Pokémon Go, the biggest fad of all time?

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Kris Adams

Pokémon Go App.

By Kris Adams, Staff Writer

Glued faces to phones checking Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter, is what we used to presume when somebody was checking their phone, but ever since the launch of Pokémon Go, checking out social media changed to hunting pokémon and phone usage became considerably more visible.

With more than 100 million downloads and generating more than 200 million dollars in revenue, Pokémon Go became a viral sensation since launching on July 6.

Christopher David Aldrich II, 21, from Arizona and senior at Chaminade University, thinks that an important aspect of the game being so successful is because one can play the game anywhere at any time.

Despite all the success Pokémon Go has achieved so far, will the augmented reality game stay in our hearts forever or is it just another Candy Crush or Flappy Bird?

“If the users aren’t updating the app and keeping everyone’s attention on it, then it just gets old and people are over it,” Ryan Nishimoto, 20, from California and junior at Chaminade said.

According to research by Axiom Capital Management, daily players of Pokémon Go have dropped almost 30 percent in less than a month’s span. In addition, the user engagement has consistently gone down ever since the launch in early July.

“If they are going down a lot around this time, it’s probably because of school starting back up, so people just have more important tasks at hand,” Aldrich said.

Stories about gamers trespassing, climbing buildings and failing to pay attention to their surroundings have all made headlines over the summer. However, the dangers and risk people are taking to catch pokémon is failing to stand as the main reason why the numbers are decreasing.

“Pokémon Go for me is more of a social tool that I can use as getting to groups with others and going out hunting pokémon,” Nishimoto said.

Although the game continues to receive criticism because of unaware players, the game has brought a new social aspect to video games. Players can meet up at locations, and walk around and hunt for pokémon together rather than sitting at home and chatting over the internet.

“The only bad side I can think of is when people are playing it when your driving, trespassing, which the law has been mended to fix in a way, and now there are signs up and warnings upon the app itself,” Nishimoto said.

As Pokémon Go is breaking through for augmented reality games, it is also the only game that has spiked the interest for augmented reality versus the trending virtual reality products, according to research from Axiom Capital Management.

Aldrich explained further how if Pokémon Go updated the features of the game, that interest for the game could still sustain and that it would still maintain a status of importance for augmented reality.

Despite the game being a new way to socialize with players, as much as it is a question for Pokémon Go, it is a question whether future augmented reality games will be able to trend like this game has.

“People aren’t being as drawn in as they were, because right when it broke out everyone was like, oh my goodness, this is super fun, this reminds me of my childhood. It’s more reality featured as opposed to the cards.” Nishimoto said.