Glitch turns seaside South Korean city into 'holy land' of Pokémon Go

There's a lovely little seaside town in South Korea called Sokcho, about a two-hour bus ride away from Seoul, where you can lay on the beach and have some fried chicken and beer delivered by foot. But this idyllic summer spot is being visited by a new type of tourist: the pokémon master. Besides being a popular getaway, Sokcho is the only place in South Korea country where the popular app works.
Pokémon Go isn't available in South Korea because the game uses data from Google Maps, which is restricted by the South Korean government due to security concerns. South Korea is still technically at war with North Korea, and the government has stated that it could release its map data only if Google deletes information on key security locations like military facilities. It's unclear whether the game will ever be made available, but in the meanwhile, South Korean gamers have found a loophole.

The rhombus-shaped cells below show the areas that Niantic has labeled in its mapping system as restricted areas, and Sokcho just barely makes it out:

 

Since word got out that it was possible to play Pokémon Go in Sokcho, the town has been bombarded with tourists looking to play. Bus tickets from Seoul to Sokcho are sold out, according to the Associated Press, and tour packages including shuttle buses and hotel reservations have been popping up on deal websites:

Sokcho Mayor Lee Byung-seon has fully embraced the Pokémon Go craze, announcing he would increase free Wi-Fi hotspots and battery charging stations. Below is a map of all the free Wi-Fi spots in Sokcho, posted on the city's Facebook page:

 

 The Mayor even caught a Machop (Fun fact: its Korean name translates to 'Muscle Monster') in this adorable Facebook Live interview with The Huffington Post in Korea

source http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/14/12183042/pokemon-go-south-korea-sokcho-holy-land

Two men fall off a cliff playing 'Pokémon Go'

By Brian Koerber13 hours ago

Two men in California were rescued after falling off a seaside cliff playing Pokémon Go.
The Encinitas Fire Department says that two men in their 20s were playing the augmented reality game between E and F Streets in Encinitas when they fell off the cliff.

SEE ALSO: Pokemon Go shouldn't be as good as it is

Lifeguards reported witnessing the incident at 1:12 p.m. on Wednesday, according to NBC. When firefighters arrived on the scene, they discovered a man who had fallen about 90 feet down the bluff and into the beach below. Rescue crews then found another man who had fallen 50 feet.
The men were both taken to Scripps La Jolla Hospital with moderate injuries.
The gamers had climbed over a marked fence and onto the bluff, which is reportedly marked as unstable. According to the San Diego sheriff's office, the men were tracking a specific character when they climbed over the fence and eventually tumbled.

The Pokémon Go app uses GPS and Google Maps in order to create an augmented reality. Players travel in the real world in order to discover and catch Pokémon in real-life locations that double as PokéStops and Gyms in the game.

“I think people just need to realize this is a game,” Sgt. Rich Eaton of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s not worth your life. No game is worth your life.”
The incidents in Encinitas aren't the first to involve player injuries since the successful launch of the game. Injuries have ranged from heartbreak to falling into a pond to a car crash.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Source : http://mashable.com/2016/07/14/pokemon-go-fall-off-cliff/

8 Reasons Why Pokemon GO Is the Most Important Game of the Decade

1.  It's the best thing Nintendo has released, ever (no, seriously)

via Im_the_one

After years (and years and years) of twiddling their thumbs and ignoring the rise of the smartphone app marketplace, Nintendo got off their butts and released Pokemon GO - an augmented reality game that allows you to become a virtual Pokemon trainer and utilizes your real world geography as your 'map' for hunting and battling Pokemon. In short, this is likely the closest thing we'll ever get to a Pokemon MMO - with the key difference that it's EVEN BETTER THAN AN ACTUAL POKEMON MMO COULD EVER HOPE TO BE.

via znomon

To be clear - I'm not saying Pokemon GO is a revolutionary game. It's not. It's pretty simplistic and passive - there's little-to-no depth to the gameplay, it has many of the trappings of crummier mobile apps (microtransactions, etc.), and if it weren't for the Pokemon license, absolutely no one would be playing this thing. To back this statement up, Niantic (the developers behind Pokemon GO) had previously created an app called Ingress, that was essentially the same thing as Pokemon GO, but without the Pokemon nostalgia factor (and actually with a lot more features). To say it didn't reach the success of Pokemon GO would be the understatement of the century.

