Some believe that FPS such as Call of Duty or Battlefield make our young people violent and are therefore a danger to our society. Well, they’d probably better beware of the sleeping wolf. In good place to receive the palm of the most dangerous game, the one that interests us today has however, a priori, nothing to scare, quite the contrary.
Pokémon GO: A phenomenal game
To begin, let’s go back a little in time to 2015. After Ingress , his game “revolutionary” based on the location of the players, the Niantic Labs studio intends to go further. Its goal ? Mix this concept with an existing license that everyone knows: Pokémon. And the idea didn’t come out of nowhere. Indeed, on April 1, 2014, Google invited players, for a day, to catch their own Pokémon on Google Maps. John Hanke, founder of Niantic, then finds the idea interesting and approaches The Pokémon Company which decides, of course, to oversee the project. On the morning of September 10, 2015, after more than a year of development, the publisher has its best trailer and reveals Pokémon GO to us.
Pokémon GO announcement trailer!
The game immediately arouses interest. I have to say that the idea seems crazy: walk around in real life and come across wild Pokémon to capture. Young and old already see themselves living as real trainers, all through a simple phone. We are even sold the development of a small badge in the shape of a Pokéball, the Pokemon Go Plus, designed to facilitate tracking. With all this, there was something to look forward to the release of the game … which knew how to be desired. After a beta version launched in some countries (and by invitation) in March 2016, the game is officially released on July 5, 2016… but only in Australia and New Zealand. Then we will arrive, bit by bit, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Canada, Japan… and finally France (July 24, 2016). Note all the same that some impatient people were quick to find some stratagems to play the game before this date.
After all, there was reason to be impatient. Initially, Pokémon GO was to be released in France nine days earlier. But the tragic events that hit the country the day before prompted The Pokémon Company to postpone this date. The company and the French powers indeed considered that it was not reasonable to release a game that could lead to large crowds in this context. The French government will also be very cautious in the face of the first events related to the game. Pokémon Trash, for example, was forced, by decision of the Senate, to cancel its giant hunt, scheduled for July 14 at the Luxembourg Gardens.
However, and even if some are mocking seeing these thousands of players walking the streets with their eyes glued to their phones, others find the application to be beneficial. Quite simply because Pokémon GO encourages players to get out and walk. This is due in particular to its egg system, which only hatches after a certain number of kilometers traveled. The results of the study by Tim Althoff, Ryen W White and Eric Horvitz (all three students at Stanford) are thus not very surprising. By analyzing the data collected on no less than 31,793 Microsoft Band users, they naturally noted that on average Pokémon GO users did more physical activity.
And yet, despite its certain benefits, the abuse of some players has made Pokémon GO a dangerous game.
Attention danger !
Unfortunately, many dramas have taken place because of the inattention, even the unconsciousness of certain players. We are talking about car accidents (having pushed American highway companies to do prevention), cliff falls, break-ins… Perhaps you have even heard of this young girl from Pittsburg, who accused the game of being responsible for his accident. She was indeed far too focused on her Pokémon hunt to look around her… crossing the road. To avoid this type of incident, the mayor of the municipality of Bresolles also filed, in August 2016, an order prohibiting “the establishment of Pokémon in the municipality” (but without real effect). There are others who took the opportunity to collect a small ticket on the way. This is particularly the case of the Israeli insurance company AIG which quickly developed new provisions covering Pokémon GO players.
Mara Faccio and John J. McConnell (Purdue University) have also sought to quantify the impact that Pokémon GO has had on road accidents. Studying the Tippecanoe County police numbers, they noted an unusual increase in the number of car accidents (+145,632), injuries (+29,370) and deaths (+256). Level material damage, it is counted at least in billions of dollars. Note however that if the study focuses on the comparison between the figures before and after the release of the game, the causal link she is trying to establish is far from infallible: we could put forward dozens of other reasons to explain this particular increase over this period… It is therefore difficult to assess the real importance of this increase, but it does exist. So much so that the developers themselves were quick to add prevention messages in-game.
