Pokemon Go: Suing Nintendo, Pokemon insurance, and the Ohio Articuno controversy

This one goes out to all the people who are still obsessively playing Pokemon Go after giving it a one-star rating. You show ’em!

• We’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this one: A fellow named Jeffrey Marder of New Jersey is suing Nintendo and Niantic for enticing people to trespass on his property (and the property of anyone else in similar circumstances) and profiting from it. It’d be tempting to laugh at it because “get off my lawn,” but as commenters have wisely pointed out, a case like this could effectively set an interesting precedent defining just who owns the virtual space overlaying real space. Shadowrun, anyone?
• Following the shutdown of third-party map trackers with last weekend’s patch, the creator of the biggest one, Pokevision, penned an impassioned letter begging Niantic to reverse its position on the apps. Yang Liu claims his app saw 50 million unique users, “half of the playerbase of Pokemon Go […] and they didn’t do so to ‘cheat.'” He also overtly links the game’s plummeting user ratings this week to the death of the trackers.
• A Russian bank is now offering Pokemon Go-related insurance for people prone to accidents while playing the game. What could go wrong?
• This one’s pretty bizarre: There’s a huge controversy over whether a player in Ohio captured an insanely rare Articuno. Fakes are pretty easy, and Niantic’s initial statement suggests it was either a hack or a spoof.

• Forbes reports that SurveyMonkey Intelligence claims that 63% of Pokemon Go users in the US are female. “The average user persona is a 25-year-old, white woman with a college degree making about $90,000 a year,” supposedly. Niantic has apparently expressed skepticism about these stats. Let us add ours too.
• A medal-bedecked Japanese gymnast apparently arrived in Brazil for the games and racked up a $5000 data bill playing Pokemon Go. Fortunately for him, his ISP allowed him to backdate a data plan.
• A new bug has infiltrated Pokemon Go, one that apparently morphs your critters into other random critters — sometimes much better critters. “One person captured a Caterpie which then tuned into Charizard,” reports VG247.
• This is the only Ditto you’re ever going to find. Enjoy it.