Pokemon Go – 10 signs of addiction

People are getting out of bed at 11.15 because of a Squirtle (Simon at our office took himself off to Hammersmith in search of an elusive Onix that never showed). They’ve downloaded an app and changed their Apple ID so that Niantic thinks they live in Minnesota. They’re crashing their cars in search of animal monsters. It’s safe to say, the world has gone Poke-mad.

We have a lot of gamers in the agency, and while we haven’t neglected our console roots (who could when Overwatch is still so new), we have been spending an increased amount of time wandering about Soho staring at our phones while discussing our collection of imaginary friends. Addiction has set in, and we think these are the ten signs you have it too:

1. You will do anything to find a Pokemon that isn’t already in your Pokedex – this particular writer just found a Clefairy in the park and did a fist pump of joy, super cool right?
2. When the app crashes, you keep closing it and reloading before eventually giving up and angry eating, starting the long wait for your new best friend to get itself together. If this was any other app it would be long gone but you can’t give up on true love
3. All you can talk about is Pokemon Go – Facebook and Twitter feeds are both full of it. 2 weeks ago if you told someone you love Pokemon they would have looked at you like you’d just admitted to setting fire to your own grandmother. Not so now, everyone is all over it (just know, some of us have been here the whole time)
4. You’re dreaming of Pokemon – the vision of catching a new Pokemon only for the app to crash and you lose that precious treasure. Oh the nightmares
5. Pokedex comparing – when you’re coming into work after the weekend and you’re speaking to your colleagues about what rare Pokemon you found this weekend. Tell you who loves this latest chat trend, people not playing. They cannot WAIT for the next installment
6. When the decision making process around what pub to go to is largely informed by the answer to this question: “which is pettaling?”
7. When you’re turning off WiFi and destroying your own data allowance purely because it makes your GPS connection more stable. Love don’t come for free
8. You’re taking lunch breaks – dining al desko is not uncommon (NOTE FROM EDITOR: though it is frowned upon), but we’re finding reasons to go out on a lunch break a lot more this week. Local businesses must be making some serious coin thanks to Pikachu and the crew
9. You’re walking over 10,000 steps a day – be real, that didn’t happen before unless you were having a healthy day (or have a dog)
10. You’re buying battery packs to keep your phone alive – because Pokemon Go sure does drain your battery (as well as your soul, seriously man, those servers)

It’s going to be super interesting to see how long this craze can last – it certainly feels like something that is going to have an incredible high and a mighty fall, but only time will tell. If the addiction doesn’t cease we may have to speak to HR about a Pokemon Psychologist but let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, happy Pokemon hunting.