goes out with a big group of people. It's

706
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:14,240
Speaker 1: just that I happen to have a lot of walking

707
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:18,200
Speaker 1: because I don't drive, so I've been playing it as well,

708
00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:19,920
Speaker 1: just to kind of pass the time while I walk

709
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:23,080
Speaker 1: and to make the walk more interesting. But I have

710
00:41:23,239 --> 00:41:27,440
Speaker 1: not really been socializing with folks. I have battled a

711
00:41:27,520 --> 00:41:30,479
Speaker 1: couple of folks for a control of a gem. There's

712
00:41:30,520 --> 00:41:33,600
Speaker 1: one time where some Team Valor folks were fighting a

713
00:41:34,000 --> 00:41:36,640
Speaker 1: with me while I was trying to take over a

714
00:41:36,680 --> 00:41:39,840
Speaker 1: Team instinct Jim. That was lovely, but that's about as

715
00:41:39,880 --> 00:41:41,800
Speaker 1: close as it got. And even then they were across

716
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:43,480
Speaker 1: the street from me, so it didn't get that close.

717
00:41:44,560 --> 00:41:47,640
Speaker 1: So John Hank also said that there will be new

718
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:50,239
Speaker 1: ways to interact with the locations that you visit, so

719
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:53,279
Speaker 1: stuff like pocus stops and gems. Right now they have

720
00:41:53,320 --> 00:41:55,680
Speaker 1: a very specific way that you can interact with them,

721
00:41:55,680 --> 00:41:58,400
Speaker 1: but he says in the future there will be more ways,

722
00:41:58,520 --> 00:42:02,760
Speaker 1: including customizable ways. I don't know what that means, uh,

723
00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:05,279
Speaker 1: And he wasn't really elaborating, he was just saying that

724
00:42:05,440 --> 00:42:07,919
Speaker 1: look out for that kind of stuff. Niantic Labs also

725
00:42:07,960 --> 00:42:10,440
Speaker 1: said that they want to improve the a our nature

726
00:42:10,520 --> 00:42:13,680
Speaker 1: of the game so that Pokemon will be more naturally

727
00:42:13,760 --> 00:42:17,000
Speaker 1: incorporated into your real environment. So you hold up your phone,

728
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:20,759
Speaker 1: you've got the camera active right now, Pokemon just kind

729
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:23,480
Speaker 1: of are superimposed on top of whatever you're pointing them too.

730
00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:27,759
Speaker 1: When the future, they would like to use some uh,

731
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:31,440
Speaker 1: machine learning and artificial intelligence so that the pokemon can

732
00:42:31,480 --> 00:42:33,760
Speaker 1: interact in the environment in a way that makes sense,

733
00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:36,200
Speaker 1: Like they might be walking down the sidewalk or sitting

734
00:42:36,239 --> 00:42:40,200
Speaker 1: on a park bench, or trying to cross a busy street,

735
00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:43,799
Speaker 1: could be any of those things, and they want to

736
00:42:43,840 --> 00:42:48,319
Speaker 1: be able to use augmented reality to enhance that. No

737
00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:51,640
Speaker 1: telling on when that might happen, or you know, it

738
00:42:51,680 --> 00:42:54,719
Speaker 1: may be one of those things that is gradually improved

739
00:42:54,800 --> 00:43:00,319
Speaker 1: upon and it's hard to define exactly when things changed. Now,

740
00:43:00,360 --> 00:43:03,600
Speaker 1: you might wonder, how does this app how does this

741
00:43:03,680 --> 00:43:07,120
Speaker 1: game make money? Where's the angle, where's the money coming from?

742
00:43:07,160 --> 00:43:10,239
Speaker 1: And the answer to that is micro transactions. This is

743
00:43:10,239 --> 00:43:12,560
Speaker 1: where you make small purchases within a game. The game

744
00:43:12,600 --> 00:43:15,719
Speaker 1: itself is free, but if you want to accelerate the

745
00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:19,239
Speaker 1: development of your character or get certain items without having

746
00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:23,080
Speaker 1: to visit pocas stops, this is the way you could

747
00:43:23,080 --> 00:43:24,920
Speaker 1: do it. And essentially what you do is you spend

748
00:43:24,960 --> 00:43:28,200
Speaker 1: real money to buy in game currency and use that

749
00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:32,279
Speaker 1: in game currency to purchase in game items. So let's

750
00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:35,240
Speaker 1: say you need to replenish your supply of poke balls.

