Peter McDonald

Pokemon Go Peter McDonald

Unless you were in deep cryogenic sleep or were abducted by aliens and just came back to civilization; you probably noticed that everyone around you is playing the new smartphone game: Pokémon GO! It's currently the most popular game out there and the hottest topic in social media and blogs. Every 90's kid either used to watch Pokémon the animated series back in the day or have at least once encountered this franchise. In those early days, collecting Pokémon trading cards and playing with them with your cousins, neighbors or friends were one of the best ways to have fun! Pokémon abbreviated from the Japanese title 'pocket monsters' first came into this world via Nintendo. Pokémon was a video game for the original 'Game boy' and later, it was expanded for Nintendo 64 and many home console games. It was an instant hit and reached more than 200 million copies worldwide. Two years later in 1997, the animated series were developed by The Pokémon Company International and the rest is history. A whole generation of kids in 90s and 2000s were brought up by this franchise. Pikachu and Ash were one of most favorite and popular characters in animated cartoon's history ever. The adventures of Ash, Misty, and Brock with the humor of Team Rocket spanned in over 900 episodes of animated TV shows and 19 animated movies. Pokémon anime show is said to be one of the most successful TV franchise ever and one of the longest running animated TV shows out there. There are only two animated T shows in the world which are running longer than Pokémon, The Simpsons, and Arthur. It is more popular than SpongeBob Squarepants! So it is not a wonder that when augmented reality game developer company Niantic partnered with The Pokémon Company and Nintendo and eventually came up with Pokémon GO!, it smashed all-time records of the most downloaded app ever in both iOS and Android defeating the previous record held by Candy Crush Saga.