Are you actively playing Pokemon Go?

Mess with it for about 20 min until I figured out it was "walk here and throw balls at fake monster." Didnt seem like much of a game to be honest considering there isnt anything to you know, do really. Would be shocked if this thing has legs on it for the next year but hey, maybe I'm wrong

I rarely go outside.

So no.

I think it's really funny that people seem to be avoiding Yellow. It's my favourite colour, and my brother works for the NDP (orange but opposed to Red and Blue), so we both picked that one. I've only seen one Yellow-held gym so far and it was only recently captured.

Dude the sheer diversity of people playing has blown my mind, I am in a small town to and I have talked to more people in the past 3 days than I have in the last 10 years.

I don't think I've met more strangers in my life in a short amount of time than now with Pokemon Go. Everywhere in the city I see squads of people stationed near lures, or running up and down streets, or attempting to things easier by vehicles. Everyone is really friendly about acknowledging others playing Pokemon Go, and being helpful with where they spotted something good, or teaming up to take down gyms. This game is making weird shit happen in real life.

I'd play yokai watch go.

I'm starting to think having it on while you walk isn't about the pedometer and it's really about incentive for people to pay for incense? since the real game is to reach a Pokestop that has a lure activated.

@evilsbane: It's really more of a social app than an actual game. I kind of wish I tried talking to people when I was down there, but most were couples or large groups of friends and it felt wrong to interject myself into anything like that. The same area of town seems just as active during the day, so I might make a few more trips out there and try to get outside of my social bubble.

So, walking past a park at 2am with only my phones luminescence to guide me, I see a car slowly circle around me, I stop.

My phone notified me of a pidgeoto.. The cars window rolls down, a Maori fella yells out "you playing too?"

We spend 20 minutes driving around listening to lana del ray, modern day hunters of wild beasts

It makes me a little sad that I saw this game being talked about on the news yesterday. So many amazing games come out with compelling, heartfelt stories backed by some amazing tech, and yet Pokemon Go makes it to the news - and it's so some guy can talk about how he walked into a lamp post on the street trying to catch a Pokemon.

I don't have a supported device which is sad 'cause I really need an excuse to go out and socialize :<

Can we please make this a "Pokémon Go Stories" thread? Because this shit is incredible.

It's fun! It's well designed, for all of its bugs. And I love the social aspect of it. Not to mention it's doing some good stuff for mental health: http://www.sciencealert.com/pokemon-go-is-reportedly-helping-people-with-their-depression

My hubby and I managed to take over a gym from Red yesterday at a fire and police station. We were walking away when we saw a car drive up, so we went behind some bushes and peeped out to make sure they weren't taking it back. Turns out they were just hitting up a poke stop. Red did get it back later that day though. I meant to get up early this morning to take it back but didn't quite get up in time.

I want to play it but it seems a bit to buggy on my phone for me to actually do much of anything other than catching a few Pokemon. Doesn't seem like it will have much staying power so I guess I'm not missing much. Hard to not think about it though with people talking about it while I'm out getting something to eat.

I voted for not interested since the absolute LAST thing I want is a game with social hooks in it especially real life social hooks, but that's on me not the game!

Why would it be sad? Pokemon is a great franchise and it deserves the praise. Pokemon Go is basically what I always wanted to do as a kid and now I'm 30 and can finally do it as a form of exercise and an inexpensive way for girlfriend dates.

@golguin: in the exciting world of video games there are more worthy and interesting things to talk about than Pokemong Go - much less have it be an item on the nightly news.

@humanity: But that's the whole point of Pokémon go, it's not in" the world of videogames". Its part of the real world where no one really cares about "video games". Which is why its so popular. Most people see it as just a novel thing to do with their phone. Just like what's app, twitter, candy crush and tinder before it.

And its great! Even if you only count the amazing stories it brings.

I hope they put in a restriction based on speed. If it's obvious based on your speed that you're in a moving vehicle, the game should block you from playing it. Already getting reports of people crashing cars or ending up mounting the sidewalk because their dumb asses where busy playing Pokemon Go instead of actually paying attention to the road like they should be.

@bicycle_repairman: It is being talked about in terms of it being a video game and as such it represents video games in a specific way, and I am merely saddened that this is what gets out to the mass market instead of news about games like Gone Home or something. I don't even particularly like Gone Home, but it would be nice if the news would for once talk about this great coming of age story that isn't violent or hurting our children in some way but is also something of substance rather than pointing your phone at a tree.

