No stopping players as Pokemon Go goes stratospheric

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It’s taken off like no other has and gripped gamers worldwide.

Pokémon GO is the new cultural phenomenon that is changing the way people interact with cities.

It’s an augmented reality game, which is to say it superimposes a digital game over the fabric of the world, with players accessing it through their GPS- and internet-enabled smartphones.

Just download and roam the streets in search of the characters. Geotagging does the rest.

New York, London, Berlin are full of players roaming the streets to find and capture the virtual Pokemon characters……

Deniz Pezold admits: “Well, you do walk around looking at your smart phone all the time. You really have to be careful crossing the streets. I caught myself once or twice almost walking into a road.”

Fellow player Fabio Backhaus says: “And then you just stand still in the middle of the road. It really is dangerous, I have to admit. Well, you walk around looking at you phone all the time, and you only see Pokemons appearing on the map and you try to catch them.”

Dr. Dimitrios Tsivrikos, a consumer and business psychologist at University College London, says the use of augmented reality in a game is what is attracting so many people but augmented reality doesn’t allow its gamers to hide behind avatars, or fantasy personalities in the same way as traditional games.

He says: “With augmented reality you are actually coming face to face with other players, so you almost might need to develop a new character a new personality as to how they might be appearing. So perhaps this new perspective can actually become a threat for some individuals who have had a personality that was developed socially within social media.”

However there is also a dark side to the game’s popularity. Social media buzzed with reports of players who suffered minor injuries from tripping and falling while glued to their cell phones and minor incidents while driving and looking for Pokemon.

Pay attention people, your life is more important than a game.