‘POKEMON GO’ Losing Popularity

By LAURA HECKELMANN

Pokémon GO was released on July 6^th by Niantic, a video game corporation. Within a month, it had over 100 million downloads and was making over $10 million in revenue, on a daily basis. But recently the game has dropped in popularity, with less people playing the game.

The objective of the game is to catch Pokémon by walking around outside; the more players walk the more Pokémon players catch, and the more other Pokémon grow. Before players can use the game, they need to pick one of three teams (Valor, Instinct, or Mystic.) Players gain eggs by walking around and are encouraged to walk more in order to hatch those eggs and gain more Pokémon. Players can train their Pokémon and have them battle other players in gyms. ‘Pokéstops’ are offered as a place where players can go get more ‘Pokéballs’ which are how players are able to keep catching different Pokémon.

When the game was first released, it was almost an epidemic. People, mostly teens and people throughout their 20s and 30s, could be seen nearly everywhere, walking around both during the day and late at night. Many people scrutinized the games’ safety, especially after people playing the game were getting attacked by criminals at popular Pokéstops attempting to rob their phones. Pokéstops were published online for players to see. Criminals would wait at the Pokéstop for players to inevitably come. This led, in part, to a drop in players as safety of the players became an increasing issue.

Renee Payo, a junior at Ramapo, says she used to play but stopped for a number of reasons. “The game got old, and soon my friends didn’t want to play it. Also, the app was taking up so much of my data and wouldn’t even work at times. It wasn’t worth it, often I would find myself going over my data plan and my parents would get mad,” said Payo.

When the game was released many people had positive ideas of the game. It was getting many people active, with players walking around for a good part of the day. Previously inactive people were seeing a monumental increase in physical activity.

Despite these positive aspirations, statistics do show that the game is losing players at a rapidly increasing speed. According to an article by Heavy, the game has lost  “several million players over the past week,” writes Brendan Morrow. Why the drop in players? Morrow says it is because of players getting frustrated over several glitches in the game. Others say it is because of the massive amount of data the game requires.

Here at Ramapo College, the student body seems to disagree with both theories, with students saying they feel people stopped playing the game because it got old.

Justin Lester, also a freshman, said he stopped playing the game because it became redundant after awhile. “The game was very enjoyable when it first came out, I used it during my down time and it was a fun past time,” said Lester. “It became redundant hatching the eggs and having to walk so long to hatch them. And when I would go to public places, I wouldn’t play, but I would see fights break out over what team was better in malls and in parks. I didn’t want people approaching me and trying to pick a fight with me because of my team choice, so I just deleted it.”

Freshman Amanda Vigdor, while not having played the game herself, says she feels people have stopped playing the game simply because she feels it was a fad. “I think that the hype over it has dropped like any other novelty app. There’s no more things left to be explored by users. Also, people have found ways to cheat the game so that takes a lot of the fun aspect out for new players,” said Vigdor.