Popularity of Pokémon video games

Abstract. Pokémon is one of the most successful media franchises ever and is known all over the world. The idea of Pokémon was created by Satoshi Tajiri in the 1990s. Pokémon started its worldwide journey from Japan in 1996 as two video games on Nintendo’s Game Boy gaming system. Pokémon and its popularity has been researched a lot over the last 27 years as have been video games. More recently multiple researchers have focused on the more recent video game trend, Pokémon GO. However, research focusing on Pokémon video games instead of Pokémon as a whole or just Pokémon GO are scarcer. This research tries to answer what makes Pokémon video games so popular and how the video games have stayed relevant for so long. The research was conducted as a literacy review over existing literacy and research. To work towards understanding the Pokémon games better, this research first takes a look at Pokémon games overall. The concept of Japanese definition of cuteness ‘kawaii’ and its relation to Pokémon is also discussed. The second chapter focuses on Pokémon GO: its rise to popularity and the problems it faced. The third chapter discusses the psychology of video games and how they affect the human brain. A conclusion was drawn from the literacy found and used in this research. A clear reason for the popularity of the Pokémon video games could not be defined, but instead it is a result of multiple factors. Pokémon’s number one selling point are the Pokémon characters themselves. Pokémon not having similar competing products at the time of release and Pokémon video games being solid video games were other notable factors that helped Pokémon video games to gain the popularity they have

Producing Affection : Affect and Mediated Intimacy in Pokémon

Pokémon is a global multimedia franchise formed around a core series of videogames and a variety of characters to collect, learn about, and play with. Throughout its decades of development, Pokémon has grown into a media mix comprising of digital and analog games, animations, comics, toys, and a plethora of branded merchandize, all centering on the Pokémon characters and the audience’s relationship with them. In this thesis, I explore how affection is formed and distributed in Pokémon. I view the relationship with Pokémon characters as a form of mediated intimacy, theorizing it as feelings of affection and closeness expressed through and aimed at technology. Through this, I discuss how technological and fantastical bodies wield agency and actively participate in the formation of everyday affects. By drawing primarily on game studies and affect studies, I develop an interdisciplinary method for playing and reading media texts for their affects and use it to analyze the media mix of Pokémon and the affective relations therein. I focus primarily on the Pokémon videogames that serve as the core product of the entire media mix. I examine what it means to construct an entire media mix based on videogames and play and suggest this as a key interpretive arrangement for understanding the mediated intimacy of Pokémon. This study presents the mediated intimacy of Pokémon as the result of the ludic and technological foundations of the Pokémon media mix, at the heart of which is the role-playing form of the original videogames and the way they have positioned audiences as participants and characters in the world of Pokémon. In this playful environment that overlaps fiction and everyday reality, the media mix guides its players to conduct a form of affective labor to access and traverse the textual whole of Pokémon and furthermore aligns this effort with the diegetic theme of caretaking as captured on the transmedia bodies of Pokémon. Additionally, this work contributes to the theorization and rethinking of intimacies by exploring affection in human and non-human networks as an entanglement of biological and technological actors.Tuotettua kiintymystä. Pokémonin affekti ja medioitu intiimiys Pokémon on globaali monimediakokonaisuus. Sen keskiössä on joukko videopelejä sekä niiden hahmoja, joita kerätään, joista opitaan ja joiden kanssa leikitään. Pokémonista on vuosikymmenten mittaan kasvanut mediatuotteiden rypäs, media mix: monista tuote- ja julkaisukanavista koostuva kokonaisuus, joka sisältää digitaalisia ja analogisia pelejä, animaatioita, sarjakuvia, leluja ja brändituotteita, joissa kaikissa korostuvat Pokémon-hahmot sekä yleisön suhde niihin. Väitöskirjassani tarkastelen, miten kiintymystä rakennetaan ja levitetään Pokémonissa. Tutkin Pokémon-hahmoihin muodostettuja suhteita medioidun intiimiyden käsitteen kautta. Tutkimuksessani suhteet näyttäytyvät kiintymyksellisten tunteiden tiivistyminä sekä läheisyytenä, jota ilmaistaan teknologian avulla ja sitä kohtaan. Näin tarkastelen, miten teknologisten sekä fantastisten kehojen toimijuus näkyy arkipäiväisten affektien muodostumisessa. Ammentamalla pelitutkimuksesta ja affektitutkimuksesta kehitän monitieteisen metodin mediatekstien pelaamiseen ja lukemiseen, ja käytän sitä Pokémonin media mixin, sen affektien ja sen piirissä muodostettujen kiintymyssuhteiden analysointiin. Keskityn erityisesti Pokémon-videopeleihin, jotka toimivat koko media mixin ydintuotteena. Tutkin, miten Pokémonin media mix on rakennettu ensisijaisesti pelilliselle ja leikilliselle pohjalle, ja ehdotan tätä tulkintamallia keskeiseksi Pokémonin medioidun intiimiyden ymmärtämiselle. Tutkimuksen tuloksena esitän Pokémonin medioidun intiimiyden muodostuvan Pokémonin media mixin leikillisistä ja teknologisista juurista, joiden perustana on alkuperäisten Pokémon-videopelien roolipelillinen rakenne sekä se, miten sen avulla pelaajat on asemoitu hahmoiksi Pokémonin maailmaan. Fiktiota ja todellisuutta sekoittavassa leikillisessä ympäristössä Pokémonin media mix ohjaa pelaajia hoivan ja huolenpidon teemojen kautta tekemään tunnetyötä tuoteperheen mediatekstien parissa ja piirtää tämän työn tulokset Pokémon-hahmojen monimediakehoille. Lisäksi väitöstutkimukseni osallistuu intiimiyden laajempaan teoretisointiin ja uudelleenmäärittelyyn tarkastelemalla elollisten ja leikillisesti elävien toimijoiden suhteita biologisena ja teknologisena yhteenliittymän

