Trivia / Pokémon GO

• Author's Saving Throw: It has its own page.
• Banned in China:
  • Several provinces in the Philippines are already proactively banning the game, citing all the negative press coverage the limited pre-release has gotten as the reason. Local media announced that the Quezon City government wants to have it fully banned.
  • And if you work for the government of Indonesia, just don't: the government has warned that they will take action against government workers caught playing the game on duty.
  • Additionally, the defense ministry of Malaysia has now issued a full-on ban against its employees and visitors from playing the game in and around the ministry's premises, fearing GPS data and photos leaking sensitive info.
  • Iran has banned it, citing security concerns.
  • Work for Volkswagen? Don't let your superiors find it on your phone or you may find yourself losing your job or even sued by the company. All employees of the company are now banned from playing it. Again, the concern is the game leaking sensitive info.
  • Pokémon Go isn't kosher for Israeli soldiers on-duty or on-base and Israeli embassy employees on-duty either, since they may make AR-photos of sensitive areas and let an unauthorized third party (Niantic) know about their location.
  • Due to Google services being completely blocked on Mainland China, the game is unavailable in China and there had never been plans to release the game in China.
  • South Korea banned the game for over a year after its release (and South Korea was in fact the last country where Pokémon Go was officially released) due to concerns about sensitive sites like military installations possibly showing up on game maps.^note Due to being technically at a state of war with North Korea, there are special security regulations that have to be followed by any company providing maps in South Korea. Google and Niantic finally got approval from the South Korean government in 2017 after showing the Pokémon Go map data couldn't be used to determine (for instance) where air raid shelters were located.
• Contest Winner Cameo: The 2021 Kanto Tour event has several NPC Trainers appearing as opponents whose appearance and Pokémon teams are based on players who entered a contest to appear in the game.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer:
  • Malaysian radio station BFM 89.9 was doing a report on how Pokémon Go seemed to have reversed Nintendo's financial (mis)fortune on July 12th, 2016. For starters, they claim the purpose of the app was to go around catching Pikachu on the smartphone, completely ignoring the fact that there's more Pokémon than just Pikachu^note The app wasn't available in Malaysia at that time due to Region Coding and Schedule Slip. More egregiously, they claimed that Nintendo was well known for the Xbox. Their twitter feed became flooded with corrections in record time and they apologized for the error just minutes after the story aired. The biggest kicker is that the station is owned by local conglomerate Media Prima, who also owns NTV7 and TV9, both of whom air the anime and screw it over. ^note However, even they didn't catch on the fact that Niantic made the game and not Nintendo, until Nintendo's fortune got reversed again several weeks later.
  • The popularity of Pokémon Go has led to many different websites that would normally never touch anything related to video games in general to relate Pokémon to their normal area of expertise. Such as BBC earth covering real animals that look like Pokémon or How to make a Razz Berry Smoothie.
• Defictionalization: Pokémon Go is a stellar attempt at trying to defictionalize many a kids' childhood dreams of being a real life Pokémon Trainer. More directly, it successfully makes Google Maps' 2014 April Fools ad a reality.
• Demand Overload:
  • For the first several days, server traffic was so high that the "server issues" error message became the rule rather than the exception for millions of players. And this was with region-locking!
  • The demand was so great, that the CEO of Niantic had stated that the game is about six months behind schedule in terms of features and updates, because of all the employees they had to put to work on rebuilding the online infrastructure to handle all of the traffic, instead of things like trading and Player Versus Player.
• Dummied Out: There's an icon for Honey, which is used to attract wild Pokémon in the main games, and a model of a chocolate-covered Nanab Berry.
• International Coproduction: The game is developed by Niantic Inc., a Google subsidiary in San Francisco, making it one of the very few Western-developed Pokémon games.
• Killer App: In just under a week since the game's release it is one of the most downloaded and played apps ever, the initial servers couldn't even handle the unexpected popularity it received, it is constantly mentioned in the news (both good and bad), and those who can't get it yet are in an uproar about when it will be finally available in their country. Aside from that, the game has been cited as the main reason of a surge in cellphone sales in several countries and is widely claimed to be the reason "power banks" (external battery packs) are moving off shelves as fast as they are now (besides the obvious reason, the game is notorious for draining phone batteries incredibly quickly).
• Milestone Celebration: The purpose behind the game. It's one of the several events to celebrate Pokémon's 20th anniversary. The game itself commemorated its 5-year anniversary by releasing all 151 Kanto Pokemon's shiny variants, as well as selling the ticket for the GO Fest for a reduced price.