751
00:43:36,160 --> 00:43:39,440
Speaker 1: You could spend real money to buy coins within the

752
00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:41,640
Speaker 1: game and then use those coins to buy the poke

753
00:43:41,719 --> 00:43:45,320
Speaker 1: balls and not have to go to a dozen pocas

754
00:43:45,360 --> 00:43:49,120
Speaker 1: stops instead. So there you know. It's not it's not

755
00:43:49,160 --> 00:43:52,080
Speaker 1: a pay to win the way some other games are,

756
00:43:52,080 --> 00:43:54,960
Speaker 1: but it definitely can help you get an advantage since

757
00:43:55,000 --> 00:43:58,640
Speaker 1: you can't actually play against other players. You cannot do

758
00:43:59,080 --> 00:44:02,280
Speaker 1: a battle between two players as of yet, no telling

759
00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:04,480
Speaker 1: if that will come out in the future, but you

760
00:44:04,520 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 1: can't do it right now. It might be one of

761
00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:10,080
Speaker 1: those things where people aren't going to be too up

762
00:44:10,120 --> 00:44:14,680
Speaker 1: in arms about micro transactions, because why get upset if

763
00:44:14,719 --> 00:44:17,840
Speaker 1: if your enjoyment of the game isn't dependent upon trying

764
00:44:17,880 --> 00:44:21,000
Speaker 1: to beat someone else, and they that person can't get

765
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:24,360
Speaker 1: an unfair advantage just by spending more money. Uh, micro

766
00:44:24,400 --> 00:44:26,520
Speaker 1: transactions make a lot of sense once you get to

767
00:44:26,560 --> 00:44:30,880
Speaker 1: a point where you do have truly competitive head to

768
00:44:30,920 --> 00:44:35,040
Speaker 1: head play. If there's an advantage by spending money on

769
00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:37,840
Speaker 1: items within a game, it breaks the game pretty quickly

770
00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:40,920
Speaker 1: because people will point out, well, this isn't fair because

771
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:43,600
Speaker 1: I don't have enough money to play this game. The way,

772
00:44:43,640 --> 00:44:45,719
Speaker 1: everyone else is playing it, so I'm always going to

773
00:44:45,840 --> 00:44:50,520
Speaker 1: be last, and that's not fun. Games don't survive if

774
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:54,520
Speaker 1: they take that model. In my experience, they might survive

775
00:44:54,560 --> 00:44:57,239
Speaker 1: among a small elite few who will continue to play

776
00:44:57,320 --> 00:44:59,120
Speaker 1: the game, but everyone else will just get sick of

777
00:44:59,160 --> 00:45:03,400
Speaker 1: it and leave. Uh So, how much money does Pokemon

778
00:45:03,480 --> 00:45:07,719
Speaker 1: Go make? Well, we don't really have a full understanding

779
00:45:07,719 --> 00:45:10,759
Speaker 1: of that. It's not like it's revealed uh and made

780
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:17,440
Speaker 1: public information. But according to Techno Buffalo as of August fourth,

781
00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:19,880
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen, and it earned a hundred and

782
00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:24,160
Speaker 1: sixty million dollars in revenue. I don't know if that's

783
00:45:24,320 --> 00:45:29,760
Speaker 1: um if that's like verifiable information, but a hundred sixty

784
00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:33,000
Speaker 1: million dollars in that short amount of time is pretty impressive.

785
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:38,040
Speaker 1: Beyond that, it had boosted the market value of Nintendo

786
00:45:38,200 --> 00:45:43,320
Speaker 1: briefly to the tune of more than seven billion dollars. However,

787
00:45:43,360 --> 00:45:45,439
Speaker 1: then Nintendo came out and said, hey, we didn't really

788
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:48,319
Speaker 1: have anything to do with Pokemon Go, and then its

789
00:45:48,440 --> 00:45:54,239
Speaker 1: market value dropped significantly. But it's interesting that something as

790
00:45:54,280 --> 00:45:58,240
Speaker 1: simple as an a R smartphone app could have had

791
00:45:58,280 --> 00:46:03,640
Speaker 1: that significant of an impact on a company's market value. Also,

792
00:46:03,880 --> 00:46:07,880
Speaker 1: kudos to Nintendo for coming up and saying, hey, um,

793
00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:11,560
Speaker 1: don't make such big assumptions because that could in the

794
00:46:11,640 --> 00:46:15,279
Speaker 1: long term hurt our company. It was the responsible thing

795
00:46:15,320 --> 00:46:17,000
Speaker 1: to do. Probably not the easiest thing to do when

796
00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:18,759
Speaker 1: you look at your company and say, wow, we are

797
00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:23,520
Speaker 1: worth seven billion more dollars today, Um, we need to

798
00:46:23,560 --> 00:46:28,680
Speaker 1: address that. That probably was not easy. The average usage

799
00:46:28,680 --> 00:46:34,120
Speaker 1: time for Pokemon Go players, according to Censor Tower, is

800
00:46:34,160 --> 00:46:38,120
Speaker 1: around twenty six minutes and five seconds per day, which

801
00:46:38,120 --> 00:46:40,600
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like a lot maybe, but keep in mind

802
00:46:40,840 --> 00:46:44,440
Speaker 1: that Facebook, which is one of the real time sucks

803
00:46:44,560 --> 00:46:48,520
Speaker 1: out there, is on average twenty two minutes forty six

804
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:53,200
Speaker 1: seconds of daily use for the average user. So people

805
00:46:53,239 --> 00:46:58,440
Speaker 1: are using Pokemon Go longer per day than they our Facebook. Uh.

