Does "Gotta catch'em all" ring a bell? If so, you grew up in the 90's. The biggest trend with college-age kids is re-living childhood, and lately with a new "Heart-gold" and"Soul-silver" games for the Nintendo DS, Pokemon has regained it's popularity with college crowd. Recently "Pokemon Profile Picture Month" overtook facebook and estimates of 100,000 kids changed their profile picture to a picture of their favorite pokemon. However this Pokemon is not the same as it was ten years ago. It has basically the same gameplay, however this new Pokemon has almost five-hundred different "species" of Pokemon to catch, compared to the 151 of older games. With this new game comes the "Poke-walker" which is a small pedometer which allows the player to train his or her pokemon as they walk around in real life. However, this tiny bit of plastic does more than that, because each player keeps their pokewalker on their person, (usually clipped to a belt or hat) other pokemon players can identify them, and then use the pokewalker together to get a free in-game gift per day. Pokemon players can meet new players though this, and it creates a makeshift community of Pokemon players, most of which are surprisingly older than twelve. The Poke-walker also encourages physical activity, as more steps opens up more levels and worlds for the player. This is the first time a video has honestly gotten kids to exercise more, as the only way to access these levels is to take a certain amount of steps. There have been other attempts at this in the past, like the Wii, however most Wii players play sitting down, only moving their wrists. Overall Pokemon has become more than just a game, it's become a culture of friendly reminiscent teenagers, who train their pokemon in between classes and work.
Photo from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pokéwalker.jpg
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