Pokémon Go is still dominating the augmented reality category of games after five years of being out.

Pokémon Go is a mobile game that is published by a company called Niantic. It is an American software development company based in San Francisco, in collaboration with Nintendo and Pokemon, makers of the card game that inspired this. The game is available on devices such as your iPhone, tablet or android. 

The objective of the game is to catch a Pokémon with a Poke ball that appears on your cellphone screen. According to the augmented reality genre, you’ll see the real world through your camera and it will seem like there are real Pokémon in front of you.

It’s free to play, with advertising and in-app purchases making it a very profitable game for Nintendo and its partners. 

People gathered in different places to play Pokémon Go, for example, parks, Disneyland, the Space Needle, malls, etc. Players often use Discord, a chatting and voice call app, to communicate with fellow gamers. 

In 2019, Pokémon Go was downloaded one billion times, an accomplishment for the Pokémon company. But in 2020, the game was affected by the Coronavirus pandemic, seeing a drop in players with 147 million active users.

Even with the decline in players, Pokémon Go is still fairly popular. People enjoy catching different Pokémon on their devices. 

 “People feel very happy with themselves when they see a Pokémon appear on the screen and they want to catch it right away,” said local player Paul Lau. 

There is also a trading aspect to the game as well where people trade Pokémon with each other like trading cards. 

“I like trading different Pokémon to a lot of people so that’s what I like about the game,” said Lau.

With every good thing comes a bad thing though.

It is important that people stay aware of their surroundings while playing, especially when walking across the street. 

“To be safe while playing Pokémon go, you should put away your phone while crossing the street and go safe before playing,” Lau said. 

There have been incidents where people who are very addicted to the game play while driving and end up crashing their car. A man who was reportedly playing Pokémon Go while driving crashed his Toyota RAV 4 into a police patrol car. 

 “Driving and playing Pokémon go is not safe for anybody so people should ignore the game while driving,” Lau said.