I’m bored with reality - Give me monsters －現実に飽きた。モンスターちょうだい－

“As the internet of things advances, the very notion of a clear dividing line between reality and virtual reality becomes blurred, sometimes in creative ways.”
Geoff Mulgan

 “Gotta catch ‘em all!”
From the Pokemon franchise 

In a maternity ward, a new father ignores the birth of his first child because he is busy catching a monster.  In Singapore, a man is deported for a bitter harangue against the country where he can’t find any monsters to catch.  On the banks of a river, a teenager searching for monsters instead finds a dead body.  In a museum commemorating the victims of Nazi murders, people repeatedly disturb the solemn quiet to battle monsters.  In Phoenix, monster hunters break into private property to get at a monster.

These are some of the strange incidents caused by the release of the new Pokemon Go game.  The game is marketed as “augmented reality”.  That is, it adds to reality, rather than creating a virtual world wholly and clearly separate from reality.  Players have to go to places in the real world to find monsters to catch.  If they use their device’s camera, they can see the monsters, which seem to exist in the real world.

The game has become wildly popular.  I wonder if this is a craze, which will be successful for a while before the novelty wears off.  Or is this the future?  Will we see more and more role playing games blending their virtual worlds with the real world?

As some of the stories above show, people are already getting into trouble in the real world because they have become so absorbed in the world of monsters.  My favourite of the strange stories was the Australian who was transferred to Singapore.  He had become so addicted to playing Pokemon Go in Australia that, when he found out that it wasn’t available in Singapore, he became furious.  He recorded a nasty rant about the country and posted it on Youtube.  He claimed that any country that didn’t have Pokemon Go was “stupid” and that Singaporeans must be stupid.  Some Singaporeans saw the video and contacted the man’s company to complain.  He was fired, and the Singaporean government even stepped in to take away his visa and deport him back to Australia.  Perhaps he found a monster in Singapore after all.

What will happen when other video games copy the idea of augmenting reality?  For a war game, will you have to travel to real bridges and strategic points in order to virtually shoot opposing players?  I can see the blending and confusing of reality and virtual reality causing problems in America, where there are so many real guns around.

I think on the whole I like my monsters to stay in the land of fantasy, or at least locked away in the cupboard.  If we let the monsters loose into reality, who knows when they will turn on us?

 

Vocabulary:

a notion – an idea

blurred – clouded; fuzzy; hard to see clearly

to be deported – to be forced to leave a country by that country’s government

a harangue – a lengthy and aggressive speech

to commemorate – to respectfully remember, especially after someone’s death

solemn – serious and respectful

augmented – having been added to or made greater

a craze – widespread but short-lived popularity

novelty – the interest which comes with something being new

furious – extremely angry

a rant - an angry, out of control speech