The psychology of Pokémon Go, keys to understanding the phenomenon

Pokemon go, the Niantic and Nintendo video game for smartphones, has gained unprecedented popularity during the first days of its release.

The fever that this video game has generated has served, among other things, so that the value of Nintendo shares have increased by more than 25% in a few days. There are even some stories already circulating about curious situations created as a result of this application, like that of some nocturnal walkers that, after explaining to a policeman that they were playing the game instead of dealing with drugs, they end up convincing him and causing him to download Pokémon Go right there.

Why are you liking Pokémon Go so much?

What can be the keys to the commercial success of the video game? All things considered, Pokémon Go is a pretty simple app: basically allows us to use augmented reality to explore our environment in search of Pokémon that we will only see through the camera of our smartphone. It's simple, but judging by the number of downloads of the game, it works handsomely.

Here I propose some psychological aspects of the Pokémon Go playable experience that could be contributing to its success.

1. There are almost no rules of the game

Much of the appeal of Pokémon Go is that it is hardly a video game. It can be understood as a veneer of augmented reality on the environments that we physically travel through, inviting us to walk and explore real areas.

More than a game with very specific rules and a story line to discover, it is an experience without too much depth that offers light entertainment. Therefore, we do not have to spend time playing a game without anything else bothering us. Pokémon Go builds on our everyday experiences, and playing it requires no more commitment on our part than what we are willing to give. In fact, can be used as an application to force us to stretch our legs during our free time.

2. Low perceived risk

Pokémon Go can be played without paying anything, and this in itself helps people start playing it. But, in addition, the Pokémon Go proposal is so simple that the chances of us feeling cheated once we have started playing are very low.

There will be no script twists to spoil the experience, nor will we reach the end of the game without being given the option to continue experiencing, neither the quality of the environments and the challenges will decline unexpectedly a few hours after releasing the app. Playing the game for half an hour we can get an idea if we like it or not, and being free, the possibility of starting to play Pokémon Go is practically free of risks (Beyond the accidents we can have if we don't pay attention to what's beyond the screen, while we walk around, of course).

3. The claim of the familiar

Clearly , it is impossible to look for explanations about the success of Pokémon Go without highlighting the value that the Pokémon franchise itself has. Video games, peripherals and products merchandising Pokémon are sold practically alone, among other things because their brand is already known even by many people who have never been interested in this type of entertainment.

If to this we add the fact that the games in the franchise tend to be valued positively, it is very possible that the images and videos (promotional or not) of Pokémon Go attract much more attention than other products of the competition. First because being something familiar attracts our glancesSecond, because those memories are more likely to be more pleasant than negative.

4. Collectibles addiction

The invitation to collect things (in this case, Pokémon) is an easy and effective way to extend the durability of video games. They make us play them more because they place us squarely in the logic of the accumulation of elements that can be anticipated: we see other players and characters with better equipment than ours, we imagine what it would be like to have those collectibles that we intuited but that we have not reached, etc. As we know that if we continue to strive under the playable rules that we already know, we will get all those elements, it is very easy that the idea of ​​continuing to invest time in increasing the chances of winning these "prizes" turns out to be very temptress.

On the other hand, using the resource of collectibles inflates the duration of video games in a somewhat artificial way, because it is a very simple and stereotyped way of generating interest: it is enough to design new objects and attribute certain statistics and properties. It does not cost as much as, for example, creating original environments with new challenges, or altering the plot of the video game to make the story more attractive.

So that, the added value of these collectibles is based on creating small temporary peaks of pleasure when a new item is obtained, which makes us associate that pleasure with this type of simple and predictable situations, in a similar way to how it did B. F. Skinner when teaching your pigeons to play table tennis. This easy resource is great for games free to play like Pokémon Go, since it can be implemented starting from a relatively modest initial budget.

5. Curious to see "the other dimension"

Pokémon Go is mechanical and predictable, yes, but it literally invites us to see a version of our own neighborhood and the areas we frequent where things are different.

In addition, touring the streets and parks that we identify with our lives from the augmented reality of Pokémon Go during In the early days of the game's release, we're exploring territory that possibly no one else has seen until the moment. From the local, we feel part of a kind of world party to inaugurate the version of the planet that is in Pokémon Go.

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- Proscojoncio (@Proscojoncio) July 12, 2016

6. The fever of the social

If there is one way to benefit even more from the fact that the video game being sold is massively consumed, it is creating the possibilities for this mass consumption to turn the game into a social experience on a planetary scale. Pokémon Go makes this possible not only by allowing real players to interact with each other through gameplay, but also by giving them the opportunity to create curious situations with augmented reality, images that can be shared through social networks.

The possibilities are practically endless and, in the case of a smartphone game, the propensity to photograph and share everything that happens to us is very high. All this, in addition, takes the form of a great viral advertising campaign for this video game, causing more people to start testing it. Which brings us to the next point.

7. An experience in company

Pokémon Go is not just a social app because it is fashionable on the Internet and social networks. It is also because starting a solo game can make us end up hanging out with people we just met.

People go out in gangs to hunt Pokémon, meet in parks, meet at Pokémon Gyms, help each other find the rarest specimens... It is, for many adults, a return to childhood, not because the items to collect are Pokémon, But because playing with this application is similar to playing as children who go out to school do. parks.

8. Fashion

Part of the appeal of Pokémon Go these days is simply that hundreds of thousands of people have jumped into playing it across the globe. From nostalgic millennials who have rediscovered the Pokémon universe they played in the late 90s to children and adolescents who simply decide to consume one of the few video games free to play with an ambitious advertising campaign behind them, everyone has reason to be interested in a game that, on the other hand, is so simple and shallow that it does not exclude anyone.

All these digital natives have flocked to Pokémon Go and started sharing images over the internet. Images that are instantly recognized as part of the Pokémon franchise and that are an advertising claim in themselves. In this way, the desire to start using the game to join this virtual party is transformed into the gasoline of a new fashion.

Extra: Possible therapeutic application

On this article from Psycogaming the possibilities are explored Pokémon Go could be useful to combat mental disorders like depression, anxiety, and social phobia. Undoubtedly, a promising line that would give even more strength to the already revolutionary video game.