806
00:46:58,600 --> 00:47:03,120
Speaker 1: That's pretty pretty powerful stuff. I mean, if you are

807
00:47:03,200 --> 00:47:08,560
Speaker 1: able to show that to an investor, then that is

808
00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:11,600
Speaker 1: going to get a lot of attention. Uh So a

809
00:47:11,680 --> 00:47:14,640
Speaker 1: hundred sixty million dollars is nothing to sneeze as, especially

810
00:47:14,680 --> 00:47:16,520
Speaker 1: when you consider that you know, they raised that twenty

811
00:47:16,560 --> 00:47:21,479
Speaker 1: million in funding before they started to develop the game. Uh,

812
00:47:21,760 --> 00:47:25,759
Speaker 1: not a bad not a bad start at all. So

813
00:47:27,640 --> 00:47:30,880
Speaker 1: beyond those micro transactions, what kind of impact and beyond

814
00:47:30,960 --> 00:47:36,080
Speaker 1: the the the brief but impressive inflation of Nintendo's market value,

815
00:47:36,080 --> 00:47:40,760
Speaker 1: what impact has the game had? A lot? Uh? There

816
00:47:40,800 --> 00:47:44,400
Speaker 1: there are a ton of users out there. You probably

817
00:47:44,400 --> 00:47:48,120
Speaker 1: have heard that the the number of daily users quickly

818
00:47:48,120 --> 00:47:53,280
Speaker 1: outstripped things like Twitter and Tender, very very popular apps.

819
00:47:54,120 --> 00:47:56,920
Speaker 1: As the game continued to get rolled out across the world,

820
00:47:56,960 --> 00:48:01,480
Speaker 1: that number changed even more in Pokemon favor. So it

821
00:48:01,560 --> 00:48:03,000
Speaker 1: was one of those games that got a lot of

822
00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:07,280
Speaker 1: people curious, even folks who were completely unfamiliar with Pokemon

823
00:48:07,520 --> 00:48:10,759
Speaker 1: and I was not. While not completely unfamiliar, I'd put

824
00:48:10,840 --> 00:48:14,759
Speaker 1: myself more in that category than anything else. Uh, you

825
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:18,439
Speaker 1: know that those folks got into the game. I'm I'm

826
00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:21,399
Speaker 1: proof of it. I had never played any other Pokemon game,

827
00:48:21,440 --> 00:48:25,160
Speaker 1: but I'm playing Pokemon Go and I'm enjoying it all

828
00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:30,120
Speaker 1: the way down to the folks who were hardcore Pokemon fans,

829
00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:33,600
Speaker 1: They're really into the game too. To some extent, obviously,

830
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:36,520
Speaker 1: are individuals different. There may be some hardcore fans who

831
00:48:36,560 --> 00:48:39,640
Speaker 1: are like I refused to play this game because it

832
00:48:39,800 --> 00:48:43,759
Speaker 1: is not reflective of the Pokemon I love, perfectly legitimate

833
00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:46,200
Speaker 1: for that person, I'm not going to argue it, but

834
00:48:46,600 --> 00:48:51,200
Speaker 1: at any rate, there is a huge, huge amount of

835
00:48:51,239 --> 00:48:54,600
Speaker 1: Pokemon players out there. That means that while there are

836
00:48:54,640 --> 00:48:58,600
Speaker 1: some great stories about Pokemon, there's some bad ones too.

837
00:48:59,239 --> 00:49:02,360
Speaker 1: On the great you may have heard stories like a

838
00:49:02,400 --> 00:49:05,400
Speaker 1: police officer coming up and asking why people are gathering

839
00:49:05,400 --> 00:49:08,240
Speaker 1: in a location, being told about Pokemon, and then downloading

840
00:49:08,239 --> 00:49:11,680
Speaker 1: the game and joining in. That's a great story. Stories

841
00:49:11,680 --> 00:49:15,160
Speaker 1: that aren't so great might be that a teenagers playing

842
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:18,839
Speaker 1: Pokemon Go and then as they're playing the game, they

843
00:49:18,920 --> 00:49:24,480
Speaker 1: happened to encounter a dead body. That happened back in

844
00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:29,759
Speaker 1: July of twenty sixteen, so not long after the game started. Uh.

845
00:49:29,800 --> 00:49:34,840
Speaker 1: There was an issue where a teenage lady was playing

846
00:49:35,840 --> 00:49:43,879
Speaker 1: um Pokemon Go uh around Big Wind River and as

847
00:49:44,200 --> 00:49:48,720
Speaker 1: what she was playing, she spotted us some something unusual

848
00:49:48,840 --> 00:49:53,279
Speaker 1: near the river bank and UH that unusual thing ended

849
00:49:53,320 --> 00:49:56,600
Speaker 1: up being a body. She actually didn't notice it right away,

850
00:49:56,640 --> 00:49:59,840
Speaker 1: according to the news reports. She said that she was

851
00:50:00,040 --> 00:50:02,680
Speaker 1: only paying attention to her phone and where she was walking,

852
00:50:03,160 --> 00:50:06,799
Speaker 1: didn't even notice the body until she was practically right

853
00:50:06,840 --> 00:50:10,600
Speaker 1: next to it. Um. She called the police, and the

854
00:50:10,640 --> 00:50:14,600
Speaker 1: police showed up and then started an investigation into the

855
00:50:14,600 --> 00:50:21,120
Speaker 1: man's death. Ah, So that was, you know, pretty dramatic,

856
00:50:21,280 --> 00:50:24,640
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm guessing a fairly traumatizing event. I don't

857
00:50:24,680 --> 00:50:31,279
Speaker 1: know how I would have felt about that, but you know,

858
00:50:32,080 --> 00:50:35,480
Speaker 1: that's that's just one of the negative stories from Pokemon.

