Catching Shiny Ghosts on Campus

ENGLISH cATchiNG ShiNY GhOSTS ON cAMpuS

Catching Shiny Ghosts on Campus

TEXT NicO AlBRechT PHOTO ANNA SÖDeRBeRG

Do you see them? No? Maybe you have to take a moment and look around. Among us are those who can see them without a doubt: the players of a certain mobile video game called pokémon Go. can you see them now? even though most of us retired our short-lived pokémon careers after the summer of 2016, we recently found a small community here on KTh campus. Still going strong.

Do you remember that game from the Osqledaren’s photographer Anna chimes good old times? The principle: with your in that the players might seem invisible, trained Pokémon you go and raid for wild, but their tracks are omnipresent wherever randomly spawning Pokémon that you you go. As she often sees the same playwill battle and hopefully catch at certain ers guarding the gyms around Campus, locations called Pokéstops. Wanting to very likely to be other KTH students. Nils, know which aspect of the game was keep- who is the administrator for the largest PvP ing the community alive, we meet some community in Sweden, remembers the active Pokémon Go players to get some largest campus raid with over 17 people. answers… Anna, Nils, Martin, let’s play a On average, there are roughly 30 active round of Pokémon Go! people in that mentioned KTH chat, performing an average of four raids per week. While trying to understand the princi- A raid is quite fast and takes seven minutes ple of the game, Nils explains that the at most! objective is to build up your Pokémon team, which you use to fight in gyms, raids, Investigating more about the presence of or PvPs (Person vs Person). Most parts of KTH raiders and catchers, we find out that the city have local chats where players people play the game differently. While communicate. Martin, one of his co-play- Nils acknowledges the game as a fixed elers, adds that the focus of the Pokémon ement in his day, for Martin it has to fit into community at KTH is to do raids, a game his schedule. Others might look for Pikamode in which players cooperate to challenge the boss Pokémons. For raid updates, the campus community has a large Messenger chat, so when- Nils actually waited ever there is a raid, they alert members to join. until the Swedish Upon further questions about raids, the two emrelease and has phasize that although it is beneficial to be as many as "pretty much" possible, one should also consider the features of the played every day boss Pokémon, finding its weaknesses. Raid bonuses seem to be more generous since then if fewer people succeed, but playing with more people might be faster and more fun! chu, Rayquaza, or Vaporeon rather seldom. Where and how often do raid bosses appear at those Pokéstops? Still, so much is left unrevealed. Nils explains that there are a few around the library and several others just by the V building. Normally, the spawn rates for raids are so high that you don't have to go very far.

Now convinced that the game is a cool activity that you can fit in during a small break or go for a longer deep dive, we are eager to know what a round of Pokémon Go means for our three adventurers. Martin explains that in the winter, he is deterred by the cold and won’t stay outside for long. On the other hand, when the weather is nice, he enjoys walking around and playing for hours. For Anna, the game is not a distraction, but rather an escape from being at home studying. Nils reveals that he always plays a lot, in particular PvP, in the community that he manages.

Considering how fast the hype after the initial release abated, Pokédreams settling somewhere in the back of players’ minds, we wanted to find out how they motivate themselves to play, still.

Having set his phone location to Australia in order to download the game,

Martin joined before the hype, even before it was released in Sweden. He remembers the hype being “super cool”. Due to a lack of content, however, it didn’t last too long and felt like it was over faster than a raid. He emphasized that now, on the other hand, as more and more content has been implemented, there is more to do and more incentive to play. He directly addresses the deserters of the hype, saying: “come back and take a look at how much new content there is to explore!”

Nils actually waited until the Swedish release and has “pretty much” played every day since then. In regard to the hype, he counters that this summer there was a special shiny Rayquaza Pokémon release which resulted in the game’s best selling month since the hype. He testifies that the game is still alive and growing, along with its content. For Anna, the game is about meeting friends and sometimes spice up her strolls. She tells us a story about two players called Pokémon Papa and Pokémon Kid, who she noticed where she normally plays. This is probably a dad playing with his kid, using the game as a way of bonding, she explained.

To the question about their highlight of the game, Nils answered with the story of how they got stopped by the police for the first time. They were doing a raid outside the police station in Sollentuna, which is a Pokémon spawning point. As they stood there for a while, covered by hoods and constantly manipulating their phones, a police car came to question them due to their suspicious looks.

Pokémon Go is quite a phenomenon, right? Besides being fun, it has a very positive impact on your health when you walk outside in fresh air. Cardiologists and psychologists absolutely support Pokémon Go: it is good for your physical and mental health, as it fosters movement as well as social interaction.

Are you motivated? Just download the app, register, and then you are good to go.

If you are interested in joining the KTH community, write to us and we will get you in touch with the players. So, what are you waiting for? Grab your smartphone and get ready. You’ve gotta catch them all!

Martin Nils