Simulating and Assessing Search and Capture Strategies for the Pokémon Game

Pokémon is a game developed by Nintendo to be played on a handheld device known as a “Game Boy,” in which the player travels around a simulated world collecting “pocket monsters” and pitting them against one another in tests of strength, skill, and luck. Pokémon is quite complicated with many mathematical formulas involved in even the most basic game mechanics. I was interested in determining the most efficient method of locating and capturing any Pokémon in the game. Using the same equations the game programmers used for Pokémon capture as a starting point, I developed several functions in the programming language R which return the probability of catching a particular Pokémon as well as the best place and time of day in the game to capture it. Based on this I am able to determine the probability of catching a Pokémon in any situation, the average number of poke balls required, and the best place to capture the Pokémon. Because I am trying to capture all 719 Pokémon, this is an incredibly useful tool when playing the game as it provides easily accessible, organized, and player specific information

Kajian Daya Tarik Visual pada Desain Karakter Pokémon

Pokémon is one of worldwide famous franchise content from Nintendo which released as game in 1996. The game series of Pokémon later massively developed into various entertainment content and media with wide range of merchandising. The basic content of Pokémon is character exploration in a set of world with emphasizing the relationship between Pokémon and its trainers. There are more than 600 Pokémon characters introduced to the public until 2012. The wide numbers of characters are developed in order to embrace the wide variety of audience's interests which are basically developed from imagination of animals and plants around the world. This study is developing understand on the real Pokémon character's point of visual interest through visual structure analysis based on character design theory. The 5th generation of Pokémon characters is the study object. The result of this study shows that combination of forms and colors which emphasize cute features are the basic ingredients of Pokémon character design. Those are the key visual elements of Pokémon's character design which gain audience's interest

