Pokémon Go brings virtual creatures to UF campus

With the release of a new app developed by Niantic Inc., some students’ childhood dreams are becoming reality.

Pokémon Go was released Wednesday as an augmented reality game that can be played on a smartphone.

“It’s cool to see Pokémon on your desk or at the Reitz Union,” said Garrett Fine, the sponsors manager for Gator Gaming. Gator Gaming is a UF club that hosts weekly gaming events, including games like Super Smash Bros., Fine said.

The game uses GPS and your phone’s camera to bring a virtual creature into the physical world, the 21-year-old UF computer science senior said.

Fine said you can gain experience and level up by catching Pokémon, hatching Pokémon and going to gyms.

“My character is level 14, and I’m catching Pokémon with up to 800 combat power,” he said.

Players have to physically walk around to move their characters and find new Pokémon, and Fine said he has already walked 15 miles through the game.

Fine said he first owned Pokémon Red for his Gameboy Color when he was 6 years old.

“It feels very nostalgic,” he said.

Everyone is outside playing a game we grew up with, he said, even those who didn’t play Pokémon as kids.

“Michelle Obama has been trying to get people outside for eight years,” he said, referencing a social media post he saw. “Pokémon Go did it in 24 hours.”

According to Forbes, after the release of the game, Nintendo’s stock prices reached a 25 percent increase by Monday. The app itself was developed by Niantic Inc., which worked with Nintendo and The Pokémon Company.

The app is free and has no ads, Fine said. Within the game, users can make microtransactions to purchase more Poké Balls, eggs, lures and other in-game items.

UF management senior Rayquon Fields, 21, works at the Reitz Union and said students have been playing the game constantly.

“It’s a waste of your phone battery,” he said. “People are just walking around aimlessly throwing Poké Balls in the hallway.”

Fields said Pokémon will always be a classic game, but he prefers to have real interactions with people.

John-Michael Diekmann, a 21-year-old UF fourth-year mechanical engineering student, said he hasn’t played the game much but likes that it gets people out in the environment instead of sitting in front of a gaming console.

Augmented reality has been around for a while, Diekmann said. There are other games that use the same technology, he said, but they are just not as popular because they lack recognizable names.

“I think augmented reality games are the next big step in getting kids off their butts and outside while still playing their favorite video game,” he said.