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Walking around outside you may notice more people than usual wandering the streets and around the landmarks of Oswego. They have their phones out, are pointing off into the distance, and can be heard excitedly whispering about what they have found. Do not be alarmed, they mean you and the community no harm. They are playing Pokémon Go.
In 1998 the first Pokémon video games were released in the United States alongside the first season of the Pokémon cartoon. Both the video games and the television shows remain popular to this day. Many children from the late 80s through the early 2000s grew up with Pokémon. The video games let them catch and collect hundreds of tiny little monsters (the Pokémon), take part in strategic battles and experience a journey to be the best Pokémon trainer in the land. The television show was part of the traditional Saturday morning cartoons and was, among other things, a show about friendship and adventure.
Today, six different “generations” of the video games exist each focusing on a different area of the Pokémon world and the television series is approaching twenty seasons. This new game, Pokémon Go, is different from all the others. It is a mobile app for smartphones and similar devices that use augmented reality. Using the camera and your GPS on the smart devices the app makes it appear as if a Pokémon is standing in front of you in the real world and lets you catch the Pokémon on your own real life Pokémon adventure. For example, a Pokémon could be standing in the middle of the road by the movie theater. The game uses landmarks and historical sites as locations in the game where you can get things to help you in the game or do battle with someone else’s Pokémon. Included at these “Poke Stops” are brief descriptions of where you are and maybe even a history of the place. Pokémon Go is worldwide but small cities like Oswego were not overlooked. The library, the college, parks, and downtown are littered with the Poke Stops.
People of all ages are outside roaming Oswego on the lookout for Pokémon. What drives the older groups is nostalgia. People in their twenties to very early thirties would have been the people who grew up with the original Pokémon games and T.V. It gives them a chance to reconnect with their childhood, or as one young man put it, “It’s just plain fun.” People older than that are also playing, most likely introduced to it by their kids or friends. Some described it as Geocaching with Pokémon.
What are you waiting for? Grab your phone, go outside, join the craze, and “catch ‘em all!”