But back to why Pokemon GO is better than any Pokemon MMO - it's not better in any imagined gameplay terms, but it's better AS AN EXPERIENCE. As an experience, Pokemon GO refuses to be trapped by the same constraints virtually every AAA videogame is stuck with - you play alone, it costs $40+ just to begin playing, and there's a high barrier to entry through overly  complex, difficult-to-master gameplay mechanics. Pokemon GO has none of that - it's casual gaming taken to the ideal ending point, where the goal is to have fun with others moreso than for you to achieve personal glory through dozens of hours of solitary repetitive work. And achieving something like this has been Nintendo's stated goal for ages at this point - but they were only able to get there by changing tactics and going to where the largest audience already was (phones) instead of trying to draw them into Nintendo's own hardware.

This game alone has caused the tables to turn in a VERY unexpected way...

via sakred

2. It saved Nintendo

In the years leading up to last week, things had not been going too well for Nintendo - Wii U sales were so lackluster that its replacement is already being lined up a mere 4 years into its development cycle, attempts to launch new IP have been shaky, the company's relationship with the internet (mostly YouTube) has been frosty, and they began posting annual losses for the first time in the company's 100+ history in 2012. Nintendo needed a win, and they needed it to be big.

Saying Pokemon GO is a win is putting it lightly - Pokemon GO is a 1000 ft. grand slam that threatens to engulf the world. In less than a week, it's managed to send Nintendo's stock through the roof, adding $7.5 billion to the company's market value (and counting). And it hasn't even been released worldwide yet - currently, it's only available in the US, Australia, and New Zealand.

It should be mentioned that this isn't purely Nintendo's success - while they own substantial stakes in both the Pokemon Company and Niantic, they don't own them outright. Nintendo will only be receiving about 30% of revenue driven by Pokemon GO - but still, that's not too shabby, given Pokemon GO in the United States on iPhones only is making about $1.6 million per day.

Again, that's JUST iPhone and JUST the United States. Factor in Android and different countries, and estimating the app pulls in tens of millions per day might be lowballing it.

In short, Captain Toad's Treasure Tracker really dropped the f***ing ball in comparison.

3. This fun app that gets people outdoors is becoming enormously, insanely popular

via RipMyKarma

Within two days of its release, Pokemon GO overtook Tinder in daily active users on Android. If it were a mere flash in the pan, that might not be a big deal - but the userbase has only continued to grow, and now it's near surpassing Twitter, one of the mainstays in social networking for the past several years.

This is pretty huge - Twitter has invested hundreds of millions of dollars and nearly a decade to build its userbase to its current state, and Nintendo is managing to potentially beat that after a week. That's INSANE. Firms would pay BILLIONS for even a sliver of that kind of market power - and Nintendo's managed it with an app that forces real life socialization and exercise, which seems more worthwhile than apps dedicated to hooking up with strangers or livetweeting TV shows.

4. It achieved the impossible: a nice gaming community

via BrowiththeFr0

The only way to really summarize a game's "community" is with anecdotal evidence - you need to get into personal stories and details, in a way that charts and graphs and figures can't communicate. As such, this is vulnerable to oversight or selective vision - but as someone who spends A LOT of time on the internet and has been knee-deep in Pokemon GO for the past week, I've noticed something pretty astonishing: the community around the game is NICE.

To keep it simple, I don't think I've EVER really found a truly "nice" gaming community. At best, I've found communities that aren't as actively toxic and hateful as others, but pretty much every gaming community you'll find has issues with elitism amongst the players, nitpicking, insults (to others in their community and those outside of it), and all other manner of unpleasantness. But Pokemon GO has largely been positive - kind, encouraging, and supportive. It's unreal.

Not that there's a TOTAL lack of vitriol, racism, and general meanness - that's definitely there if you look for it, but it's in such small amounts, it's drowned out by the positive forces that overwhelm message boards and subgroups.

Part of this may be because it's such a broadly appealing game - there are young kids playing, senior citizens, parents, teens, 20-somethings, middle-aged adults, and everything in-between. And, perhaps best of all, the game never really puts you in direct competition with anyone else. You can fight for control of gyms from others, but you never are fighting them directly - and even then, your victory or loss is only temporary, as gyms continue to change allegiances by the hour (so no real hurt feelings when you "lose").

But mostly, I see stuff like this every day and my heart explodes like a lure was just dropped on it.

via juke2523

via chrome_devil

5. The game WANTS you to be social - and it achieves it.

via Guy Blomberg

A lot has been written and spoken about the positive aspects of Pokemon GO - it gets you outside, it gets you exercising, etc. - but the main positive thing around Pokemon GO is the social aspect - it's bringing people together in a way videogames simply never do. People are gathering together thanks to gyms and lures, and simply recognizing others playing the game while walking around their towns. Sydney's made the news for having around 2000 players flock to the same spot around the Sydney Opera House to catch Pokemon and meet up with fellow trainers - and everywhere you look, you'll find similar (although smaller scale) stories of meet-ups and groups forming all thanks to the game.

via Facebook

There are bar crawls being formed around Pokemon GO, block parties, and parks everywhere are being filled with trainers who are inadvertently being made to socialize with others in nature.

