Nerd Nostalgia: Pokemon Go
Back on July 6, 2016 Pokemon Go was, I assume, the most downloaded app at that time. Millions of people started catching Pokemon in “real life”, and I was one of them, of course. My first Pokemon was Charmander, as it normally was when I played the games on GameBoy systems.
At that time there seemed to be such a sense of community among it’s players, something I hadn’t experienced before with a game on my phone. I even found myself talking to random people, something I never do, because we were both in the same area catching Pokemon.
Back in the old days, 2016, when I took over the “Creeper” Gym
We would check our phones, and see a shadowed shape of a Pokemon we didn’t have yet, and excitedly start running around to find it. We’d look for “nests” of Pokemon we wanted to evolve, or that were rare. We’d battle in Gyms, take them over, and almost immediately someone would come along and knock out our Pokemon.
They were simpler times, and I miss them.
I still play the game, and look forward to my “Pokemon Go dates”, but it’s changed so much. Now we have so many different kinds of Pokemon, it’s hard to keep up. The sense of community is gone now, I no longer, randomly, bump into fellow players. I miss that smile and nod of acknowledgement we would share. Don’t get me wrong, I still have fun playing it, and I recently got back into trying to take down a gym, or I will join a raid. I’m also not complaining about all the changes, I do like them (pokemon trades! battling other trainers!), there just seems to be something missing these days. Mainly, the simplicity, and the random encounters with friendly fellow players.
If you see me playing the game, feel free to give me a smile and a nod.
