When I was in elementary school Pokémon was my life. I remember when the first kid brought Pokémon cards into class. Everyone was amazed and I think we all went home and begged our parents to buy us some, I know I sure did! So when I walked into my classroom the next day with my new starter pack I thought I was going to be the best there ever was! But to my surprise many others had the same starter pack and the same idea. After that period of my life Pokémon has taken a backseat to many of my other gaming interests. I will pick up a new game here and there but I never invest the time and energy into making my Pokémon the best. When Pokémon Go came out it reinvigorated my interest and got me excited for the next games in the series, Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon . So if you are like me, and you grew up in the privileged generation that experienced the original 150 Pokémon, you can understand me when I say that the new generation of Pokémon absolutely suck! Ok maybe suck is too har...

The explosive success of Pokémon GO is more than a bright spot for the future of mobile gaming, it is also helping to create a more social gaming community that has started to cross generational barriers. Even though the initial release server crashes have hindered my quest to catch ‘em all, it has not stopped me from finding new Pokémon to catch and PokeStops to raid for items. The town I live in has a lot of PokeStops and I have created a “farming” system to hit them all in one walk. Before Pokémon GO I used the path for walking/jogging, it takes me along a river and through a small park. The river has moderate pedestrian traffic but the park is usually always vacant. I was shocked when I entered the park and found upwards of 30 people looking down at their phone. Some were walking together in groups, some were riding bikes, others were talking and some were by themselves. But what they all had in common was Pokémon GO . Now I can’t say for certain that every singl...