859
00:50:35,520 --> 00:50:40,680
Speaker 1: Another one, which is a little concerning, where that armed

860
00:50:40,760 --> 00:50:43,960
Speaker 1: muggers were using Pokemon Go in order to find victims.

861
00:50:45,280 --> 00:50:48,440
Speaker 1: So I mentioned earlier that there are items within Pokemon

862
00:50:48,560 --> 00:50:52,440
Speaker 1: Go to increase your chances of encountering Pokemon. One of

863
00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:55,279
Speaker 1: those things is called a lure, and a lure is

864
00:50:55,320 --> 00:50:58,640
Speaker 1: something you can associate with a Pocus stop. You can

865
00:50:58,719 --> 00:51:01,080
Speaker 1: add a lure to a poke a stop, and that

866
00:51:01,160 --> 00:51:05,600
Speaker 1: poke a Stop will attract more Pokemon monsters for the

867
00:51:05,680 --> 00:51:08,880
Speaker 1: duration of half an hour. And this is effective for

868
00:51:08,960 --> 00:51:11,040
Speaker 1: anyone in the game. It's not just the person who

869
00:51:11,040 --> 00:51:14,040
Speaker 1: set the lure. Anyone in the game can benefit from this.

870
00:51:15,160 --> 00:51:19,840
Speaker 1: So imagine you're a mugger and there's a Pocus stop

871
00:51:19,880 --> 00:51:22,560
Speaker 1: that's in a fairly secluded area, maybe an area that

872
00:51:22,600 --> 00:51:24,759
Speaker 1: doesn't tend to get a lot of traffic. Maybe it's

873
00:51:24,840 --> 00:51:27,440
Speaker 1: late at night, and you set a lure to that

874
00:51:27,480 --> 00:51:30,640
Speaker 1: Poka stop and you start waiting and you wait for

875
00:51:30,680 --> 00:51:33,360
Speaker 1: people to show up, and then if people show up

876
00:51:33,360 --> 00:51:35,040
Speaker 1: and there's not a lot of them and they look

877
00:51:35,080 --> 00:51:37,800
Speaker 1: like they got some cash on them, your mug them

878
00:51:37,840 --> 00:51:40,799
Speaker 1: and you take their money. I would argue that that

879
00:51:40,920 --> 00:51:45,799
Speaker 1: is a not the the not a smart move. First

880
00:51:45,800 --> 00:51:49,120
Speaker 1: of all, coming in crime is never a smart move period.

881
00:51:49,320 --> 00:51:53,600
Speaker 1: Crime doesn't pay kids. But I would, knowing the way

882
00:51:53,640 --> 00:51:56,920
Speaker 1: technology works, if you're using your phone, if you've got

883
00:51:56,920 --> 00:51:59,600
Speaker 1: a phone, you've got the game on your phone, it's

884
00:51:59,640 --> 00:52:04,200
Speaker 1: register stirred to you in some way, and then you

885
00:52:04,239 --> 00:52:07,360
Speaker 1: add a lure. My guess is that on the server side,

886
00:52:07,400 --> 00:52:09,840
Speaker 1: on Pokemon Go, they could probably figure out who set

887
00:52:09,920 --> 00:52:14,000
Speaker 1: that lure and thus give police at least a lead

888
00:52:14,239 --> 00:52:17,040
Speaker 1: to work with. So if you got mugged at a

889
00:52:17,080 --> 00:52:19,560
Speaker 1: particular Pokast stop at a particular time, you might be

890
00:52:19,600 --> 00:52:22,640
Speaker 1: able to work backwards and say, well, at that time,

891
00:52:22,760 --> 00:52:25,000
Speaker 1: the lure was set by so and so. Let's go

892
00:52:25,080 --> 00:52:28,359
Speaker 1: and ask so and so some pretty tough questions. So,

893
00:52:28,400 --> 00:52:30,719
Speaker 1: in other words, it would make way more sense if

894
00:52:30,760 --> 00:52:34,040
Speaker 1: you're a mugger to find places that already have lures

895
00:52:35,120 --> 00:52:37,359
Speaker 1: and not set them yourself. Not that you should do that,

896
00:52:37,640 --> 00:52:41,280
Speaker 1: you totally shouldn't, but don't set lures, You're just gonna

897
00:52:41,280 --> 00:52:45,440
Speaker 1: get caught. Wow. I'm not advocating mugging at all. By

