pokemon go violence

The Soapbox: Three augmented reality game problems (most) MMOs don’t have – and one thing they do so much better

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I’d like to think that I’m kind of a healthy gamer. While MMOs take a lot of time, the nice thing is that their downtime can lead to forming bonds, or give you time to exercise. Augmented reality games can give you both at once, especially Pokemon Go, since it’s the best-known ARG we have (and the mountains of merchandise make it easier to stand out as a fellow player).

However, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, and I’m not just talking about game mechanics that have plagued Niantic games since at Ingress. I remember playing that title and thinking, “Man, this game is dangerous! There’s no way they’ll just clone this for POGO, right?” And yet, here we are. But I can’t put all the blame on Niantic, especially after my time with ARG competitor Maguss. Some things just seem inherent to the genre.

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A man reportedly attacked other men over Pokemon Go

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It’s been nearly two years since the release of Pokemon Go, and on its initial release it seemed like we were always hearing about some form of violence taking place because of the game. Usually, it was more a case of walking through a bad neighborhood at nice oblivious to your surroundings because you really needed a Lapras. But now we’ve got someone assaulting three strangers over a Pokemon Go gym battle, which is nicely nostalgic!

Also, it’s beyond screwed up. Why would you do this, guy? This is totally inappropriate.

The victims of the assault claim that the man in question came over with a tire iron and assaulted them, with one of the victims getting behind him in hopes of choking him out in self-defense. The assaulter claims that he did hit a table with the tire iron, but at no point did he actually strike the three men in question. Like any sort of criminal investigation, it’s not entirely clear what the truth of the matter is, but it’s still a pretty unfortunate story of game-related violence.

Source: KATU

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