Pokémon Go: Is This A Parent’s New Best Friend?

Pokémon Go … you must have heard of it? It is an Augmented Reality (AR) game that has taken the world by storm since it was launched back in July 2016. And my children were right up there on day one of its UK launch. To call it obsessive is somewhat of an understatement, and over the months it feels like Squirtles, Geodudes, Pikachus, Drowzees and Mr Mimes have become members of the family!

Pokémon Go – What is it?

To summarise the game very simplistically, the game uses your phone’s GPS to ‘walk’ your character down the road you are physically walking on. Occasionally Pokémon characters pop up, and the objective is to throw Poke Balls at it, to ‘catch it’ and add to your Pokedex. You need to keep topping up your Poke Balls and you progress through various levels the more you catch. You come across gyms to battle in (we don’t do that much), and you collect eggs that hatch into Pokémon after you’ve walked a certain distance. When the game was launched, there were 149 Pokémon characters to find to fill your Pokedex. There’s now 80 more since Generation 2 Pokémon were released in February 2017. There’s a lot more to the game than what I’ve mentioned, but I hope it gives you the basics.

A lot of this can be seen in the increase in the overall brand’s popularity, with more people trying different Pokèmon games. Quite a few people even want to buy graded Pokemon cards and other collectibles because of it.

Pokémon Go has received a lot of bad press – namely some very silly people who have played it while driving and caused accidents. Luckily my 10 and 8 year olds can’t drive (and the game has since been set up not to work above a walking speed), so the worst we’ve had to contend with is the occasional walk into a lamppost or slip off a kerb …

I know that parents worry about games like Pokémon Go. They worry that their children will become addicted to their phone / of them not being alert to their surroundings while playing it / to them ‘zoning out’ and becoming seemingly unaware that you’ve been repeatedly asking them a question for the last 10 minutes, etc. These are all very valid concerns of course, but in our household we’ve embraced the game and used it to our own advantage. This is how …

When we are out and about, my children tire very quickly. This results in continuous moaning and whining until we give up and go home. Last summer, we took a road trip from the UK all the way to Latvia to attend a family wedding. We factored in some city stops along the route, to break the journey up, and it was important to us that we made the most of these free days to explore. This was back in August – just as Pokémon Go was picking up speed. Our first stopover city was Hamburg in Germany. On our sightseeing day there, we dropped our dogs off with a local dogsitter, and walked for miles and miles, taking in all the attractions along the way. Only in the last half an hour, whilst heading back to the car, did the children say they were tired. We had a thoroughly enjoyable day. The children saw lots of interesting sights, we visited the most amazing indoor model railway at Miniatur Wunderland, ate hamburgers (well, it’s obligatory isn’t it?), even took a very quick stroll down the Reeperbahn where I had to answer some very awkward questions!

We also saw lots of fascinating monuments, many of which both my husband and I would have walked straight past – had it not been for Pokémon Go! Yes, you heard right. Poke Stops – plentiful within towns and cities – are places where you can top up on Poke Balls and other items in order to play Pokémon Go. Poke Stops are often interesting signs, monuments, buildings … and at each one we stopped at, we learned a little bit more about famous Hamburg folk and the significance of the buildings we stood in front of.

And between Poke Stops, a Pokémon Go character called Magikarp became our saviour, as they appeared all over the city (and you need to catch 400 of them before you can evolve one into a Gyarados!) We made sure the children came to no harm and didn’t walk into anyone. We made sure they regularly stopped playing the game to look up and take in the views. They were happy as they were catching lots of new Pokémon characters to add to their growing Pokedex. We were happy because they were enjoying themselves, and walking miles without complaint!

Kiel in Germany, Kuldiga in Latvia, Warsaw and Krakow in Poland: We Pokémon Go’ed our way around them all with very content, happy children. OK, they whined a little bit when phone batteries died, but they had usually by this point caught some good, new, Pokémon so were happy anyway.

Pokémon Go, thanks to the clever people at Niantic who design it, has regular updates. Each time there’s a ‘big’ update, the children want to get out and about to look for new characters just released, or to walk lots of 10 km eggs in the hope of hatching a new one. Our children actually want to walk! We once left the car at home, put leads on the dogs and walked 8 miles to town and back (or 22,000 steps according to my Fitbit). Why? Because some new baby Pokémon characters were released that can only be hatched from eggs – so they needed to walk some serious kilometres to hatch some 🙂 I think it is great, I really do!

The children do lots of sports at school/after school, and at weekends they just want to vegetate in front of the TV or game consoles. It might not be perfect, but this game has given us valuable family time back. They actually want to be with us as they know they can’t go out on their own. The dogs love the long walks too.

Some interesting research has been released that claims that gaming could actually be GOOD for you! Take a look at the Positive Health Wellness link here and see for yourself. What do you think?

In fact, there’s only one downside to my children playing Pokémon Go that I can see. Tauros (North America), Kangaskhan (Australia) and Farfetch’d (Asia) can only – as far I can tell – be caught overseas … Both children are close to completing their Pokedex, so will this mean them wanting to start international jet setting next to catch the remaining three? Eek!

STOP PRESS: During the February half term we went for a few days to Baltimore, US … and yes, you’ve guessed it – we all caught a Tauros or two! Just the two regional ones to get now – time to fly long haul me thinks!