Reports suggest that some Japanese players are quite distressed over Pokémon GO’s newest event -

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PS1gamenwatch

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https://soranews24.com/2018/09/03/r...ite-distressed-over-pokemon-gos-newest-event/

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Rare Pokémon or not, making new friends is the biggest hurdle for some it seems.


Two years after its release, augmented reality monster-catching game Pokémon GO has lost a bit of steam but still has a sizable fan base in Japan, catching the hearts of gamers with exciting battles and adorable critters.

The game has ushered in Celebi, its next mythical Pokémon, in a unique multi-step questline that rewards players with tons of in-game goodies. It’s a long process involving gym battles or leveling up various Pokémon that culminates in an encounter with Celebi who, much like Mew, is not obtainable through normal gameplay.

▼ Must. Get. New. Pokémon.

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Some of the activities to fulfill are as simple as using the recently introduced friend feature to find new friends and send them gifts, but for a community that’s considered shy by many, the event turned out to be gamebreaking for some.

Recruiting random friends from the Internet is the easiest solution, but some players would rather wait at hotspots hoping to actually meet someone with similar interests and engage in some Pokémon trading.

The problem is that though these places may be filled to the brim with aspiring trainers, catching the monsters or joining raids is a mostly solitary process that makes interaction with strangers a rather awkward affair.

▼ Overcoming shyness is not Japanese people’s strongest point.

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Reactions from Japanese netizens about friend requirements were mixed:

“I can’t make any new friends.”
“This game was originally meant to be played alone, so why did they force people to make friends?”
“All you have to do is reach out to people during raids. But that’s kind of difficult for people living in the countryside.”
“They could seriously do away with the questline.”
“I like how Niantic did this.”


While Niantic probably envisioned the event spurring Pokémon GO players to find new friends at various hotspots, the reality is that some Japanese people find it too daunting to overcome those invisible walls and strike up conversations with strangers. It’s a little unfortunate for these players, as simple conversation can sometimes lead to meaningful and deep friendships.
 

DuckSucker

NIbblin' bits since 2006
kiwifarms.net
Man if they had a swirlie station I would go there and be their friend.
Neeeerds.
 
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Cubanodun

D is for Doomposter
kiwifarms.net
Back in the day when this place was a more safe place i had the same problem when i played Ingress, but not for being a nerd, but because people almost exclusively played the game via emulator because phones that could manage to run the game where expensive

Later there were reports of player being robbed so the community pretty much died, almost all the spots that are in my city were discovered by me and those are the same spots that are in pokemon go
 

Maiden-TieJuan

Your roving Californialand reporter
True & Honest Fan
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Across the street from my work is one of those hotspot things, and I love watching the nerds and socially awkward sidle up to people to join in quests. I watched a cop come up and start questioning some dude who was trying to join a group of teenagers. It is hilarious, I should record it sometime.
 

registereduser

True & Honest Fan
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"This game was originally meant to be played alone, so why did they force people to make friends?”
Yeah, no. Go was always supposed to be a way of linking the video game franchise to the real world. The whole point is to get up off your ass and outside and to interact with others. The developers have never presented it as anything other than this.
Most of the game stuff is a lot harder in rural areas because it's based on landmarks and cellular activity. But there are literal directories of friend codes online, the majority of raids are impossible without at least 1-2 other people so you have to see other human beings eventually, and people using multiple phones to create multiple accounts for themselves is extremely common and almost never punished. All of this shit is easy as fuck to get around.
Like, this game is getting legitimate autists out and learning how to socialize. Yeah, there's early awkwardness - duh - but you'd have to be pathologically antisocial to have this big of a problem.
 

George Oscar Bluth Jr

I've Made A Huge Mistake
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Are they kidding? The entire Pokemon franchise has always fucked people without friends over, unless they got their parents to buy them two gameboys, two games, and a link cable. Hell, people with friends were fucked over if no one bought the damn link cable. They should be praising Nintendo for the authentic Pokemon experience.
 

DangerousGas

Societal Eschatologist
True & Honest Fan
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This is unbelievably pathetic. I get the appeal of solo games as much as the next guy, but are these people so mentally enfeebled that the idea of using an LFG site is a) beyond them and b) an intimidating prospect? FFS you losers, Chad has no interest in your pocket monster faggotry. Get on with it.
 

John Titor

Pronouns: time/temporal/tempself
True & Honest Fan
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Are they kidding? The entire Pokemon franchise has always fucked people without friends over, unless they got their parents to buy them two gameboys, two games, and a link cable. Hell, people with friends were fucked over if no one bought the damn link cable. They should be praising Nintendo for the authentic Pokemon experience.
That's what I was thinking. The creator wanted to replicate the social experience he had catching and trading bugs with his friends before his neighborhood was urbanized and there's speculation that he's legit autistic.
:thinking:
 
TFW most people who play Pokemon Go here in my country are part of thematic Telegram groups and have faction-specific raid groups that regularly go out and fuck up opposing team gyms.

Sucks to be a shut-in NEET.
 

Keine

The cooler ancient evil.
kiwifarms.net
nice to know that japan is as antisocial as america.

Probably moreso. Japan's group-oriented culture is really big on distinguishing an "in group" and an "out group". Your in-group might be your workplace, your family, your classmates, etc. People who are not part of your group are treated much differently, not rudely per se, but typically much less intimately, and becoming part of someone's in-group is not easy as a complete stranger.

It's why one of the things a lot of foreigners who have lived in Japan say is that they never felt like they fit in. You can be fluent in Japanese and even have citizenship but you'll always be treated as a foreigner because you're not ethnic Japanese.
 

NOT Sword Fighter Super

"Cheerleeder" of Slapfights
True & Honest Fan
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The only person I know of who still plays this game is a vague aquaintance who happens to be a sperg who smells like literal shit
It basically drains your phone battery, because you need your screen, GPS, and data all running at the same time.

My arms also started to hurt from holding my phone the same way.

Glad I don't play it anymore. It was kinda like Farmville. One day I realized I was wasting my time on pointless shit, and needed to stop.
 

SpaceRanger

kiwifarms.net
It basically drains your phone battery, because you need your screen, GPS, and data all running at the same time.

My arms also started to hurt from holding my phone the same way.

Glad I don't play it anymore. It was kinda like Farmville. One day I realized I was wasting my time on pointless shit, and needed to stop.

At the peak of its popularity, tons of people ended up getting themselves killed because they walked into traffic or something while trying to find pokemon. There was a website that kept track of these accidents.

I mean, the actual games are way more fun. Imagine dying over a trend that lasted for half a year.
 

NOT Sword Fighter Super

"Cheerleeder" of Slapfights
True & Honest Fan
kiwifarms.net
Probably moreso. Japan's group-oriented culture is really big on distinguishing an "in group" and an "out group". Your in-group might be your workplace, your family, your classmates, etc. People who are not part of your group are treated much differently, not rudely per se, but typically much less intimately, and becoming part of someone's in-group is not easy as a complete stranger.

It's why one of the things a lot of foreigners who have lived in Japan say is that they never felt like they fit in. You can be fluent in Japanese and even have citizenship but you'll always be treated as a foreigner because you're not ethnic Japanese.
Good to know they hate weeaboos as much as the rest of us.
 
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