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Less than one week ago, the San Francisco-based company Niantic Inc. launched a new app in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand called Pokémon Go. This isn’t Niantic’s first “augmented reality” game, where users can play in the game by interacting with landmarks in the physical world.
The game creators have turned many local landmarks into “Pokéstops” where users can collect supplies, like Pokéballs, that users use to catch Pokémon. Users can train the Pokémon they catch to battle their friends and compete at gyms.
Given the long legacy of the Pokémon franchise, the app has sky-rocketed in popularity – but people are also beginning to hurt themselves in their zeal to catch ‘em all.
One college grad in Long Island, New York, recently fell off his skateboard and cut his hand on the sidewalk. He’d been going too slowly for his board to make it safely across a crack in the pavement. “I just wanted to be able to stop quickly if there were any Pokémons nearby to catch,” he explained.
Another woman was wandering around downtown Waterville, Maine, on Thursday night. Her intense focus on the game caused her to fall on the sidewalk and twist her ankle. The app had “vibrated to let [her] know there was something nearby and [she] looked up and just fell in a hole.” She and her fiancé had to get her parents to drive both of them back home following her tumble.
These minor injuries aren’t deterring anyone from playing the game. A waitress from Asheville, North Carolina, bruised her shin on a cinder block one night, as she and her boyfriend wandered through the rain to find Pokémon.
The next day, she still decided to park her car six blocks away from work, “just so [she] could get more Pokéstops on the way.”
Many people – the game designers included – are now worrying that the users’ dedication will encourage to make even more reckless decisions, like while driving.
Niantic has made it impossible for users to hatch digital Pokémon eggs while driving; the movement of the car is too fast to track as in-game movement. But many users are still keeping the app open while driving in order to catch Pokémon that are appearing in street intersections and on car dashboards.
The company Twitter has already made a statement about playing Pokémon Go while driving, but many Twitter users are laughing it off and even encouraging this level of “dedication.”
Niantic does address the potential of these injuries in its Terms of Service by suggesting all of its users have an insurance policy while playing the game, but for the safety of yourself and everyone around you, be sure to watch where you’re going. When in doubt, don’t play Pokémon Go while you’re traveling.
