Pokemon GO Takes the World by Storm

The sight of young people gawking at their cell phones in public is nothing new. These days, however, you might notice large groups of people doing so in parks and other public places at all hours. Unless you've been stuck in a time warp, you'll know what's afoot: These people are on the prowl for Pokemon.

With a record 50 million downloads in under 20 days and combined daily revenues of up to US$10 million on Apple Store and Google Play, Pokemon GO is an unprecedented worldwide craze. The game's attractions are manifold. GO blurs the boundary between the virtual world and the physical one by layering virtual elements onto the real world through the player's mobile device. The game also appeals to a broad number of people, from nostalgic twenty-somethings who adored the original franchise back in the mid-90s, to the younger generation of fans it has spawned. Finally, GO's combination of simple gameplay and use of compulsion loops ensures that users take the bait and remain hooked.

Initially conceived as a short-lived April Fool's collaboration between Nintendo and Google, GO was developed by Niantic, the company behind Ingress, a location-based game that provided the building blocks for GO. Niantic CEO John Hanke had previously been the CEO of Keyhole, Inc., the company which developed Earth Viewer, the program that made Google Maps possible.

寶可夢狂潮大解密

看到年輕人在公眾場合呆呆地盯著手機螢幕並非新鮮事。不過最近你可能會注意到，有一大群人隨時都在公園或其他公共場合做出這樣的舉動。除非你被困在時間錯置的情況中，否則你會知道發生了什麼事：這些人在四處找尋寶可夢。
擁有不到二十天就創下五千萬下載次數的紀錄，以及蘋果零售店和 Google Play 商店每日千萬美元的合併營收，《精靈寶可夢 GO》是一股空前的全球熱潮。這款遊戲的吸引力是多方面的。《GO》透過玩家的行動裝置將虛擬元素堆疊至真實世界裡，模糊了虛擬和真實世界的界線。非常多人深受這款遊戲所吸引：從 1990 年代中期就深愛原創系列而具懷舊情懷的二十多歲人士，到這款遊戲催生的年輕一代粉絲。最後，《GO》綜合簡單遊戲和強迫循環的概念，確保用戶上鉤且持續著迷。
《GO》最初的構想是任天堂和 Google 合作推出的愚人節短期計畫，由 Niantic 所開發，而這家公司打造的地圖定位遊戲《虛擬入口》為《GO》奠定了基礎。Niantic 的執行長約翰．漢克之前是 Keyhole 公司的執行長，這間公司開發出地球瀏覽器，也就是讓 Google 地圖成為可能的軟體。