6. The net effect of Pokemon GO is better mental health

via ratrod32

All of these things combined - better socializing, making people go outdoors and travel, and the non-competitive nature of the game - have worked together to bring a probably unexpected benefit to Pokemon GO: improving mental health and well-being of lots and lots of people.

Again, it's the early days of the game, so there are no studies or formal data to draw from - but seeing posts online and speaking to people in real life will lead anyone to the same conclusion: Nintendo has done something truly great (intentional or not) with Pokemon GO. The game forces people outside of their comfort zone (albeit in a gentle way), and that's exactly what so many people really NEED these days.

 

7. All of society is getting in on the game

via CodyE36

Maybe the most beautiful part about Pokemon GO is how broadly appealing it is - it's not closed off to a select group of hardcore fans, it's being appreciated by people from every walk of life. And in times fraught with division and in-fighting, it's a thing that seems to be beaming with positivity and inclusiveness. Whether it's friendly jostling about team allegiances, friendly reminders from local authorities, or kids setting up lemonade stands at PokeStops, it's something that's becoming universally-recognized as common ground.

via markwittz

via waffleu

via olivegarden

via jasonberk

8. It's not perfect, and that's why it's great

via wonderflex

None of this is to say that Pokemon GO is a perfect thing - it's not. The game itself is buggy and has suffered from server crashes, there's a lot of deep and important concerns over privacy settings with Google sign-in, and the game can be distracting to dangerous degrees (with people attempting to play the game while driving or crossing the street). It has a lot of issues - it's a semi-complete app that's still finding its footing. And if this is how great and uniting the game is when it's this buggy, once the server and privacy issues are smoothed out, imagine how much better things could get in the future.

Of course, all the issues could also be signs that it's just a passing fad - it's temporary, it's of the moment, and the heat will die down once the novelty of the game is worn out by the issues plaguing it. And if that's the case, it's kind of wonderful - Nintendo created this brief thing that, out of nowhere, brought together millions of strangers and gave us a few weeks of really fun goofiness. It shows that that's something that's possible - before Pokemon GO was released, most people would have been enormously (and rightfully) skeptical that there would be thousands of people gathering at the Sydney Opera House to catch Dratinis on their phone. And if the Pokemon GO flame burns out fast, we'll all remember this weird moment in the year where everything was fun and new and exciting - and it'll serve as a reminder that it can happen again.

The Man Behind Pokémon Go: John Hanke, MBA 96

He put the earth in your pocket, and now he’s unleashed pocket monsters on the earth.
John Hanke, MBA 96 and CEO of Niantic Labs, is the driving force behind Pokémon Go, the hottest craze to hit smartphones—ever. Since its release just a week ago, the “augmented reality” game has sent millions of phone-toting players to the streets on the hunt for animated Japanese characters that pop up with the help of location services. The crush of downloads nearly crashed Niantic’s servers, and the number of active users is nearly on par with Twitter.
It’s one of those moments, The New York Times declared this week, “when a new technology—in this case, augmented reality or A.R., which fuses digital technology with the physical world—breaks through from a niche toy for early adopters to something much bigger.”
Yet it’s not the first time Hanke has propelled a breakthrough technology into the mainstream. As an MBA student at Haas in the mid-1990s, he co-founded a company that developed one of the first online games to allow hundreds of people to play together in a virtual environment.
Hanke went on to co-found Keyhole, which bridged the gap between geospatial data visualization on high-end computers and the navigation apps we all carry in our pockets. Google acquired Keyhole in 2004, and Hanke stayed on to lead the development of Google Earth, Maps, and StreetView. He then launched Niantic Labs inside Google to focus on next-gen games, and spun it out as a separate company last year.
"John represents many of the best attributes of entrepreneurship and Berkeley-Haas: Leadership through continuous cycles of innovation, without attitude or bravado, creating value for society and all who collaborate with him," said Jerome Engel, founding executive director of the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship, who recently wrote a business case that explored Hanke’s decision to separate from Google. (Hanke made a surprise visit to Engel's executive education class for the debut of the case.)
The success of Pokémon go is, for Hanke, a realization of the vision he came to Haas to achieve.
“My essay to Haas was written about the opportunity in the space of interactive gaming and technology,” Hanke said in 2014 Haas video. “I wanted to build applications that would deepen people’s involvement in their town or community, to encourage people to actually meet up in the real world.”

