If you haven’t heard of Pokémon Go by now, you must actually be living under a rock. Niantic’s smartphone game, which allows players to catch Pokémon by walking around in the real world, launched on July 6 and has since then gathered hoards of passionate supporters and critics.
I am one of these passionate supporters, and I’ve decided to convert my love and affection into this op-ed piece, so hopefully I can smash all the haters out there.
Let me begin with the fitness benefits of this game. This game is impossible to play in your bedroom or on the couch. You have to get up and walk around your neighborhood or campus or city, or you’re never going to catch any Pokémon. On top of that, the game gives you an alternative method of getting Pokémon: hatching them from eggs. These eggs can only be hatched by walking two, five or ten kilometers, depending on the egg. And the game knows if you’re in a car, so you really do have to walk to hatch those eggs.
This game has encouraged all the traditionally “indoor kids” (myself included) to put down the game console and turn off the TV to get outside. My skin is definitely a darker shade of white after I spent the last month or so of my summer playing Pokémon Go.
I’ve also made two whole friends playing Pokémon. I cannot tell you their names because they are children who live in my neighborhood in California, but I can tell you that they are adorable and that we took down that Instinct gym in the middle of our suburban world.
Some people don’t like this game, and that’s okay, but those people don’t seem to have any good reasons. The biggest criticism I’ve heard against this game is that people are doing stupid things while playing, like crashing cars or trespassing or running into the middle of busy highways. Okay, those are valid complaints.
Here’s what I think: People are going to be stupid anyway. The people who drive and play are probably the same people who already drive and text. The people who are trespassing obviously never learned anything about the law or how to read signs. The ones who run out into the middle of the street when you could catch that Bulbasaur from the sidewalk are probably the same guys who yell out, “Look what I can do!” before doing something that will leave them hospitalized.
Maybe Pokémon Go is providing a scapegoat for stupid people. “Hey, it wasn’t my fault, I was playing the game.” Well, as a player of the game, I can say with absolute certainty that there is no reason to do anything that dumb, even for the sweet, sweet Pokes.
If you’ve been boycotting Pokémon Go because of all that bad press, just give in and download it. If you don’t like it, then you just can delete it. No harm done.
If you haven’t downloaded it yet because you’ve never played a Pokémon game before, that’s okay, too. It’s user friendly and doesn’t expect you to have any prior knowledge of the game. All you have to know is that there are monsters in the world that you can catch in Pokéballs and then they become your friends. It’s a fantastic concept.
If I haven’t convinced you to play Pokémon Go yet, you should know that even my dad is playing it. He works a full time job because he is an Actual Adult, so don’t argue that you don’t have enough time for this. My dad and I have really bonded through this game, and earlier this week he sent me a screenshot of his first Jigglypuff. Yeah, my dad is cooler than yours.
Pokémon Go was honestly the sole reason I left my bedroom some days this summer, and I will defend the merits of this game to the ends of the earth. If you still don’t like it, at least appreciate that its success is the reason we’re going to get a Harry Potter version of the game.
Gillian Lelchuk is a junior Writing Seminars and mathematics double major from Los Alamitos, Calif.
