- Not easy to hunt pokémons from your couch.
- Since the beginning of the health crisis, Pokémon GO trainers have sometimes been discouraged, often adapted.
- Urban and rural players are unequal when it comes to containment.
- Solidarity has also contaminated the virtual reality game.
App uninstalled, pokémons placed in hibernation, trainers frustrated. With containment, the Pokémon GO virtual reality game, whose principle is to walk to capture creatures, spin pokéstops full of bonus items, conduct raids on arenas or hatch eggs, necessarily takes a hit . Based on the contributions of the 20-minute trainer-readers , some, including early adopters, have thrown in the towel. In particular, those who liked to walk in the parks to flush out the pokémons and do not seize the interest to continue the adventure confined in their kitchen.
"I don't see myself going around in my living room to hatch my eggs," says Sarah. "I can't imagine the game without moving from my home, walking around, playing and chatting with the other trainers in my city," explains Cédric, who has stored his pokéballs and does not know if he will return to the family after confinement.
Urban detours and rural deserts
But others - and there are many - hold on. Not to the point of braving the confinement just to play (no pokécase on the derogatory certificate), even if Chloé confesses with the tip of the keyboard that she went out, only once, to spin a pokéstop. There is no adrenaline of the "hunt", the pleasure is not intact, but most of the players have adapted their gameplay to the confinement. They often make some detours, some incomprehensible loops, on the road to the supermarket or the pharmacy. Ouhmani38 thus does not hesitate to walk back and forth in his garden, with his little boy, to hatch his eggs.
With glaring inequality, which may delight those who suffer from being confined to the city. In the land of trainers, the countryside is a hassle. When, in an urban environment, some do not even have to get up from their sofa to reach a pokéstop or an arena, to the point that some play more than before, for others, it is the desert. Witness, Florian, a student from Nantes confined to his parents in Pornichet. He did not find any pokestop on the road to the bakery and put his pokédex to sleep. Some rural people still have the possibility of walking far away, without the risk of encountering anyone, to make the odometer go up.
The combo apartment well located and dog to walk
And then there are those who are doubly lucky, in the pokésens of the term, with well located apartment and a dog to walk. Unquestionably, the friend with real hair is a more precious asset than all the powerful attacks of the game. For example, persuaded that his neighbors take him for a fool, Emmanuel gives himself thoroughly: he takes the leash in one hand, three of the family phones in the other, and offers solo raids by tapping frantically. The Parisian Valentin, who fell ill from the Covid-19, does not allow himself any sprain in confinement but he is lucky to have two rooms in his apartment where his GPS does not pick up. Assessment, the game derailed blind and it makes 30 to 60 km per day without moving.
In general, the community welcomes the efforts of the creators of the game to adapt to these “difficult times”. Niantic, who could not afford a global erosion of addicts, shortened the distances to the arenas, halved those for egg hatching, sold off pokéballs and incense to a virtual pokepiece, reduced to nothing the path to access the combat leagues and stuffed to make them crack the gifts between friends. These facilities have a lot to do with keeping trainers in business, who can thus ensure "a minimum of trade unions".
A united community
But some have a hard tooth. They are fed up with Chinchidou or Mastoc and dream of releasing new pokémons to pass the confinement pill. A fan would like Niantic to take advantage of the truce to refine the combat mode, which boils down to tapping on his screen "like a moron". A trainer takes offense at the persistence of weather-related quests when we can't get out. Others suggest - rather wait - the famous raid passes to attack with friends from home. The facetious cheaters, who thanks to apps escape elsewhere, in the unconfined corners of the real world, are vague to the soul. Even in the sanitary test, Niantic still does not hesitate to clean up and ban them.
Our file on the coronavirus
Finally, it will probably make the refractories smile, but Pokémon GO also went into solidarity mode during the confinement. Family solidarity for Lino, 5 years old, whose dad is still going to work and that he forces "to go through all the pokéstops in the city" before returning. The players exchange their codes, when it's not downright the phones, those who work hunt for those who cannot move. Maude, at the head of a community of 120 players in Annemasse, on the Swiss border, mobilizes the luckiest of the group to send gifts to those who are far from any pokéstop. Armelle (aka Memelle 1962, trainer code 3332 9390 5817) is in quarantine due to suspicion of Covid-19 and calls for generosity, to keep her stock of objects afloat.
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