Video of Niantic Labs CEO John Hanke, MBA 96

Watch the full video here.
Niantic Labs’ first augmented reality game was sci-fi based Ingress, which—like Pokémon Go—takes advantage of the cameras and GPS on every smartphone. Gamers must visit places of cultural significance, such as statues or historic buildings, to open virtual “portals” and capture territory. Yet the real magic—and Hanke’s motivation in developing the games—is in what happens offline.
"It gives people an excuse to meet other real people. It's incredibly rewarding for me to see these people coming together and to see the happiness, the joy that people are getting from exercising, exploring their city, and making new friends," Hanke said in the video interview, referring to Ingress.
The concept of digitally enhanced social interaction has exploded with the new game: As of July 12, more than 5,000 people had RSVP'ed to the Facebook invite for a "Pokémon Go Crawl" in San Francisco on July 20, with 22,000 more responding as "interested."
Pokémon Go brought A.R. mainstream through the appeal of cute animated characters—Pokémon translates as “pocket monster”—beloved by those who came of age playing the video games and trading cards in the late 1990s. Niantic developed the game in conjunction with Nintendo, which partially owns the Pokémon franchise, and Pokémon Co.
Hanke credits Berkeley-Haas for helping him cultivate not only the skills, but also the mindset to become a professional entrepreneur.

Video of John Hanke, MBA 96: Question the Status Quo

Source here : http://newsroom.haas.berkeley.edu/article/man-behind-pok%C3%A9mon-go-john-hanke-mba-96

Stay Safe

Someone Looking for Pokémon Walked Through a Live News Broadcast

This is how you know the Pokémon Go phenomenon has officially gotten out of control: Earlier this week, a Florida news anchor crashed her co-worker's live weather report while trying to track down a wild Pokémon. Come on, America.

Yup, a video posted to Facebook on Monday shows a Florida weatherman trying his best to deliver the forecast when suddenly, one of his colleagues wanders through the shot (probably chasing a Lapras).

Source: YouTube

"Got a Pokey-man?" he calls after her. Sorry, dude, she's deep in the game.

The Poké-addled anchor herself, Allison Kropff, posted the video, justifiably captioning it, "That moment you realize you may be addicted to #PokemonGo."

This is who we are now, people — mindless hunters of bug-eyed cartoons that live in our phones. And we're fine with it.

https://mic.com/articles/148557/someone-looking-for-pok-mon-walked-through-a-live-news-broadcast

Pokémon Go beats porn on Google as game becomes easily one of the most popular ever

The new Pokémon Go game is now officially more popular than porn, previously presumed to be the internet’s favourite pastime.
More people are searching for the new augmented reality game than are searching for pornography.
The search term “porn” has long been seen as the ceiling for searches, reflecting the relatively predictable and base interests of the internet. But very rarely some stories manage to break through that barrier and beat pornography – as Brexit did, for instance, in the wake of the UK’s vote to leave the EU.

Read More : http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/pokemon-go-porn-pornography-google-netherlands-uk-canada-a7134136.html

Pokémon Go tops Twitter’s daily users, sees more engagement than Facebook

Pokémon Go has quickly become one of the most viral mobile applications of all time. The game is now the biggest ever in the U.S.; it has now topped Twitter’s daily users, and it sees people spending more time in its app than in Facebook, according to reports from various tracking firms.
An earlier report from SimilarWeb had pegged Pokémon Go as having surpassed dating app Tinder, in terms of installs, while it was closing in on Twitter’s daily active users. By Thursday, July 7th, the app had been installed on more Android smartphones than the dating app, the firm had said.
Today, SimilarWeb tells us that Pokémon Go did manage to surpass Twitter in terms of daily active users on Monday, and now sees 5.92 percent of the U.S. Android population engaging with the app on a daily basis.
The app is even seeing notable numbers of active users in countries where it hasn’t even been released yet, the company pointed out. (See chart below.) This is thanks to users locating then installing the Android APK file (the Android app, which can then be sideloaded onto your device).

While the industry has seen the rapid rise of several other mobile games in recent years – including hits like Candy Crush, Clash Royale, Minecraft, and Slither.io, for example – a new report from SurveyMonkey Intelligence indicates that Pokémon Go has claimed the title of “biggest mobile game in U.S. history.”
This is based on Pokémon Go’s peak daily active users, the firm says.
On Monday, Pokémon Go saw just under 21 million daily active users in the U.S., topping Candy Crush’s rumored peak audience in 2013 as well as other top games like Draw Something, Clash Royale, and Slither.io, which hit their own peaks in various years.