Let me be clear that I don't begrudge anyone for liking or playing Pokemon Go. If you love Pokemon and as @golguin mentioned want to use it as a cheap date or something, although the idea of that had my head spinning for a minute, thats your thing and I'm honestly happy for you. It's just that whenever games make it onto the news it's usually in a negative light, and when it's relatively positive like in the case of Pokemon Go, it's a super trite example of what this industry is capable of. Ultimately I don't really care what people that don't play games think about the industry because honestly who cares, they don't matter, but once in a while it would be nice if a really great title got a ray of sunlight shone on it to illuminate the grey masses that hey, you can have some really heartfelt experiences while holding a controller and it's not just "the Maddens and the Call of Duty's" out there. Your daughter could play this game about a teen girl coming to grips with herself and it could have an impact on her.

Kind of a rant. Ash Ketchup.

I installed it monday, only played two times. (lvl4)

I feel it is a good idea in a very shallow package... But what i hate is the walking around with a phone in my face, i rarely text back to ppl when i'm walking and prefer to wait till i arrived somewhere so this is really not appealing to me.

The two times i played it was once in the car (don't worry, mom was driving ;-) ) and once when i was in a bar and noticed there were pokemon and pokestops all round, and after 10 mins of catching pokemon and spinning the stops i had enough. I think it will be installed on my phone for a while and i'll start it up periodically. But at home i have no pokestops or pokemon(rarely) in my 'circle'. I do live in between two parks and there is a lot to do there and i have thought about going for a walk until i realize i don't want to look at my phone the whole time ;-)

I deleted it today. I realized that with no pokestops around my home or on the way to work, and level 1700 pokemon at the nearby gyms, this game is the most play to win it could be.

If there are 1700 level Pokemon at your nearby Gyms then there are clearly Pokemon and Pokestops in your area or there wouldn't be Pokemon at that level.

I downloaded and played it a little for two days then uninstalled it. I didn't get the insane Pokemon fever at all, I'm a little disappointed :-(

I downloaded it, mucked about with it and then deleted it because I did not enjoying actually doing anything in the app. I am not against pokemon or walking (I am walking more for health reasons and also because I have a wonderful puppy who will be a little monster if not given some serious exercise) but I'd rather just do a walk and listen to a podcast or sit down and play some pokemon-ass pokemon than fiddle with a mobile game that I did not find that great.

I'm in Canada where it's not out but seem as my Google account is technically a UK account set up before I moved it's let me download it.....I'm yet to find a single pokemon.

Uninstalled it yesterday. Played actively for about a week. It's a good excuse to walk around with friends, but more often than not, I found that it was actually kind of frustrating when everyone would stop somewhere to catch some Pidgey, especially when we had a destination in mind. Naturally it didn't help that it's been like 100 degrees and humid here when we would go for our Pokewalks. Who knows; if they expand on the idea, maybe I'll get back into it, but I've had my fill for now.

So today at work while posted in the ambulance, my partner and I went to a gym and put two pokemon in it. We noticed another car roll up and start taking it down. We stuck around and as soon as the guy finished putting in a solid 10 minutes of battling and defeating our pokemon, we put new just as powerful pokemon in it immediately, before he even had a chance. He started trying to wittle it down again but quit 1/4 of the way through. My partner and I were laughing our buts off!

We flashed our lights at him when he started battling it the second time so he knew it was us, even though it was obvious since the ambulance was on and my partner's user name was 808medic. We left at the same time as him and pulled up next to him at the stop light and gave a friendly wave, but he didn't even want to look at us.

Tried this game out. Feels like a raw beta. However, I'll give it a proper try when the PVP battles are implemented and the hype dies off.

I'll be honest, I was into this game in a big way for the first week or so, but in the last few days I have fallen off. Not because I'm tired of it, but because I kinda haven't had a reason to go outside my house for long enough too warrant opening the app.

Collecting stuff is fun. I don't care to take over gyms and stuff, but it's been fun to collect and evolve some pokemon. I have a 3DS for real Pokemon. This isn't meant to be a replacement for a real game. I see people like "omg these aren't real video game or pokemon fans!" So what? It's making people happy. They're socializing and going out. It's a good thing. I'm a "hardcore gamer" but I appreciate what this thing is doing. I'm not expecting it to be some deep complex thing. I don't want that from a phone app. It's as simple as it needs to be (though actual pvp would be fun).

Remember... Even if this isn't your thing, it's not taking anything away from you. Don't be that guy that hates it because it's popular. Don't be the one complaining that something is taking over your social media feeds as if you have important business to do while scrolling through Twitter or Facebook. Don't be that nerd that tells people "this isn't real gaming!" Let people have their fun. The person complaining about the fad is always more annoying than the fad itself.

