Pokemon Go: Land mines, crashing into cop cars, language, and fads

Another day, another round of wild Pokemon Go stories from across the globe.

• Let’s kick it off with this story from the Guardian: Bosnian players are being “urged to avoid areas littered with unexploded mines left over from the 1990s conflict.” It’s no joke; almost 2000 people have been killed or injured by landmines in the area in the years since the war ended. Be careful out there.
• A gamer crashed his car into a cop car in Baltimore because he was distracted playing Pokemon Go. The incident was low-impact and handled well by all involved, but it could have been a tragedy. Please don’t drive and Pokemon. It’s really not funny and it could ruin lives.
• Canadians showed how friendly and lovable they are by putting together a Pokemon Go community before the game was even officially out up North, not that that stopped them from downloading it on the US market anyway.
• Here’s a neat piece on legal rights as they pertain to the game. Do you have the right to trespass on private property in search of Pokemon? (No, of course not.) Do you have the right to force Niantic to remove virtual Pokemon from private property — or public property that’s inappropriate for gaming, like cemeteries or the Holocaust Museum? (More concerningly, also no.)
• Like chatting with Pokebuddies? There’s an app for that — but it’s by Razer, not Nintendo or Niantic.

• Kotaku has a tips guide out for people just hopping into the craze or wanting to up their game. If you’re more of an advanced player, try this guide and the level up rewards chart instead.
• Nintendo has now passed Sony in market value thanks to Pokemon Go (it’s now worth over $39.8 billion). People will still snicker about the Wii, though.
• Is Pokemon Go the latest tourism fad? Polygon editorializes about the benefits of the game, complete with an anecdote about how businesses can use in-game lures to attract 20-somethings to their stores.
• Gamasutra discusses whether Pokemon Go is actually a new language. (Interestingly, this author also homes in on the “lure” as a possible mechanism for that language.)
• In a massive twist of irony, over 3000 McDonald’s restaurants in Japan will officially become pokegyms.