898
00:52:45,440 --> 00:52:49,239
Speaker 1: the way, Honestly, if I were you guys and I

899
00:52:49,280 --> 00:52:51,840
Speaker 1: was playing Pokemon Go late at night, I would definitely

900
00:52:51,880 --> 00:52:54,440
Speaker 1: be doing so with a big group of people, because

901
00:52:54,480 --> 00:52:58,160
Speaker 1: you never know what kind of folks you'll encounter. Yeah,

902
00:52:58,239 --> 00:53:00,840
Speaker 1: this is an issue though, because you could create this beacon,

903
00:53:01,080 --> 00:53:05,759
Speaker 1: this literal beacon within the game and lure people to

904
00:53:05,840 --> 00:53:09,799
Speaker 1: go there, not just Pokemon but actual players. So be

905
00:53:09,920 --> 00:53:14,000
Speaker 1: aware of your surroundings, be aware of, uh, what is

906
00:53:14,040 --> 00:53:18,680
Speaker 1: going on. Don't just take it as a sign that

907
00:53:18,800 --> 00:53:23,279
Speaker 1: someone has really been nice in that spot. It could

908
00:53:23,320 --> 00:53:25,320
Speaker 1: be that there are people who are willing to pray

909
00:53:25,560 --> 00:53:32,319
Speaker 1: upon the less fortunate or the less observant. Ah. I

910
00:53:32,400 --> 00:53:36,560
Speaker 1: honestly think that this is obviously a rare occurrence, not

911
00:53:36,680 --> 00:53:40,200
Speaker 1: something that happens that frequently. But one thing we have

912
00:53:40,360 --> 00:53:43,640
Speaker 1: seen that has happened fairly frequently is that players have

913
00:53:44,120 --> 00:53:48,759
Speaker 1: used the game to or have while playing the game,

914
00:53:48,800 --> 00:53:53,399
Speaker 1: have gone to places that perhaps they shouldn't have, places

915
00:53:53,440 --> 00:53:58,080
Speaker 1: that maybe have a certain reverence associated with them that

916
00:53:58,360 --> 00:54:01,960
Speaker 1: is interrupted by bowl staring at phones and trumping all

917
00:54:02,000 --> 00:54:07,239
Speaker 1: over the place like Arlington National Cemetery or the Holocaust Museum,

918
00:54:07,520 --> 00:54:12,320
Speaker 1: places that definitely have cultural or historical or both significance

919
00:54:12,680 --> 00:54:16,880
Speaker 1: and are important in places that people really should go

920
00:54:17,080 --> 00:54:22,520
Speaker 1: to and experience, but perhaps not while holding a phone

921
00:54:22,880 --> 00:54:24,680
Speaker 1: and trying to play a game where they're trying to

922
00:54:24,719 --> 00:54:29,799
Speaker 1: catch a little rat like creature. Uh. It shows a

923
00:54:29,960 --> 00:54:34,000
Speaker 1: lack awareness and respect. And it also means that people

924
00:54:34,000 --> 00:54:38,480
Speaker 1: who are at those places and are trying to either

925
00:54:38,800 --> 00:54:42,799
Speaker 1: have a meaningful moment or they're soaking it in there

926
00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:48,080
Speaker 1: just they're there for the site itself, not for a

927
00:54:48,160 --> 00:54:52,160
Speaker 1: game it is. It can come across at best as

928
00:54:52,160 --> 00:54:57,480
Speaker 1: distracting and at worst as being disrespectful. So that has

929
00:54:57,520 --> 00:55:00,319
Speaker 1: been an issue in multiple places. I think this one

930
00:55:00,400 --> 00:55:03,040
Speaker 1: that could very easily be solved, and in fact, I've

931
00:55:03,040 --> 00:55:08,160
Speaker 1: heard about Niantic Labs taking steps on this already. There's

932
00:55:08,200 --> 00:55:11,240
Speaker 1: a thing you can do called geo fencing. Geo fencing

933
00:55:11,280 --> 00:55:16,120
Speaker 1: is just when you designate a specific area market with

934
00:55:16,200 --> 00:55:19,600
Speaker 1: like a set of coordinates, several sets of coordinates, and

935
00:55:19,719 --> 00:55:22,759
Speaker 1: you define a region and say all right that that

936
00:55:22,840 --> 00:55:25,960
Speaker 1: region is just off limits. There are apps that use

937
00:55:26,000 --> 00:55:28,520
Speaker 1: geo fencing so that the apps will not work within

938
00:55:28,560 --> 00:55:32,839
Speaker 1: those limits. For example, there are several apps that have

939
00:55:33,560 --> 00:55:37,000
Speaker 1: schools GEO fenced off, so that if you are on

940
00:55:37,080 --> 00:55:41,040
Speaker 1: school grounds, the apps won't work because they would otherwise

941
00:55:41,120 --> 00:55:46,640
Speaker 1: be either distracting or even potentially harmful towards students. You

942
00:55:46,640 --> 00:55:51,799
Speaker 1: can use a similar um strategy with Pokemon Go and

943
00:55:51,880 --> 00:55:55,000
Speaker 1: mark off certain areas is saying all right, anything that

