Little moment of nostalgia before starting the weekend! While the Pokemon GO European Championships are currently taking place in Frankfurt in a studious climate conducive to competition, let’s dive back a few years. In the summer of 2016 more precisely, when Niantic’s mobile game was just coming out in our country.
Consecrated very quickly as the mobile title of the year, combining geolocation and augmented reality, Pokémon GO is becoming a real phenomenon, and anecdotes about relentless trainers are flourishing. Gamers all over the world are doing crazy things in real life to get virtual Pokemon. Very recently, a video taken in Stockholm went viral again. We can see crowds of players running like madmen…to capture a Snorlax.
The ransom of success
The popularity of Pokémon GO has had some negative consequences. If this gathering of trainers in Stockholm goes relatively calmly, this has not always been the case, and several media around the world have, between 2016 and 2017, recorded several incidents “in real life”, due to movements crowds, or fights triggered by the confluence of trainers.
More recently, Pokemon GO has been hit by the press due to car accidents, as some oblivious trainers hunt Pokemon while driving.
In general, this “frenzied” side of Pokémon hunting on Pokémon GO has largely calmed down. It’s becoming rare for the game to make headlines due to IRL incidents, and trainer confluences are rarer, and often at publisher-controlled festivals.