Pokémon GO or Pokémon No?

It’s taking the world by storm! Pokémon Go is a GPS based smart device reality game.  The appeal and the “reality” of the game is that it allows you to  capture, battle and train virtual Pokémon who appear throughout the real world.

After logging into the app for the first time, you will create your own avatar. Customizations include hair, skin and eye color, and you can choose from a limited number of outfits.

After creating an avatar, it will be displayed at your current location along with a map of your immediate surroundings. Features on the map may include a number of PokéStops and Pokémon gyms. These are typically located at popular meeting places, such as memorials, places of worship, parks and tourist attractions.

You’ll  have to walk around in the real world to move your avatar in the game. Different Pokémon live in different areas of the world; for example, water-type Pokémon are found near water.
When you encounter a Pokémon, you may view it in either augmented reality mode or with a pre-rendered background. AR mode uses the camera and gyroscope on the your mobile device to display an image of a Pokémon as though it were in the real world. You can also take pictures, using an in-game camera, of the Pokémon that you encounter both with and without the AR mode activated.

After capturing a wild Pokémon, you are awarded two types of in-game currencies: candies and stardust. The candies awarded by a successful catch depends on what evolutionary chain a Pokémon belongs to. You can use stardust and candies to raise a Pokémon’s “combat power” (CP). However, only candies are needed to evolve a Pokémon. Each Pokémon evolution tree has its own type of candy which can only be used to evolve or level up. You can also transfer the Pokémon back to the Pokémon professor to earn one more candy and create room for more Pokémon.

You can also earn experience points for a number of in-game actions. As you earn experience points, you will rise in level. At level five, you are able to battle at a Pokémon gym and join one of three teams (red, blue or yellow) which act as larger factions within the Pokémon Go world. If you enter a Pokémon gym that is controlled by a player that is not part of your team, you can challenge the leader to lower the gym’s “prestige”. Once the prestige of a gym is lowered to zero then you will take control of the gym and you are able to deposit one Pokémon to defend it. Similarly, a team can upgrade the prestige of a gym under their control by battling the gym leader.

Upon 24 hours after its release, Pokémon Go topped the American App Store’s “Top Grossing” and “Free” charts.  As of July 11,  Pokémon Go has an estimated 7.5 million downloads in the U.S.  It brought Nintendo, who owns a share in The Pokémon Company, a market value of $7.5 billion in just two days. It was installed on more than 5% of Android devices in the U.S., according to SimilarWeb.

So we wanna know …. Are you on Team Pokémon GO or Pokémon No?