Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/706995
7 MIRIAM DALLI IF you've been walking round Valletta, Sliema or Mdina and noticed people staring in con- fusion at their mobile screens whilst considering their sur- roundings, you can safely de- duce that they've been entrapped by the latest augmented reality game that is Pokémon Go. And if someone you know sud- denly drops their phone behind their back and stares at you blankly, you can equally safely assume that they are Poké-hunt- ers. Premiering on July 5 – and reaching Malta on July 16 – the game has attracted millions of people across the globe as they try to capture the digital mon- sters. The chase did create some casualties abroad, as people ig- nored traffic signs or road rules, causing accidents and falling off cliffs. It seems that the Maltese are more responsible players – with the exception of a Valletta priest who claims receiving a call by an enthusiastic Poké-hunter begging him to open the doors of St Augustine's Church as "a Pokémon was inside the church". Apple on Friday confirmed that the game brought in more down- loads during its first week of release on the Apple App store, than any other app. So the sceptics and those who have snubbed the game ask: what's so special about it? Well, as reviewers have repeat- edly pointed out, the game is getting people out and about, in search for populated hotspots. A dog sanctuary in Indiana offered Pokémon Go players the oppor- tunity to walk a dog while hunt- ing for Pokémon and hatch eggs … and a few dogs were adopted in the process. Taking the local scenario, play- ers are getting acquainted with cultural monuments, histori- cal buildings and churches they wouldn't know about had it not been for the game. "We have to keep in mind that these youth are finally getting off their computer and walk to catch a Pokémon – or walk 5km to hatch an egg – and they're discovering a lot of new things about the city," Valletta mayor Alexiei Dingli tells MaltaToday. "We need more of this sort of interaction in order to populate our city and turn their experi- ence from a passive to an active one." Valletta already has more than 100 Ingress portals, a game de- veloped by Pokémon Go creators Niantic which uses players to visit real-life locations. Data gen- erated from this game led to the setting up of PokéStops – land- marks where Pokémon can be caught – and PokéGyms – where trainers battle and gain Poké- coins that can be spent in-game on items. The game takes players to vari- ous locations within Valletta, Dingli adds, pushing them to venture into new parts of the city they otherwise would have nev- er visited. According to Dingli, even businesses in Valletta stand to gain from all the hype. "Shop owners should look at gaining advantage from this phe- nomenon. They should not think of Pokémon Go players as a nui- sance, but rather as customers who haven't yet interacted with their business. "We've seen far too many youth loitering around the main street of Valletta doing nothing. The game adds foot traffic and thus creates an opportunity to make a positive first impression with potential customers. Businesses can use lure methods – at a small cost – to attract Pokémon in their area and thus making them easier to catch. They can offer incentives and discounts to all those players in order to convert them into customers." Sociologist Michael Brigug- lio described the game as the latest example of the interac- tion between social media and CALL FOR TENDERS AUDIO-VISUAL AND CONFERENCE INTERPRETATION SERVICES PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARIAT FOR THE EU PRESIDENCY 2017 AND EU FUNDS of the Council of the 2017 Maltese Presidency European Union 2017 MALTESE PRESIDENCY OF THE COUNCIL OF THE EU The tender documents are available to download online from www.etenders.gov.mt The Parliamentary Secretariat for EU Presidency 2017 and EU Funds, within the Ministry for European Affairs and Implementation of the Electoral Manifesto, notifies that a call for tenders for the provision and operation of audio-visual and simultaneous interpretation equipment for conferences held in relation to Malta's Presidency of the Council of the EU 2017 has been issued. maltatoday, SUNDAY, 24 JULY 2016 News one's construction of self-identity through fluid communities. "This time it takes pace through the playing of a game with nostal- gic features and which incorporates physical interaction with other per- sons. The divide between the digital and the physical is becoming in- creasingly blurred," he says. According to Briguglio, Pokémon Go is another example of how peo- ple of different ages sign up to online seduction, seeing it as a fact of life, and jealously defending it against the invaders who raise questions on matters such as surveillance, time- wasting and distraction from bread- and-butter issues around us. "Pokémon is ultimately what we make it out to be in our everyday life. Personally, I think that the most useful usage of its symbols was when Syrian children used Pikachu [a Pokémon monster] to remind us that they – the children – really ex- ist, in a real world of war and mi- grants dying at sea." The heartrending social-media campaign is using Pokémon to high- light the plight of Syrian children, asking players to "come and save me". According to award-winning nov- elist Immanuel Mifsud, the game's lure is that the very thin line that separates reality from unreality has always intrigued human beings. "We might think that Pokémon Go's augmented reality game is some- thing new but its novelty seems to lie more with its very rapid and broad spread than with the game itself." Indeed, to play it, people need not learn a new language, a new pro- gramme or use a new instrument. "It involves a play with reality: you, as supposedly a real person, create an avatar, a fictitious personality which you then put in a quasi real world to interact with other avatars … personalities that you know, deep down, are unreal no matter how real they look." A play with reality, he adds, is not something new and goes further back: "I think experimenting with mind altering drugs, such as LSD, was itself a play with reality, where reality was modified through per- ception and the expansion of con- sciousness." In essence, Mifsud argues that Pokémon Go is yet another activ- ity, in a long series of ventures, that titillate humans' desire to put them- selves in that very narrow border between what is supposed to be real and what is not. "Let us not forget that Plato, over 2,000 years ago, condemned artists because they produced copies of re- ality: art seemed to him hyper real, unreal or augmented." mdalli@mediatoday.com.m Pokéhunting... a group of Pokémon GO players congregate outside St John's Cathedral. Valletta has over 100 Ingress portals Costumed performers as Pikachu, the popular animation Pokemon series character, perform at the Yokohama Dance Parade in Yokohama, Japan back in August 2015 Gotta catch 'em all...