Sean C. Morgan
Sankey Park is a battlefield.
So is the City Hall parking lot.
But we’re not talking about crime or politics here.
We’re talking about “Pokemon Go,” the mobile augmented-reality game that in the last two weeks has swept the world, including Sweet Home.
The game requires players to physically travel as they search for Pokemon (pronounced poe-keh-mahn, short for “pocket monsters”) – 151 different varieties, which roam the land until game-players find, capture, and train them. According to news reports, Pokemon Go has already broken every record for adoption, users, and time spent.
It’s been played by young people in the park, by state champion wrestlers wandering the streets of Sweet Home while glued to their smartphone screens, by a dad and his son walking the South Hills Trail last week, by city leaders, by this reporter.
Pokemon Go is a free-to-play mobile app that players can download to their smartphones and which produces a map of the area surrounding their physical location. Though the game itself is free, players have the option to use real money to buy in-game currency called PokeCoins, which can be used to purchase Pokeballs, the in-game item players need to be able to catch Pokemon.
Players join teams and complete for sites, called “gyms.” Real-world locations, called PokeStops, provide resources needed to compete.
The game includes plenty of variations and level of complexities that make Pokemon, as one popular tech writer put it, “super-fun to play.”
For instance, while the main method of catching Pokemon is simply to find them, to get the rarer ones you could try hatching some eggs. Players can collect eggs at Poke Stops but you have to walk a certain distance for them to hatch. The rarest Pokemon hatch from eggs after a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) walk. More common varieties require a 5-K (3.1 miles) or 2K (1.25) effort.
Pokemon can be found all over Sweet Home. Players, called Pokemon trainers, walk around the real-world landscape looking for Pokemon, resources and gyms.
The game is similar to geocaching, which started in 2000, in which enthusiasts use GPS to travel to specific coordinates to find hidden treasures and clues in a sort of treasure hunt.
Sweet Home is alive with Pokemon, available to anybody who plays the game, and many are.
As this story is being written – because it won’t be the same in an hour – the United Methodist Church on Sixth Avenue is occupied by the blue Team Mystic. Fir Lawn Lutheran on First Avenue, and the East Linn Museum at the intersection of Highway 228 and Long Street are held by the red Team Valor.
No Team Instinct yellow is visible, currently from this spot, but Team Yellow has had a handle on a number of gyms around town over the past couple of weeks.
People are getting used to the hordes of pedestrians dropping by sites like these around town.
Sweet Home Liquor Store owner James Risinger was amused to learn that Pokemon had infested his store last week and asked this reporter to show one to him – after he caught him playing the predecessor to “Pokemon Go,” called “Ingress,” outside his building
Through a function called “augmented reality,” a Pokemon may be spotted using a smart phone’s camera. Once found, players can collect the Pokemon, which have powers that can then be used in battles at local “gyms.”
In the spirit of full disclosure, yes, This reporter is also playing “Pokemon Go” if not doing it very well – Go Team Yellow!
During the Santiam Wrestling Camp in Sweet Home July 9-13, wrestlers from around the state spent their training breaks walking the town, eyes on their phones.
They weren’t alone.
“I used to collect the cards,” said Bobby Ackeret, 20, who’s a member of Team Valor. He’s referring to games in which players would compete with cards depicting Pokemon of various strengths and capabilities.
Holly Lucas, 28, and another Team Valor member, was playing “Pokemon” games on Nintendo devices before the introduction of the Game Boy Color.
“I didn’t play the game, but watched the show and collected the cards,” said Megan McCartin, 24, and a member of Team Instinct.
All three started playing when the game was released on July 6.
“I saw it all over social media,” McCartin said.
“I think there was one text, ‘Pokemon Go is out,’” Ackeret said.
Lucas was sitting in a hotel in Los Angeles when McCartin texted her and told her to download it.
“There’s fighting and collecting,” McCartin said.
“There’s a lot of achievements in it too,” Ackeret said.
“Before it came out, we’d go to the track to walk,” Ackeret said. “This makes walking a lot more fun.”
“I just like to collect things,” said Lucas, who is enjoying the nostalgia of the game. “And the Pokemon are pretty cute.”
“It’s definitely a fun way to be active,” McCartin said.
Sierrah Owen, 19, home on break from college, said she’s found herself walking more.
“I think I’ve walked upward of 40 kilometers.”
That could have benefits besides the fun of playing the game.
SimilarWeb reported this week that players are using Pokemon Go for an average of 43 minutes a day – more than Whatsapp, Instagram or Snapchat. Since the game makes players walk around to hunt Pokemon, it means an average man playing the game for seven days would burn 1,795 calories – and a woman would burn 1,503.
While the original video game franchise and the popular “Pokemon” collectible card game especially appealed to young millennials, “Pokemon Go” is attracting players from all age groups and walks of life.
“You’re seeing every age group playing this game,” McCartin said.
Ackeret said he saw a report on the “Late Show,” hosted by Stephen Colbert, and expects that kind of exposure to increase the number of people playing.
“I think older people will get into it,” McCartin said.
Sweet Home Junior High teachers Mark and Lana Holden have been spotted playing; and flipping his phone around, City Councilor James Goble let this reporter know in no uncertain terms that he was interrupting some serious business while inquiring about a public records issue between City Council meetings on July 12. Goble had discovered that the Poke Stops at City Hall and the Hope Center are both within range of the City Council Chamber.
“My daughter, Keisha, was out and about with her friends, her mom and stepdad playing it,” he said. It sounded like fun. After church on July 10, he downloaded the game and went out looking for Pokemon with his boys, Eli and Ayden.
“I found out afterward we had walked about two miles, catching Pokemon,” Goble said. While the game has had some negatives associated with it, he said, it’s got a lot of positives. It’s teaching his children about the global positioning system, and it gets them out and around town.
“I enjoy it,” he said. “I was catching them right with them. It’s harmless fun. The boys are wanting to get out and do stuff.”
The day he downloaded it, the weather was a little wet with sprinkling. Normally, that would mean X-Box or something in the garage, Goble said, but his boys wanted to get outside and chase Pokemon, taking turns catching them on their father’s phone.
On the evening of Monday, July 11, Lucas said, the City Hall area had at least 30 people playing.
Late at night, Team Yellow players John Drury and Casey Rossio love staking out a space on Kalmia Street between the Genealogical Society, Hope Center and City Hall, three Poke Stops that all can be in range at the same time. They toss out a lure, which attracts Pokemon, and wait. Players constantly pull up to reap the benefits and drop lures of their own.
It’s hard to quantify how well different teams are doing in Sweet Home, McCartin said. “You definitely have seen red gyms be most dominant most days.”
In Lebanon, it’s all blue, she said.
Local police have heard from people concerned about loiterers.
Sweet Home Police Department recorded at least four calls last week for suspicious circumstances on Monday, July 11, four days after the game was released.
In each of those cases, the police found “Pokemon Go” players and left them to their virtual world competition.
It hasn’t caused any problems in Sweet Home, said Police Chief Jeff Lynn, but elsewhere, “there’s been some tragedies associated with it, people not paying attention.”
For instance, a Portland man crashed his brother’s car into a tree in central New York Thursday, July 14, according to the Auburn N.Y. Police Department, while playing Pokemon Go on his smartphone. Steven Cary, 28, reportedly suffered a broken ankle and cuts to both legs. The car was demolished. Cary was ticketed for using a mobile device while driving and failing to remain in his lane.
Lynn urged players to “be safe and pay attention and have fun.”
He said he doesn’t know if any police officers are playing, but he hasn’t asked either.
“I had to ask my kids to show me what this is,” Lynn said.