The Effect of Pok\'emon Go on The Pulse of the City: A Natural Experiment

Pok\'emon Go, a location-based game that uses augmented reality techniques, received unprecedented media coverage due to claims that it allowed for greater access to public spaces, increasing the number of people out on the streets, and generally improving health, social, and security indices. However, the true impact of Pok\'emon Go on people's mobility patterns in a city is still largely unknown. In this paper, we perform a natural experiment using data from mobile phone networks to evaluate the effect of Pok\'emon Go on the pulse of a big city: Santiago, capital of Chile. We found significant effects of the game on the floating population of Santiago compared to movement prior to the game's release in August 2016: in the following week, up to 13.8\% more people spent time outside at certain times of the day, even if they do not seem to go out of their usual way. These effects were found by performing regressions using count models over the states of the cellphone network during each day under study. The models used controlled for land use, daily patterns, and points of interest in the city. Our results indicate that, on business days, there are more people on the street at commuting times, meaning that people did not change their daily routines but slightly adapted them to play the game. Conversely, on Saturday and Sunday night, people indeed went out to play, but favored places close to where they live. Even if the statistical effects of the game do not reflect the massive change in mobility behavior portrayed by the media, at least in terms of expanse, they do show how "the street" may become a new place of leisure. This change should have an impact on long-term infrastructure investment by city officials, and on the drafting of public policies aimed at stimulating pedestrian traffic.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures. Published at EPJ Data Scienc

The Playeur and Pokémon Go: Examining the effects of locative play on spatiality and sociability

Pokémon Go is a hugely popular hybrid reality game (HRG) that enables players to occupy a space that is simultaneously physical and digital. The general aim of Pokémon Go is to discover and then capture Pokémon. This article reports on an original research project designed to explore the impact of Pokémon Go on spatiality and sociability. The project was conducted between May 2017 and July 2017, using an online survey which received 375 responses from users of Pokémon Go geographically spread across the globe. Drawing on the concept of the ‘playeur’ as an established approach to understanding the effects of locative play on spatiality and sociability, this research follows three lines of enquiry. First, the research examines whether the intermingling of play and ordinary life might encourage players to spend more time outside in public spaces, and how this mode of play is experienced. Second, the research explores whether the game mechanics of Pokémon Go might lead players to traverse their environment using modified routes, as well as frequent new places. Third, the research examines whether the praxis of Pokémon Go might enable new forms of sociability to emerge that extend beyond earlier HRGs

Which Is The Most Offensively Powerful Starter Pokémon?

In the game of Pokémon, the player is initially given a starter Pokémon from their local Pokémon Professor. These Pokémon always either a fire type, a water type or a grass type. But which is the most powerful in its fully evolved form? Or rather, which of the fully evolved forms has the most powerful signature move? By analysing the anime and based on their signature moves, Charizard is the most powerful fully evolved original starter Pokémon by a considerable margin, and Blastoise is around twice as powerful as Venusaur.

A Survey of Viva CalleSJ Participants: San Jose, California, 2017

This report presents the findings from a self-complete paper survey of participants at the Viva CalleSJ open streets event held on Sunday, September 17, 2017. The survey was designed to provide information that would help the City of San José assess the success of the event, guide planning for future Viva CalleSJ events, and inform potential funders and community partners about the benefits of Viva CalleSJ. A total of 860 adults at the event completed the one-page paper survey. Survey findings provide detail about how people traveled to the event, their reasons for attending, what they did at the event, how much physical activity they got, and how much money they planned to spend while at the event. The survey also collected data on respondents’ gender, age, and race/ethnicity. Notable findings include that over three-quarters of respondents expected to be physically active at the event for more than an hour, over one-third expected to spend more than $20, and 22% volunteered that they played Pokémon GO, an augmented-reality game played on smart phones. The game maker enhanced the game along the 2017 Viva CalleSJ route for that day. This Pokémon GO factor likely explains why more people traveled from outside the City of San José to attend Viva CalleSJ in 2017 than did in the preceding two years

Locating Mobile Media Audiences: In Plain View With Pokémon Go

Mobile media audiences are a central part of understanding audiences in a digital world. In this chapter, I approach the apparently new development of Pokémon GO via a broader thinking of what mobile means in relation to digital audiences. To provide a context for understanding Pokémon GO, I discuss the emergence of mobile media audiences, and the increasingly prominent role location has played in these formations. I trace the emergence of Pokémon GO, placing into the recent history of mapping, locative media, and augmented reality (AR) technology, and discuss the case of Pokémon GO against the histories of mobile gaming. I conclude with some remarks on the discursive, business, technology, and design strategies evident in Niantic’s effort to configure and sustain the phenomenal success of its Pokémon GO launch.Australian Research Counci