• Newbie Boom: To say that this game is popular would be an understatement. You're likely going to encounter people who don't play video games let alone Pokémon games playing it. For these people, this game could be their only exposure to the franchise (Or any Pokémon released after Generation 2).
  • This popularity itself caused a massive Newbie Boom in the core series Pokémon games, especially the Nintendo 3DS ones such as Pokémon X and Y, Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, and most notably the then-upcoming Pokémon Sun and Moon, which quickly became among the best-selling core series games outside of the Pokémania games. However, as the 3DS is relatively expensive, many of the people brought in by Go instead bought the much cheaper 2DS instead, causing a Newbie Boom with the 2DS itself. It also lead to the development of the game Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!, which is a remake of Pokémon Yellow, with the capturing mechanics of GO.
• No Export for You: Live outside these countries? Good luck trying to get this game. The game was made available worldwide accidentally for one hour before it was pulled from all unreleased regions, though, and you could sideload it, but then you'll run into problems buying additional Pokéballs due to region locking enforced by Google Play Store. Additionally, several side loaders have claimed that no Pokémon are spawning in the regions outside of where the game was officially available. There have even been official reports that side loaders are now being banned from the game (not surprisingly, since you're effectively giving Niantic/Nintendo your location while playing), while the botched release not only ceased functioning (since updated versions are not pushed to the devices), but any records of the user officially downloading the app disappeared off all the users' download history page. The wait is made worse in that Nintendo/Niantic both are really secretive regarding the launch schedule and refuse to comment or commit on future launches.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content: Players that have reached at least level 38 can nominate locations to be Pokéstops. Nominations follow a set of guidelines in that any given Pokéstop must generally be a recognizable landmark within the location.
• Portmanteau Series Nickname: PoGo.
• Refitted for Sequel: The Master Ball has been in the game since launch but was only released through Special Research on May 22, 2023; just like in the main Pokémon games, it's guaranteed to catch any Pokémon.
• Schedule Slip:
  • Niantic is trying to add more regional servers to many areas as soon as possible, but at a rate that no one is happy about. Up until it was launched in Japan, its availability was extremely limited (to the one-hour slip mentioned above), and even Japanese fans are infuriated over the wait. This is indeed getting on a lot of players' nerves, especially with the secrecy in regards to the launch schedule.
  • In addition, Niantic is incredibly slow in adding Pokémon of subsequent generations—until a few Baby Pokémon from Generation II were added in several months after the game first came out, it wasn't certain if they'd ever go beyond Generation I at all.
  • The Generation IV update, compared to Generation III's, was a much slower-paced endeavor. While the Hoenn update officially started in December 2017 (October 2017 if you count the Halloween event) and was completed in February 2018 only two months later, Sinnoh's update started in October 2018 and was left unfinished until May 2019, seven months later. This can mostly be attributed to Niantic being forced to roll out new mechanics to work with the unconventional evolution requirements for cross-generation evolutions, requiring the implementation of Sinnoh Stones and advanced, type-specific Lure Modules to enable every single one.
• Shrug of God: Although Niantic has confirmed Mystic Leader Blanche is intended to be female, Pokémon Go Character Designer, Yusuke Kozaki, seems to be all for fans' preference to interpret Blanche's gender as they see fit.
  • And Yusuke Kozaki's original preference may well be canon as of late October 2019 (or at least Ascended Fanon) as (at least in English) Niantic's own Pokémon Go blog has referred to Blanche using they/them pronouns (common for people who identify as nonbinary gender or agender) and there have been pains to avoid using pronouns in regard to Blanche beforehand.^note Blanche does still tend to be referred to with female pronouns in languages for which a neuter gender applying to living beings doesn't exist, such as most Romance languages.
• Urban Legend of Zelda: Due to the game's rampant case of Guide Dang It!, in the first few weeks of release, many false rumors have cropped up on the internet^note For those legends that actually made it into the game, refer to Ascended Fanon in the main page:
  • "You can tap a thrown Pokéball you missed with to add it back into your inventory" Many people claimed if you missed a throw you could quickly tap on the Pokéball and get it back, but this is entirely false.
  • "If you select a specific Pokémon in the Nearby window, it'll 'blip' when you're facing it" Some players tried to figure out why the Nearby indicator blips sometimes, and assumed the blip meant you were successfully facing or closing in on a Pokémon, and by selecting to target one, in particular, the indicator will blip only for it, like a radar. This was proven to not be the case, however, the 'blips' only indicate when a new Pokémon has entered or spawned in the player's area, and has nothing to do with Pokémon already listed in the Nearby window.