944
00:55:55,080 --> 00:55:58,040
Speaker 1: is within this region, there are no Pokus stops, and

945
00:55:58,080 --> 00:56:01,080
Speaker 1: no Pokemon will show up, and maybe even a message

946
00:56:01,080 --> 00:56:03,880
Speaker 1: will pop up on the phone saying as much so

947
00:56:03,920 --> 00:56:09,600
Speaker 1: that players don't invade that space and disrupt things that

948
00:56:09,680 --> 00:56:14,640
Speaker 1: they shouldn't be. That's something that's entirely possible. And keep

949
00:56:14,640 --> 00:56:18,360
Speaker 1: in mind again, a lot of these places were created

950
00:56:18,400 --> 00:56:23,920
Speaker 1: by Ingress players, but when Ingress was Ingress still is

951
00:56:23,960 --> 00:56:26,640
Speaker 1: a thing, but with Ingress players it was a much

952
00:56:26,840 --> 00:56:31,839
Speaker 1: smaller number overall than there are Pokemon Go players. So

953
00:56:32,719 --> 00:56:35,520
Speaker 1: you might have an occasional Ingress player coming into one

954
00:56:35,600 --> 00:56:38,160
Speaker 1: of these spaces and perhaps no one notices because it's

955
00:56:38,200 --> 00:56:41,680
Speaker 1: like one person every couple of weeks maybe, But with

956
00:56:41,719 --> 00:56:45,640
Speaker 1: Pokemon Go it's hordes of people all the time, and

957
00:56:45,680 --> 00:56:50,160
Speaker 1: it's a much different story. There have been other stories too,

958
00:56:50,520 --> 00:56:53,400
Speaker 1: there was a story of a shootout in Las Vegas

959
00:56:53,440 --> 00:56:58,800
Speaker 1: between some Pokemon Go players and a potential assailant um

960
00:56:58,840 --> 00:57:03,359
Speaker 1: some some pretty harry stuff. Really, anything, anytime you have

961
00:57:03,640 --> 00:57:05,719
Speaker 1: a game that requires people to get into the same

962
00:57:05,719 --> 00:57:09,319
Speaker 1: physical space as each other, you're gonna have issues. It's

963
00:57:09,360 --> 00:57:12,160
Speaker 1: not the fault of the game. That's just because people

964
00:57:12,160 --> 00:57:16,360
Speaker 1: are people. Uh. Sometimes the game can facilitate that sort

965
00:57:16,400 --> 00:57:19,720
Speaker 1: of stuff in ways that the game creators didn't intend.

966
00:57:20,440 --> 00:57:22,720
Speaker 1: But again, not really, you can't really call it the

967
00:57:22,760 --> 00:57:25,360
Speaker 1: fault of the game. That's people leveraging the game to

968
00:57:25,400 --> 00:57:30,240
Speaker 1: do things that the game creators didn't intend. Now the

969
00:57:30,320 --> 00:57:34,760
Speaker 1: question remains, should we expect a rush of augmented reality games.

970
00:57:34,760 --> 00:57:39,360
Speaker 1: Pokemon Go has been wildly successful from adoption to revenue generation,

971
00:57:39,400 --> 00:57:41,560
Speaker 1: at least in the short term. Who's to say that

972
00:57:41,640 --> 00:57:44,520
Speaker 1: this game is gonna have any longevity. We don't know yet.

973
00:57:45,480 --> 00:57:48,360
Speaker 1: But will we see a ton of a R games

974
00:57:48,440 --> 00:57:51,320
Speaker 1: come up in the future. My guess is in the

975
00:57:51,360 --> 00:57:56,800
Speaker 1: short term, yes we are. But here's the problem. Pokemon

976
00:57:57,600 --> 00:58:01,600
Speaker 1: is an ideal intellectual property for augmented reality. It is

977
00:58:02,320 --> 00:58:06,320
Speaker 1: Taylor made for a R. I would argue because it's

978
00:58:06,640 --> 00:58:09,440
Speaker 1: the Pokemon Go game is a game that already mimics

979
00:58:09,960 --> 00:58:14,720
Speaker 1: real world hobbies like insect collecting, so it's already similar

980
00:58:14,720 --> 00:58:18,080
Speaker 1: to something that you would do in reality. If you

981
00:58:18,120 --> 00:58:21,680
Speaker 1: were playing a game Boy Pokemon game, your character in

982
00:58:21,680 --> 00:58:24,240
Speaker 1: the game would have to travel around and collect Pokemon.