I'm playing Pokemon Gold for the first time having never really made it past R/B back in the day, and it just seems like a lot more fun. Also I don't have a smart phone... also there are too many loose dogs on my street.

Nope. I have other things to play.

Nope. It doesn't work in Korea except in a couple of remote locations because they block Google maps everywhere else to force people to use the Korean alternatives (which are universally terrible.) One of the big app makers is working on a clone based on a popular Korean IP now. Korean economical protectionism is really awful sometimes. ie: Samsung products cost more in Korea - where they come from - than any other country in the world. It's really pretty appalling, but there are a few big corporations ("Chaebols") in town that essentially have the government in their pockets.

Not that I'd even be playing it if it were available. Brad once mentioned something along the lines of being just slightly too old to have caught the Pokemon bug. I'm very much in the same situation. I played through Red on my Gameboy long ago, but to me it was just a mediocre JRPG with a childish story and I never got into the series.

When the servers aren't a broken mess, It gives me an excuse to go outside for a walk around the neighborhood when I normally wouldn't on a super hot day. I haven't been able to do any Gym battles because I live in a super shitty area that doesn't have any Pokéstops or Gyms within walking distance and if there are any within driving distance, they are few and far between. I'd imagine I'd be much higher than level 10 if I lived in a more populated city.

Also, Team Valor ftw!

I play mostly at work and sometimes at home. I live in a suburb that is harder to walk around in, and I haven't quite gotten to the point where I want to drive somewhere to then get out and start walking for pokemon.

Nah, not interested.

I thought I should point out that we have had meetings at my work where we discuss Pokemon Go. The meetings have involved talk of augmented reality and why the game creates such a sense of community among strangers.

It's a bit surprising to see the Giant Bomb staff completely brush off talk of Pokemon Go. Both the Bombcast and Beastcast this week seemed pretty much done with discussing a game that released 2 weeks ago, but we still get lengthy discussions on Overwatch.

Just downloaded Pokemon Go and I think I have to delete the app. I live in a small community (100 year round residents) and there is nothing at all for me to do with this game. No pokestops, no gyms, hell I cannot even find a single pokemon to catch. This game might be fun if I was living in a more populated area, but for now, its useless to me. I am kinda bummed out because a LOT people I know (that live in my old home town) are into the game and I cannot join in on the discussion or fun.

As I've always taken daily walks (and walk to work) I thought it couldn't hurt to check the app every now and then during my regular walks, but I've found that it almost never works. The app locks up pretty much all the time, and when it doesn't, the GPS is pretty unreliable and jumps me around a lot (sometimes conveniently avoiding nearby pokestops and stuff like that, making me unable to visit them). It also doesn't track my movement particularly well, it registers less than 1/10th of my walking distances, so I've only managed to hatch one egg in over a week. Hell, when I'm at home the random GPS jumps standing still seem to give me more kilometers traveled than actually walking does.

I did eventually reach level 5 and joined the yellow team, but found that every gym is populated with pokemons with like 600 attack power, while my strongest one has 75.

Now I continue and I'm to be the center of the gym king :)

I already walk 3 total miles a day to and from train/subway stops for work every weekday, so it gives me something extra to do! The kids I teach love to talk about it (it's precious when they can't quite pronounce certain names, I tell them tales of when I was a kid in the 90s and Pokemon was the new fresh shit, we play argue about what teams we're on) and no one in my life is being a debbie downer about it.

Things are good!

I've been playing for 2 weeks now, very much enjoying it!

I played ingress for about a year before I got sick of it and it's a better game than this by far.

The only interesting thing here is the collecting of different pokemon; but when only a few different kinds are ever around and you have to keep the game active all the time to search for them at all, it's not interesting enough to keep playing.

Not anymore. I was pretty much into it for a good week before it's short-comings really started to show. Not to mention their complete blunder when it comes to communication, and their constant need to expand their network while their servers are completely broken, huge bugs, and completely removing systems that help make up for their broken architecture.

I might return in the following months if they figure all of that out, but as it stands, they really should turn of real-money transaction that game until a "finished" product is actually produced.

i had it on my phone for a few weeks and deleted it. It was ok for a thing to do while i walked my dog in the evening but the battery drain and frustrating things about it got to be hard to overlook. Plus i just wish there was more to it.

I have been on it probably 3 maybe 4 weeks now, the amount of time I spend with it has dropped significantly. I'm level 21 and now I'll bang it on, on my 3km walk to work or when I'm hanging out with my partner on a weekend. But its not constantly open on my phone like it was a couple weeks ago.

Above is what I am rocking.

I sometimes play Pokemon Go if i am going out for walks