Fad or Eternal Flame

I caved and downloaded Pokemon Go yesterday. I feel bad because I’m supposed to be an adult, and even when I was a kid, Pokemon was for younger kids, not for me. However, I liked Ingress, and I like the cute anime creatures of Pokemon.

I did not feel bad about catching four little critters in my house last night. They’re adorable. I’m following a naming convention to name them so that their names become song lyrics. Not quite working the way I expected, so now I think I’ll have to go back and rename some of them.

After the success inside, this morning I tried my skills outside these four walls. We went to the lake with a friend. I found my first Poke-stop, and guess what happened. That’s right. The game froze, and then timed out. I tried logging out and logging back in, and guess what: I couldn’t log back in. The servers were down.

The game’s popularity is overstepping its server capability. I honestly think this is more than a passing fad, too. I liked Ingress, but it didn’t have cute little creatures to keep me interested. I have always loved the cute of Pokemon and never had a way to interact with it. Finally, this is a socially acceptable way for a kid my age to play.

I hope they are installing new servers right now. I’m very interested to watch, firsthand, the expansion and social impact of this game. My vote: this is not a fad. This could be a step in the right direction toward finding one thing on which we all can connect.

Do you agree or disagree? Tell me about it in the comments.