983
00:58:24,960 --> 00:58:28,600
Speaker 1: So translating that game element from the game Boy version

984
00:58:28,600 --> 00:58:31,520
Speaker 1: to a real world version not that difficult. You're you're

985
00:58:31,520 --> 00:58:37,320
Speaker 1: still moving around places, physical locations to capture Pokemon. It's

986
00:58:37,320 --> 00:58:41,040
Speaker 1: a very simple game mechanic too to translate. Think of

987
00:58:41,120 --> 00:58:44,880
Speaker 1: other games, it's not as easy to translate that into

988
00:58:44,960 --> 00:58:49,960
Speaker 1: a real world experience. Elevator action, for example, everyone gets

989
00:58:50,000 --> 00:58:51,840
Speaker 1: mad when I get into the elevators that pot City

990
00:58:51,880 --> 00:58:53,680
Speaker 1: marketed and I hit all the buttons, But you never

991
00:58:53,760 --> 00:58:55,600
Speaker 1: know how you're gonna have to work your way through

992
00:58:55,600 --> 00:58:59,760
Speaker 1: the maze. That doesn't work so well. So certain games

993
00:59:00,160 --> 00:59:04,560
Speaker 1: like Pokemon our ideal for augmented reality. In fact, again

994
00:59:04,560 --> 00:59:08,240
Speaker 1: i'd argue Pokemon is pretty much the perfect title for this.

995
00:59:09,120 --> 00:59:14,320
Speaker 1: Niantic could not have hit upon a better idea. They

996
00:59:14,320 --> 00:59:19,440
Speaker 1: didn't have to shoehorn the traditional gameplay into a different,

997
00:59:19,520 --> 00:59:22,280
Speaker 1: but related real world version of the gameplay. It was

998
00:59:22,360 --> 00:59:25,480
Speaker 1: a perfect translation in the sense of the point where

999
00:59:25,480 --> 00:59:28,160
Speaker 1: you're going around collecting things. You could argue that the

1000
00:59:28,160 --> 00:59:30,800
Speaker 1: game is far from perfect, especially since there's such limited

1001
00:59:30,840 --> 00:59:34,800
Speaker 1: gameplay right now between collecting in gym battles. But the

1002
00:59:34,880 --> 00:59:39,720
Speaker 1: collecting part I think they got right honestly, and Pokemon

1003
00:59:39,760 --> 00:59:43,919
Speaker 1: had a huge player base already, right like Ingress did

1004
00:59:43,960 --> 00:59:47,120
Speaker 1: not have the benefit of an pre existing player base.

1005
00:59:48,320 --> 00:59:53,680
Speaker 1: Niantic had to convince people to play Ingress. But while

1006
00:59:53,840 --> 00:59:58,440
Speaker 1: Ingress taps into some pretty traditional science fiction themes, there

1007
00:59:58,960 --> 01:00:02,640
Speaker 1: wasn't a pre sisting world. It wasn't like they could

1008
01:00:02,680 --> 01:00:05,480
Speaker 1: go to a community and say, hey, you know that

1009
01:00:05,560 --> 01:00:07,800
Speaker 1: game you love, well, now here's an a R version

1010
01:00:07,880 --> 01:00:10,600
Speaker 1: of it. Because it was all new Pokemon, there was

1011
01:00:10,800 --> 01:00:13,720
Speaker 1: a huge pre existing audience. Not only was there a

1012
01:00:13,760 --> 01:00:17,840
Speaker 1: huge audience that audience when they were kids playing Pokemon

1013
01:00:17,920 --> 01:00:21,920
Speaker 1: for the first time in the nineties, they now are

1014
01:00:21,960 --> 01:00:26,360
Speaker 1: adults with disposed income and smartphones, so they have the

1015
01:00:26,440 --> 01:00:30,040
Speaker 1: money to own the material needed to play Pokemon Go

1016
01:00:30,360 --> 01:00:34,920
Speaker 1: and Niantic Labs could bang on both novelty, the novelty

1017
01:00:34,920 --> 01:00:38,880
Speaker 1: of playing an a R game and nostalgia of this

1018
01:00:39,400 --> 01:00:42,120
Speaker 1: game that people loved when they were kids. Is a

1019
01:00:42,160 --> 01:00:47,480
Speaker 1: double whammy, perfect storm for popularity. It's no shock that

1020
01:00:47,600 --> 01:00:51,960
Speaker 1: it got so popular so fast. In fact, people who

1021
01:00:51,960 --> 01:00:54,360
Speaker 1: are asking like, how can people be so interested in

1022
01:00:54,400 --> 01:00:57,520
Speaker 1: playing this game? I turned to say, are you are

1023
01:00:57,560 --> 01:01:01,200
Speaker 1: you blind? Not not that you should be interested, but

1024
01:01:01,360 --> 01:01:06,040
Speaker 1: do not understand how popular Pokemon was back in the nineties.

1025
01:01:06,280 --> 01:01:08,840
Speaker 1: That the people who played Pokemon back in the nineties

1026
01:01:08,880 --> 01:01:12,920
Speaker 1: are now older and have smartphones, and it's augmented reality.

