Pokémon is a game/world created by
a Japanese business. It deals with made up creatures that players, called
trainers, catch, train and fight. It can be played in various mediums and even
has a cartoon TV. show. Recently, the company created a new way of looking into
the Pokémon realm that allows users to interact not only with the Pokémon world
but also with our own. It created quite a stir and became viral. The game
became so big, so fast because it effectively drew players in through
identification and use of growing “world browsing” technology and accomplished
its goal of getting kids to be more active.
The game uses a technology that has
been slowly gaining popularity, that of a “world browser”. A smart phone can use the camera to display
on the screen and on top of that use location programing that can superimpose
any text, info, or picture on the screen creating a feeling that the experience
is somehow real, like looking through a magical glass to a new world that has
always been there. To John Tinnell this technology allows “any place—not just government
sanctioned ones—[to] become digitally saturated with media content to the
extent that it may function as a proportionate replica, historical reenactment,
or monument…” or in the case of Pokémon Go, a new world full of made up
creatures. It permits people to interact with the environment and creates a
unique mixture of the literal and virtual that makes it a novel game to play.
People use the app to find Pokémon
creatures to train by walking around their neighborhoods. As players walk so do
the avatars on the screen further allowing users to feel like they are a part
of the game world. As a reverse affect, we bring those avatars characters into
the real world. And this is in part of how the game becomes so big, so fast. As
people progress further through the Pokémon realm, they took that identity as a
Pokémon trainer and desired to share success with ‘real world’ friends, who
caught on and began to play as well.
When starting, players create an
avatar of themselves, being able to pick what their character looks like which
allows players to identify with their avatar drawing players in. For example,
though the purple hair is a different touch, when creating my avatar, I chose
similar traits such as white, female, and blue eyes, just like me. The
characters are comic like, relatively simple and can look like yourself, or a
cooler version. As Scott McCloud explains in Understanding Comics the simplicity of characters in comics allows
us to identify with the characters and thus draws one into the comic. Pokémon
Go uses the simple features to draw players into the game; you literally become
a Pokémon trainer.
New technology allows new possibilities
to our world and Pokémon Go is an exceedingly fun game that will persuade any
couch potato to go Catch ‘Em All.
To read more about augmented reality app/games check out my classmates' blogs Ammon Hooper and Amy Cox
To read more about augmented reality app/games check out my classmates' blogs Ammon Hooper and Amy Cox
Awesome job and tasteful design with the images (I couldn't get mine to align nicely like that!).I liked that you included a quote from McCloud and applied the whole comics concept. It's interesting how people typically create avatars that look like themselves without even thinking about it. It's an automatic response, even though you could choose to look any way you wanted digitally.
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ReplyDeleteI really liked that pokemon go gave people the opportunity to do what had missing from their previous games, that is, to truly become the 'trainer.' Not only do they get to design their avatar, which helps them identify with the character, but their real movements are actually translated to the screens virtual map (as you pointed out). I think pokemon go took off because it innovately used a popular source material in combination with the concept of world browsers (and it did it on a large scale that had never been seen before). However, limited game complexity and the public's short attention span meant the game has steadily lost popularity, but the concepts developed will surely make a ressurgence in more apps to come. Excellent rhetorical analysis Ellie.
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