Gotta Catch Em All

Niantic, the company behind the alternate reality game Ingress, is working with Nintendo to create Pokémon Go, a real world adventure that looks pretty cool from this trailer.

Having played Ingress, I can see how this could be pretty fun and get people to be active. When I was playing Ingress regularly, I went out of my way to walk by the various nodes and my activity level increased dramatically. I wanted to be outside playing this game all the time. Fortunately, I had a few nodes near my work so I could visit them every few hours. I also got to experience a large scale action when Comic-Con happened and there were tons of people playing the game in downtown San Diego.

For Pokémon Go, I can imagine running around trying to catch the various Pokémon and then using them in battles like in the TCG. And this game will have a huge ready made market. I just fear the charges that kids will be making to play this game. They'll also have to increase battery life on all the iOS and Android phones out there so people can play this – Ingress chewed through my battery like there was no tomorrow.

In any case, this game is supposed to come out next year and I will be signing up as soon as it does.