But that is not enough to calm the most reckless, and it was the turn of other actors to raise their voices. This is what TEPCO had to do in particular (The Tokyo Electric Power Company) from 2016. The reason? Unknowing players were venturing into Fukushima disaster-affected areas in search of Pokémon. In the Netherlands, it was ProRail (the national railway company) who asked to exclude the railway lines from the game. Because yes, some players sometimes took the risk of ending up crushed to catch their favorite Pokémon… And some like that , there are lots of them: territories still mined in Bosnia, places of memory or sacred monuments desecrated in Russia in particular… In Cambodia, the Tuol Sleng genocide museum has even taken the decision to ban gambling within its walls.
I don’t like the idea that Pokémon GO is allowed here because this Genocide Museum is a place of remembrance for Cambodians to remember the suffering and harm suffered under the rule of the Khmer Rouge.
Chum Mey, genocide survivor
And he’s not the only one who doesn’t want to hear about the game. You may not know this, but many countries have simply banned Pokémon GO from their soil… for a whole other reason.
Data Hunt
Certainly, Pokémon GO poses some danger in the wrong hands. But it may well be that his real purpose is even more dangerous. At least that’s what many states thought when it was released. Iran, for example, immediately banned the game from its territory, for fear of a security breach. And yes Pokémon GO would be a real threat to nations everywhere. Using player data, it would serve its developers as a massive spy weapon. It is for this reason that Egypt also decided to ban the game.
Pokemon Go is the latest tool used by spy agencies in the intelligence war, a despicable and cunning application that tries to infiltrate our communities in the most innocent way under the guise of entertainment. But what they really want is to spy on people and the state.
Hamdi Bakheet, Member of the Egyptian Defense and National Security Committee
But no need to go that far. The day after its release in France, the UFC-Que Choisir association pointed the finger at the application, because it was too curious about information. Its members then informed us that Pokémon GO had as well access to your name, your e-mail, your IP address or the identification number of your telephone, as well as your hobbies and other favorite games. The application then defended itself by arguing that “Player information is stored in the United States in compliance with the Safe Harbor agreement (which governs the transfer of personal data of European consumers).” Nice try, but this agreement was invalidated in October 2015 by the Court of Justice of the European Union. The reason ? It did not offer a sufficient level of data protection.
As if that weren’t enough, version 1.01.1 of the game allowed Niantic to have access to players’ Google accounts (e-amils, search history, documents on Drive…). If the company hastened to correct what it described as an error, there is something to give food for thought to the most suspicious and to the theory that Pokémon GO is linked to the CIA.
This is in particular what advances an article by the controversial Sputnik news agency. Breaking down the terms of use, its author worries about what Niantic could do with the data collected. In particular, he argues that in the event of a takeover, all the data collected could be disclosed to the purchaser. But what is the relationship with the CIA? Well, he is in the path of John Hanke. Before founding Niantic, the latter had already distinguished himself by setting up the company Keyhole, specialized in digital cartography and financed in particular by In-Q-Tel, the American investment capital fund managed by the CIA. Wacky theory or welcome distrust? Hard to say. But in any case, many nations did not wish to take the risk.
In view of the security breach that such use of data could cause, certain armed or strategic forces have been denied the right to launch the application. This is particularly the case of the Indonesian police and military who, to avoid any form of espionage, cannot play Pokémon GO. For Israeli soldiers, the ban is limited to exercise areas or military bases (so as not to disclose their positions). Thailand and Canada have also made similar arrangements. A distrust that spreads to the United States where Pentagon employees are prohibited from using the game on their professional phones. As for France, some institutions, such as the Army but also the Atomic Energy Center, have warned their members about the potential danger of the game (sometimes prohibiting access).
If it is difficult to see Pokémon GO allow “directing guided missiles” as announced by analyst Alireza Al-Davoud, the game nevertheless presents a certain number of risks. Whether it is in terms of the preservation of personal or sensitive data, or the physical security of players, Niantic’s application is far from being as innocuous as it seems. Misused, it can indeed constitute a danger for you and others. This absolutely does not mean that the game should be banned, but we can only advise you to be vigilant when you walk the streets in search of Pokémon.