1027
01:01:13,520 --> 01:01:17,280
Speaker 1: It's it's a new discipline that people have had very

1028
01:01:17,400 --> 01:01:21,720
Speaker 1: limited exposure to. How could it not be popular? Obviously

1029
01:01:21,760 --> 01:01:24,840
Speaker 1: it was gonna be popular. I if I had had

1030
01:01:24,880 --> 01:01:27,960
Speaker 1: an opportunity to be on the ground floor of investing

1031
01:01:28,360 --> 01:01:31,440
Speaker 1: in Pokemon Go, I absolutely would have done it, because

1032
01:01:31,440 --> 01:01:33,760
Speaker 1: there was it would have been very hard for it

1033
01:01:33,800 --> 01:01:36,960
Speaker 1: to to mess up. That's not to say that it's

1034
01:01:36,960 --> 01:01:39,520
Speaker 1: going to have longevity, but it would have been hard

1035
01:01:39,560 --> 01:01:41,720
Speaker 1: to mess up the launch unless the game was just

1036
01:01:41,840 --> 01:01:44,880
Speaker 1: completely unplayable, and you could argue that in those first

1037
01:01:44,880 --> 01:01:46,880
Speaker 1: few days where the servers were having so much trouble,

1038
01:01:47,400 --> 01:01:50,840
Speaker 1: it often was. Now I'm guessing there it's gonna be

1039
01:01:50,880 --> 01:01:53,680
Speaker 1: a lot more games coming out in augmented reality space,

1040
01:01:53,800 --> 01:01:56,680
Speaker 1: but they're going to have a hard time of it,

1041
01:01:56,920 --> 01:02:00,880
Speaker 1: because again, they're not gonna necessary lea be position the

1042
01:02:00,880 --> 01:02:03,840
Speaker 1: way Pokemon Go was. You can come up with an

1043
01:02:03,840 --> 01:02:10,200
Speaker 1: amazing game, there's a phenomenal application of augmented reality, but

1044
01:02:11,480 --> 01:02:15,600
Speaker 1: unless you also have that audience to tap into, it's

1045
01:02:15,600 --> 01:02:17,680
Speaker 1: gonna it means you have to convince people, hey, you

1046
01:02:17,720 --> 01:02:20,880
Speaker 1: want to try this new thing. It's also augmented reality.

1047
01:02:21,160 --> 01:02:23,400
Speaker 1: It's not based on an i P you love, but

1048
01:02:23,440 --> 01:02:26,920
Speaker 1: it's gonna be an amazing experience that's gonna attract the

1049
01:02:27,040 --> 01:02:31,600
Speaker 1: smaller fan base h or you're gonna end up running

1050
01:02:31,600 --> 01:02:33,960
Speaker 1: into the truck. The danger of having a game that

1051
01:02:34,160 --> 01:02:36,280
Speaker 1: is based on a beloved i P. But people are

1052
01:02:36,320 --> 01:02:38,560
Speaker 1: just gonna say, oh, this is just Pokemon Go, but

1053
01:02:38,640 --> 01:02:44,600
Speaker 1: for Transformers or Lego or some other type of of

1054
01:02:44,760 --> 01:02:50,280
Speaker 1: toy or uh i P. So I think we are

1055
01:02:50,360 --> 01:02:52,920
Speaker 1: going to see a lot more are typically in technology.

1056
01:02:52,920 --> 01:02:56,240
Speaker 1: If we see something as successful, copycats come out of

1057
01:02:56,240 --> 01:03:01,280
Speaker 1: the woodwork before long. But I don't know that uh

1058
01:03:01,360 --> 01:03:03,320
Speaker 1: any of them are going to have a good chance

1059
01:03:03,440 --> 01:03:06,720
Speaker 1: at real success compared to what Pokemon Go has already

1060
01:03:06,720 --> 01:03:10,960
Speaker 1: had not unless someone comes up with a really innovative, cool,

1061
01:03:11,560 --> 01:03:15,800
Speaker 1: compelling use of augmented reality, and that could happen, but

1062
01:03:16,720 --> 01:03:18,720
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna see a lot more copycats in

1063
01:03:18,720 --> 01:03:23,280
Speaker 1: the near future. Let's find out, shall we. Guys. That

1064
01:03:23,440 --> 01:03:28,760
Speaker 1: is our episode on Pokemon Go. If you have enjoyed

1065
01:03:28,800 --> 01:03:32,080
Speaker 1: this episode and you have your own Pokemon ghost stories,

1066
01:03:32,160 --> 01:03:35,520
Speaker 1: I want to hear them. If you found something really funny,

1067
01:03:35,640 --> 01:03:39,200
Speaker 1: or you just uh, you notice something unusual about the game,

1068
01:03:39,360 --> 01:03:42,600
Speaker 1: or maybe maybe even you just have your own perspective

1069
01:03:42,640 --> 01:03:44,800
Speaker 1: on augmented reality, let me know. Or if you have

1070
01:03:44,840 --> 01:03:48,760
Speaker 1: any suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff or people

1071
01:03:48,800 --> 01:03:50,480
Speaker 1: that I should have on the show, either as a

1072
01:03:50,520 --> 01:03:53,480
Speaker 1: guest to interview or a guest host or an episode,

1073
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Speaker 1: send me a message email is tech Stuff at how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, or drop me a line on

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Speaker 1: Twitter or Facebook. The handle at both of those is

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Speaker 1: tech stuff H s W and I'll talk to you

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Speaker 1: again really soon for more on this and thousands of

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Speaker 1: other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.