The report also noted that Pokémon Go is now closing in on Snapchat on Android, and the Pokémon Go Android application could even pass Google Maps on Android.

Users spend more minutes per day in Pokémon Go than Facebook

But active users is only one metric of gauging a game’s success. Thanks to the competitive nature of today’s app stores, it’s also important to track how long users actually engage with an application.
On this front, Pokémon Go is also breaking records. According to app store intelligence firm SensorTower, mobile users are now spending more time playing Pokémon Go than they are spending time in Facebook.
Facebook, of course, still counts far more mobile users – its corporate site claims 1.51 billion monthly active users, for example, versus Pokémon Go’s roughly 15 million mobile installs. (Not an apples-to-apples comparison, of course, but it gives you an idea.)
Also remarkable: tracking firm SimilarWeb says the game is installed on over 10 percent of Android devices in the U.S., and over 15 percent in its other markets, Australia and New Zealand. (See below chart.)

Meanwhile, on iOS, the average iPhone user spent 33 minutes in Pokémon Go on Monday, according to SensorTower’s data. That’s more than any other apps it analyzed, including Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, and Slither.io.
Facebook saw the second-most average usage, at 22 minutes, 8 seconds, the firm reported, and Snapchat saw 18 minutes. Twitter, Instagram, then Slither.io followed.

However, while SurveyMonkey’s data pointed to Pokémon Go being the biggest game in terms of active users, SensorTower noted that Pokémon Go is still beaten by others when it comes to time spent in games.
For instance, Game of War sees nearly 2 hours of total daily usage for the average user, while Candy Crush Saga, sees daily usage of about 43 minutes.

All this being said, the mobile gaming industry historically hasn’t always been kind to titles with tremendous hype, SurveyMonkey notes. Nintendo’s first mobile game, Miitomo, quickly turned into a ghost town, after early success that sent it to the top of the App Store.
Pokémon Go may be different, however. In addition to capitalizing on the Pokémon brand, the app has introduced brilliant gaming mechanics, in terms of keeping players active, engaged, returning and spending.
The only issue for the game in the foreseeable future is continuing to balance the needs of the hardcore gamers with the more casual ones. You can already see an issue in some denser markets, where the Pokémon gyms (where the Pokémon battle) are dominated by the game’s top players, making it difficult for casuals to engage. ButPokémon Go can easily overcome this challenge by implementing one-on-one battles and trading, which it is likely to do.

Featured Image: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

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Source : https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/13/pokemon-go-tops-twitters-daily-users-sees-more-engagement-than-facebook/

Downloading Pokémon Go maps directly from Google saves battery, cuts data consumption (update)

One of the biggest problems Pokémon Go players have to contend with while playing the game is the rapid depletion of their battery and the increase in data being consumed to keep the GPS and in-game maps running. This has led to many players running around with portable chargers for their phones so they can continue catching Pokémon without having to worry about finding a plug and connecting to Wi-Fi whenever possible.

Must Read

Ultimate Pokémon Go Guide

Now, thanks to a suggestion from Reddit user throwaway96388, players may be able to conserve battery and cut their data usage down using one simple trick. Since Pokémon Go uses Google Maps API, players can simply download the maps from Google and use them offline. Players have reported that after trying the method, they noticed an increase in battery life conservation and decrease in data usage, but mentioned that phones were still dying anywhere between three and six hours of continuous usage.
In order to download the maps and use them offline, all players have to do is open the Google Maps app on their phone, go into settings, click the option for offline maps, hit the plus sign and add their location. Even with the maps being offline, players will still have full access to the game through their data. Players should also notice a decrease in the amount of data needed to run the game.
Niantic Labs is aware of the battery conservation issue and said it is looking into ways to fix the problem. That should be rolling out shortly.
Update: While multiple Reddit users have reported this method working for them, a Google engineer on Twitter pointed out that it wasn't a viable solution.

Source  http://www.polygon.com/2016/7/11/12148496/pokemon-go-battery-data-usage

The Holocaust Museum's Requesting to Be Removed from Pokémon GO After Someone Caught a Koffing Inside

Via: The Washington Post

For those unaware, Koffing's a pokémon that exudes gas (uhhhh)...The Washington Post reports that the holocaust museum director said the following regarding the Pokémon GO developments:

“Playing the game is not appropriate in the museum, which is a memorial to the victims of Nazism,” Andrew Hollinger, the museum’s communications director, told The Post in an interview. “We are trying to find out if we can get the museum excluded from the game.”

This is the original tweet that's since been removed from Imgur:

Original Link
http://cheezburger.com/8820376064/nintendo-video-game-coverage-pokemon-go-koffing-inside-holocaust-museum