  • "Eevee's Special Attack will determine its evolution" For a while, it was spread that based on whether Eevee's special attack was Dig, Swift, or Body Slam would determine if you got a Flareon, Vaporeon, or Jolteon. Again, this is false. However, the Easter Egg nickname trick of naming Eevee "Pyro"^note Flareon, "Rainer"^note Vaporeon, "Sparky"^note Jolteon, "Tamao"^note Umbreon, "Sakura"^note Espeon, "Rea"^note Glaceon, "Linnea"^note Leafeon or "Kira"^note Sylveon to affect its evolution does actually work, but only once per Eeveelution.
  • "Ghost Pokémon will appear more often in cemeteries" False, Pokémon spawns are more or less randomized, and are not specifically programmed to appear in certain places. The only reason for the terrain sprites on the overworld is to give players a sense of direction.
  • "Clefairy are more prone to spawn during the Full Moon." Unlike weather and location, the game doesn't keep track of it.
• What Could Have Been: All Legendary Raids were originally supposed to be EX Raids, starting with the Kanto birds and Lugia, but were released as normal raid bosses to make up for the Chicago GO Fest disaster. This is evident from the trailer, which depicts players receiving EX passes to raid battles against the birds, as well as from certain in-game graphics; ongoing EX Raids have a black Lugia symbol above the gyms where they take place, while normal raids (including Legendary ones) have an orange Rhydon symbol. Additionally, the requirement for the "Battle Legend" medal (awarded for winning Legendary Raids), which has the same Lugia head on it, were at first translated as winning EX Raids in certain languages, instead of winning Legendary Raids.
• Why Fandom Can't Have Nice Things:
  • Some businesses and other private properties have bugged Niantic to have Poké Stops and Gyms removed from their properties in response to rowdy or large crowds of players — Oak Hill Cemetary in San Jose, California, for example. Despite Poké Stop data being based on Ingress portal data, this has not affected Ingress portals as well for the most part, as Ingress players are generally smaller in numbers and much quieter.
  • The 8/8/2016 update removed hundreds of Poké Stops and Gyms from the game, mostly ones located at police stations, fire stations, and hospitals. This was done out of safety concerns that increased foot traffic and loitering by players could inhibit emergency response teams.
  • With the changeover to OSM mapping data, schools and military bases in general were effectively geofenced out of the game altogether to discourage kids from playing in class and to discourage players from wandering onto school property or military installations. Hospitals, police, and fire stations are also effectively geofenced out with even spawns being eliminated.
  • Requests for geofencing have also come increasingly from public (municipal and state) governments; the Minnesota State Fairgrounds has been effectively geofenced from Pokémon Go, the Milwaukee City Parks system attempted to not only get Pokémon Go to geofence the entire park system but actually attempted to put in a prohibitive licensing scheme for all geogaming in the parks (which would have included Ingress, Munzee, and even geocaching), some parks in Colorado and Arizona have had portions of the park geofenced from Pokémon Go (especially popular photo-op spots and gazebos used for outdoor weddings), and some smaller towns have actually requested their entire areas be geofenced from the game.
  • Due to several incidents involving people playing the game and causing major accidents while driving, the game's developers implemented measures to prevent players from playing while driving by effectively making the game unplayable while traveling above a certain speed. This had the unfortunate side effect of preventing passenger seat players from using the app during a long drive.
  • A preemptive example involves the December 2017 update that introduced weather to the game. Most weather conditions gives boosts to spawn rates and power of two or three types as well as bonuses for catching these types, depending on the precise weather. However, in order to prevent people from going out in dangerous situations, the game also has an "Extreme" weather condition (apparently triggered by weather services issuing warnings in an area) that not only gives no bonuses but lowers spawn rates dramatically across the board, to discourage players from going out in dangerous conditions.
  • One of the newer restrictions involves Pokéstops and gyms in parks which close between dusk and dawn. In a number of cities (Milwaukee City Parks is particularly notable here, this was done as a compromise to keep Pokémon Go from being banned altogether) stops and gyms will shut down at night and spawns will stop; it's essentially a time-limited "geofencing".
  • Time-limited geofencing of this sort is also done in the case of major disasters with a particular Pokéstop or gym location—gyms in and around Notre Dame were shut down during the fire at the historic cathedral and remain shut down to prevent people going into an active fire scene (and now, to keep off a reconstruction site).

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