“I’M back!” -- Sophie Myhill, a computer science student at Inverell High School, had her phone by her side while her friends, and Pokemon Go teammates, Harry Jorgensen, Jack Staader and Jack Roussos checked the room for activity.
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“The servers go down quite often on this. Sophie has been off all day, and now she is back on,” Harry explained.
The global launch of Pokemon Go in the past few weeks has seen many on the outside of the gaming community find themselves up to their arms in the sub culture, turned full-blown cultural movement, and many of those in the gaming community extend a welcome hand to new players.
But the explosive popularity of the game, which integrates with mobile phone cameras and GPS to project virtual Pokemon into the real world, has come from a deeper history of development, fan culture, cost, and profit -- and it’s not slowing down.
This week a Facebook invite circulated among Pokemon Go players for a two-hour event from 12 noon on Sunday at Victoria Park. It is billed as a chance for players to meet, compare their gaming exploits and catch elusive Pokemon in the area.
“It is a coming together of Pokemon enthusiasts,” Organiser Josh McPhee said.
“On the Poke-stops there, there will be lures. Lures heighten your chance of catching Pokemon at the stop.”
The local event follows a similar invite, which registered over 5000 Sydney gamers as “confirmed” on Friday, July 8.
It has more downloads than Twitter in the US, and has more runtime than Facebook in the last two weeks, as an average daily app loaded.
- Josh McPhee
Players say the phenomenon was catapulted by combining a long-established fan base and subculture with emerging technology bridging the real and virtual worlds
For gamers, there are two emerging classes: virtual (VR) and augmented (AR) reality.
“Augmented reality is you have the world around you, and then there is an overlay. Think of it as a digital overlay on the world around you. So, the table is still there, you still see the table, and things interact on the table,” Inverell Auto Spares technician Ridge Wilkins explained.
“Virtual reality, you have the glasses and things like that, and it creates a virtual world around you.”
Major developers have released prototypes like the Samsung VR ‘Gear’ headset, and the HTC Vive system, exploring options to market virtual worlds, but high costs to build a powerful computing system to handle virtual reality has divided players among ‘diehard VR’ and the ‘everyman’s AR'.
“Already, more people have downloaded this (Pokemon Go) than people have downloaded Tinder,” Ridge said.
“It has more downloads than Twitter in the US, and has more runtime than Facebook in the last two weeks, as an average daily app loaded,” Josh added.
But at Inverell High, Jack, Jack, Harry and Sophie predicted a rise and fall as the advent of other-reality social games develop.
“I guess it is an odd thing because it is what’s in and what’s out. They took a really big leap making this Pokemon Go. They knew they had this huge fan base,” Harry said.
“The best part of the game is it’s an excuse to go out with your friends,” Jack Roussos added.
The Pokemon walk will kick off at Victoria Park from 12 noon on Sunday.