Fansided

There are now Pokemon GO pub crawls

By Leah Smith

NEW YORK, NY - JULY 13: People play Pokemon GO game in New York City, NY on July 13, 2016. Pokemon Go is a free-to-play location-based augmented reality mobile game which allows players to capture, battle, and train virtual Pokemon who appear throughout the real world. Pokemon Go was rolled out to iPhone and Android smartphone users in the United States, Australia and New Zealand on July 6. (Photo by Volkan Furuncu/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - JULY 13: People play Pokemon GO game in New York City, NY on July 13, 2016. Pokemon Go is a free-to-play location-based augmented reality mobile game which allows players to capture, battle, and train virtual Pokemon who appear throughout the real world. Pokemon Go was rolled out to iPhone and Android smartphone users in the United States, Australia and New Zealand on July 6. (Photo by Volkan Furuncu/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) /
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The more Pokemon GO’s popularity, the more activities pop up centered around the game, including pub crawls that now happen to include hunting for Pokemon.

In the late 90s and early 2000’s, Pokemon was everywhere, and for the children who grew up during that time, the video games, TV show, and trading card game were defining parts of there childhood.

Flash forward to 2016 and Pokemon GO’s release, the show is still on the air, and the video games have run through pretty much every color and then some, but Pokemon GO is bringing fans from the 90s back to the franchise. Now in their twenties or older, Pokemon GO is fulfilling their childhood dreams about becoming a trainer and catching them all.

But now there is a new adult twist that never would have happened on the TV showing, adding alcohol to the quest to be the very best. Across the country, Pokemon GO pub crawl events are appearing and bringing hundreds of players together in various cities. Participants are encouraged to dress up and to form teams to hunt Pokemon with to further increase the social nature of the event.

Given the massive popularity of the game, events like pub crawls seem a natural fit as it plays into the social nature of Nintendo’s first mobile Pokemon game, while the pub crawl attracts the 90s nostalgia crowd that has helped to make Pokemon GO  such a hit. These factors make the pub crawls’ increasing popularity not very surprising to Karen North, a psychologist and University of Southern California professor who studies social media, who spoke to the Associated Press about this new trend.

"“People are social animals, and they’re always looking for something new and exciting to do,” North said. “This is much more fun than just going to a pub crawl, because it gives everybody a common activity and something to talk about.”"

However, while it is great that Pokemon GO  is bringing people together, adding alcohol into the mix may not be the greatest idea. There have already been numerous reports of players injuring themselves, and playing while drunk will not help that cause. The San Francisco Police Department are hopeful that participants in their city’s Pokemon GO pub crawl will stay safe, but there is no way to ensure that with a game that leads to players sometimes not paying attention to their surroundings while sober.

It will be interesting to see how this combination of activities turns out and what other things get combined with Pokemon GO in the future, especially as the game launches in even more regions. As of Friday, Pokemon GO is officially available in Australia, New Zealand, the US., the U.K., Germany, Spain, Portugal, and Italy – the game went live in the last three countries on Friday morning.

For more gaming and Pokemon GO news, please visit our hub page. 

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