Pokemon Go craze reaches Samo campus

On Jul. 6, the long awaited app Pokémon Go was released by Niantic Labs. Immediately, the craze took over everywhere, especially in the tourist-driven Santa Monica community. The game is part of the new wave of augmented reality gaming, while also encouraging players to exercise and interact with the real world. It involves catching fictional creatures called Pokémon, in real time and places, and training them to fight in gyms and become as strong as they can.Players are encouraged to walk long distances to find rare Pokémon, leading many people to venture off into other districts and newfound territories to ultimately catch as many Pokémon as they can. The more Pokémon that players catch, the more their in-game avatar levels up, and the more they level up, the stronger the Pokémon become. When a player reaches Level 5, they have the opportunity to pick a team in which they get to represent in battle against other players.This game was extremely popular from the get-go, and as the school year starts the popularity continues through Samo.“[Pokémon Go was] not what I was expecting, but a fun and interesting game that got people up and moving,” Lukas Schneider (’19) said.The game depends on the player traveling all around their community, which is great because indoorsy gamers now have a great excuse to go explore outside and in their community. However, not all students like the game, some have even complained.“Bad,” Jake Linowes (’18) said. “Niantic is terrible. They had a great idea but messed up, because there are a ton of bugs that never got fixed and a lot of promises were made by Niantic, such as being able to trade, that they didn’t come through on.”This game is just as popular with the students of Samo as it is with some of the staff.“Since I started playing, I love that I easily meet my ‘step count’ goals most days,” English teacher Jennifer Pust said. “[One of my favorite moments was] running onto the sand in my school clothes and nice shoes to catch a Dragonite with fellow Samo teachers Ianna Hafft and Nathan Fulcher...so much sand, but so worth it.”Despite the recent drop in players, the app is still earning a lot of revenue. In a recent article from the LA Times, writer Tracy Brown went to the panel for Pokémon Go at Comic-Con where the Niantic Labs CEO John Hanke talked about the app’s future. Hanke talked briefly about rare pokemon that are on the way. The Legendary Bird Pokémon associated with your team will be significant in some way. Ways to further customize Poke Stops (such as having items allow players to turn the stops into PokeCenters to heal Pokémon) are being considered, and trading is coming, all of which look very promising to players eager to continue their Pokémon journey in the game.