atheist blog
The BRILLIANT Pokémon franchise people came out with an amazing product/app today that my kids are freaking out about. Pokémon GO! This app turns their phones into Pokémon catchers. They can walk along and capture the Pokémon in their paths. Every one of these kids has gone out walking at least two times today; one kid has been walking the neighborhood all day!
The Pokémon thing has been in my life for over twenty years now. Before my own kids, my stepdaughter was CrAzY about it when she was a little one. Today having my teenagers running around in such delight was so funny to me.
I can't explain exactly what Pokémon GO! is, you'll have to ask your kids about that, but suffice it to say that as we were driving along they were BEGGING me to stop along the side of the road so that they could run off and catch Pokémon in the area.
All I can say is KUDOS to The Pokémon Company. I can only imagine the cumulative franchise value with their innovative strategies for getting and keeping fans. Games, CARDS, clothing, manga and anime' books, merch, and about a zillion upgrades and apps. From WIKI:
For the uninitiated among us I'm going to attempt to explain Pokémon GO! to you. OK, so remember that little hand-held device that Al used to use in Quantum Leap every time Sam was in trouble? Ziggy was the name of the device and Ziggy had tons of information available and could do lots of things, right? Imagine if we could have had Ziggy on our phones right now figuring out if we were really making the best decisions from moment to moment. Wouldn't that be amazing? Oh boy!
For the kids, Pokémon Go! is kind of like that but what it does instead of figuring out the success of possible scenarios is identifying the location of imaginary pocket monsters (the word Pokémon is Japanese for pocket monster) on these anime'-looking maps of your location and allowing your Pokémon trainer to capture said monster in the phone. All pretend of course. Oh boy.
One amazing part of Pokémon GO! is that it is connected to the world through magic and Google Earth! And that cool feature allows it to include local buildings and landmarks on your child's phone screen as a location for collecting a pocket monster, or energy, or gems, or a variety of other cool imaginary stuff.
My kids LOVE Pokémon and I'm okay with that, but if you can avoid it with your kids at all, DO because my kids truly think they have to catch 'em all.
The Pokémon thing has been in my life for over twenty years now. Before my own kids, my stepdaughter was CrAzY about it when she was a little one. Today having my teenagers running around in such delight was so funny to me.
I can't explain exactly what Pokémon GO! is, you'll have to ask your kids about that, but suffice it to say that as we were driving along they were BEGGING me to stop along the side of the road so that they could run off and catch Pokémon in the area.
Tajiri first thought of Pokémon around 1989 or 1990, when the Game Boy was first released. The concept of the Pokémon universe, in both the video games and the general fictional world of Pokémon, stems from the hobby of insect collecting, a popular pastime which Pokémon executive director Satoshi Tajiri enjoyed as a child.
Players of the games are designated as Pokémon Trainers, and in the main series Pokémon games, these trainers have two general goals. These are to complete the Pokédex by collecting all of the available Pokémon species found in the fictional region where that game takes place; and to train a team of powerful Pokémon from those they have caught to compete against teams owned by other Trainers, and eventually win the fictional Pokémon League.
For the kids, Pokémon Go! is kind of like that but what it does instead of figuring out the success of possible scenarios is identifying the location of imaginary pocket monsters (the word Pokémon is Japanese for pocket monster) on these anime'-looking maps of your location and allowing your Pokémon trainer to capture said monster in the phone. All pretend of course. Oh boy.
Did that help?
My kids LOVE Pokémon and I'm okay with that, but if you can avoid it with your kids at all, DO because my kids truly think they have to catch 'em all.
The Pokemon thing remains a mystery to me. My kids are somewhat aware of it all. As for me, I continue to get the terms Pokemon confused with Pikachu--and my kids correct me every single time.
ReplyDeleteAn aside--your use of Quantum Leap memes here is epic! ;)