Pokemon craze hits Cable Beach

A new app, Pokemon Go has created a frenzy with young adults in regional WA as they head out into the wilderness in search of pocket monsters.

The app has already been picked up by many local 20 – 30 year olds since its release on Wednesday, July 6 and uses a person’s mobile phone GPS and camera to make digital creatures appear in the surrounding environment.

In the app players use real world locations including iconic locations such as Cable Beach Surf Club, The First Pearl Divers Tribute statue in Chinatown and many other locations with players divided into Team Valor (red), Team Mystic (blue) and Team Instinct (yellow) each resembling the initial pokemon games released in 1998.

Users across the world have already created numerous social media groups to help players socialise, work cooperatively and discuss the game, the local Broome Facebook page is called ‘Pokemon GO – Broome League’.

Pokemon Go player Rylan Savage who is visiting Broome from Canberra said the app was incredibly social but also had issues similar to other early release games.

“It’s buggy but crazy addictive, there’s definitely a thrill of the hunt (for pokemon),” he said.

“It’s the flagship of Virtual Reality games”.

Users are also encouraged to collect items at “Pokestops” and battle other teams at “gyms”, a concept that is proving quite popular in major cities with about 1000 people attending a Pokemon Walk in Perth’s Forrest Place last week on July 10.

Information obtained byThe Western Australian , has shown that the free-to-download Pokémon Go app with in game currency “PokéCoins” has provoked the interest of investors, raising Nintendo shares by 58.5 per cent since July 7 stimulating its value to $41.3 billion and continuing a meteoric rise.