July 6, 2016 Pokemon GO was released in northern hemisphere and other countries. This is a cellphone or mobile device based game. Game’s idea is – when the player hold up the devices in various locations at various times, a digital monsters known as Pokémon will appear on screen of the mobile or cellphone and user have to catch it.
Pokemon GO
Soon after the release, Pokémon GO became an overnight hit. People of different age group started playing the game. Because of the way the game was designed (this is called augmented reality), the player needs to physically leave their house or couch go outside and look for monsters. Soon people walking in the street like zombies became a common sight. Even though the initial excitement has died down, but Pokémon GO still a very popular game.
I am not going to describe all the back end technical features of the game – because I am not here to talk about that. I am going to talk something different about the game. A week after the initial release of the game, we started hearing and reading interesting stories about Pokémon GO. I cannot help myself to include few of them here.
- Quebec City (Canada) – Two police officers in Quebec City suffered minor injuries when a car reversed into their cruiser in a parking lot. The driver was playing Pokémon GO !
- Utah (USA) – One teen with couple of his friends was seen playing the game in an abandoned grain silo.
- Pennsylvania (USA) – A 15 year old girl was hit by a car while playing the game and crossing a busy highway ! The girl was lucky, she survived.
- Missouri (USA) – Four men in Missouri have used the game to find players at a specific location. Then robbed them using a handgun. About eight or nine people have been robbed!
- North San Diego County (USA)- Two men, who were in their early 20s fell off a bluff while playing Pokémon GO ! They had crossed a fenced area to get to the bluff. One man fell 75 to 100 feet and the other man was found unconscious 50 feet down the bluff.
- Oregon (USA) – An Oregon man, who was visiting his family in New York, crashed his car while playing Pokémon GO and guess what- this guy is a former Marine !
- And the last one is in Tokushima, (on the western Japanese island of Shikoku). This happens on August 25, 2016. A driver, playing Pokémon GO while driving hit two pedestrians when they were crossing the street. One died and another left with a broken hip. Driver did not see the pedestrians as he was busy looking for the monster.
- Some law enforcement agencies in many countries had to issue warning notice about the dangers of playing Pokémon GO while on the go.
Despite all these above mention incidents, we must praise the Pokémon GO. At lease it managed to get people out of their house. And made them walk, which is a form of exercise. Even though I am not sure if we call slow walk and frequent stop and upper body movement an exercise or not, but still it counts. One psychologist even claims that the after playing the game – some people notice a significant positive change in their anxiety and depression levels.
All these events happens, for a video game. In the past we have seen people’s madness for new technology – like the long lineup for new iPhone. But Pokémon GO is definitely a new kind of madness.
Pokémon GO just proved one thing, technology can take over the control of human emotion and action. Losing control over action is a dangerous thing. We need to install some types of breaking mechanism in these sorts of games. So if one unknowingly or deliberately put them self in a dangerous situation , then the game’s breaking mechanism will display a warning and then shutdown the game. Does not matter what ever your game score or level is, safety of human life and health always comes first.
One solution
Pokémon GO use device’s GPS application. Because of this Pokémon GO server or game engine can detect user’s physical location. So if Pokémon GO server or game engine detect that the user is close to a busy street, then the game engine can send a warning message to the user and then stop the game. I am sure smart people of Nintendo can develop a smarter solution.
We the human creates and use technology. Not the other way. We can achieved anything using the limitless power of technology. But this has to be done in a controlled way. Otherwise one day, the very technology that we have created for us, will take over the control.
Writer – Rubayat M.
