The Pokemon Go Phenomenon: Group-Pushed Experiences

The summer season of 2016 will go down in historical past as a time when folks across the globe took to the streets looking for their favourite Pokemon. With the launch of Pokemon Go on the sixth of July, there have been now folks wandering round cities wherever you appeared. 

From trying to find new Pokemon to battling towards different trainers in gymnasium stops round their cities, the sport quickly turned a social phenomenon. Movies flooded social media of 1000’s of individuals working via main cities to the positioning of a uncommon Pokemon. Even after the primary waves of hype got here and went, the influence that Pokemon Go had on the world was unmistakable.

Even now, years later, Pokemon Go is performed by over 65 million folks each single 12 months. On this article, we’ll dive into the months and years that adopted the discharge of Pokemon Go, exploring precisely how this sport developed into the cultural phenomenon that it’s turn out to be generally known as.

Let’s dive proper in.

Why Did Pokemon Go Turn into So Widespread?

Pokemon is essentially the most profitable media franchise of all time, having introduced in properly over $100 billion USD in revenues. Past simply business success, Pokemon has a cultural foreign money that few different franchises on the earth have been capable of create. Even when you’re not accustomed to Pokemon or haven’t performed, you’ve seemingly heard of the sport all through the course of your life.

For some, the preliminary pull towards Pokemon Go got here from a way of nostalgia. Those who had performed Pokemon as children got a brand new manner of connecting with their very own youth and reliving a few of their childhood reminiscences via this thrilling new software.

But, for most individuals, the pull of Pokemon Go was the truth that it turned a social motion. Because it was a sport that could possibly be performed collectively, strolling across the metropolis and interacting with Pokemon and PokemonStops, it fostered connection. Folks would meet up with their pals and take to the streets, transferring via their neighborhoods in an effort to play collectively.

Past simply enjoying the sport, this was a social type of connection, permitting folks to attach over shared pursuits. At current, particularly in America, there’s an erosion of ‘third areas’, locations the place folks can meet up at that, aren’t their residence or their office. These areas have to be free, permitting folks to exist with out having to pay to be there.

For a lot of, Pokemon Go supplied a brand new option to work together with a metropolis. As a substitute of both being in your house or at work, it opened up the streets of each metropolis to discover with pals. Particularly contemplating how un-walkable most of America is, this allowed folks to discover their surrounding environments in new methods, pushed by their love of the sport. 

Pokemon Go was the proper storm: nostalgia, enjoyable gaming, group interplay, and time to attach with others. Its success got here again to its social side, with the power to finish actions collectively, forging new reminiscences, experiences, and enjoyable occasions to look again on for all.

Even now, when you look via any previous video of individuals enjoying Pokemon Go on YouTube or different social media platforms, the feedback are all crammed with one single factor: nostalgia. Folks aren’t nostalgic for the sport itself, however for the group spirit that it evoked. As our world turns into extra secular and more and more hyper-focused on work, alternatives to attach with others are eroding away.

Pokemon Go, by utilizing social components of their sport, was capable of change this.

Will Social-Pushed Gaming Ever Return?

Pokemon Go isn’t almost as in style because it as soon as was. But, it acts as proof that social gaming is an outstanding manner of motivating folks. The mannequin of a sport that’s based mostly on a real-world map, permitting folks to traverse their cities with others, is one which naturally has an attraction for a lot of.

Peer, a blockchain ecosystem, has seen this as a chance, making a social blockchain software. Inside this world, customers can transfer round their bodily metropolis, leaving notes on the map for different folks to see. At its core, this method focuses on social connection, giving folks a motive to get out of their homes and discover the world round them.

By utilizing AR know-how, individuals are capable of work together with the world round them from their cellular gadgets. By consumer interplay, it will construct up a technological panorama on prime of our actual world, with customers having the ability to go onto the app to see what messages, concepts, or recommendation folks have left around the globe for them to seek out.

Utilizing the ideas that made Pokemon Go so profitable, Peer is constructing a brand new ledger for human reality, letting the digital world work together with the bodily world in new and significant methods.

Social gaming is the long run, with Peer main the way in which.

Ultimate Ideas

At its core, Pokemon Go unlocked a way of group that a lot of the world is missing. With the degeneration of third areas and the erosion of walkable cities within the States, many don’t have the chance to attach with their pals out within the open. Pokemon Go modified that, turning sidewalks, neighborhoods, and whole cities into social environments the place folks might meet and play collectively.

Whereas Pokemon Go was undoubtedly the start of this social-driven gaming, it’s removed from the one choice that’s on the market. As we see social blockchain apps like Peer proceed to achieve help and followings, the social-driven gaming house will solely proceed to develop and develop.

With the facility of blockchain know-how, Peer might create a social phenomenon very like the one we noticed with Pokemon Go.