Will this latest game craze go by the way of the dinosaur?
California’s Wham-O toy company created the Hula Hoop in 1957 and within a year it became a national and then global craze. No self-respecting child could be seen without the deceptively simple hoop that was lightweight and cheap to make and purchase but difficult to manufacture on your own. Within two years Wham-O had sold over 100 million units and it became the product that all desperate inventors wish they could emulate, and many years later Wham-O repeated the trick with the Frisbee. I mean, why didn’t I think of that?
Over the years there have been repeated revivals of the Hula Hoop craze and during my childhood there was a moment when everybody had to have one, along with a pogo stick, tassles on your bicycle and a yo-yo. But when I became a teenager, I developed a craze for being morose and attempting to be ironic and cool (“Yeah, stuff sucks”) while being simultaneously fascinated by and terrified of girls. The Hula Hoop’s success has been so great and enduring that it has even become an Olympic sport by being incorporated into rhythmic gymnastics. Will the same happen for Pokémon Go?
Crazes come and go, but that’s the nature of a craze. If the mania sticks around forever then it becomes, well, just a regular thing. Are cars a craze? They were a hundred years ago when hardly anybody had one but now a car is just a regular commodity. The most recent craze to sweep much of the known world is Pokémon Go, where people hunt down virtual characters in real world spaces.
Its July release in America and Europe saw an initial burst of fevered excitement with crowds of eager Pokémon hunters gathering to stare at their mobile phones and “collect” the cute but ultimately meaningless Pokémons. The initial launch was so successful that computer servers were overwhelmed and barely, if at all, able to cope but Japanese parent company Nintendo’s stock went through the roof before dropping back down as investors began to fear that this would only be a short-lived craze, as it probably will be.
Although the craze has been popular with young children, Pokémon Go differs from the Hula Hoop because it mainly appeals to much older children in their twenties, and even, forties. Pokémons have been around for a long time, long enough to have been a staple for generations of childhoods. These now old people have the adulthood freedom to travel on buses or get in their cars and go to unknown neighbourhoods to hunt down a Pokémon and relive their childhoods with like-minded strangers with whom they might even “hook up”. It is the perfect craze because it taps into several primal human wants: hunting and gathering, finding community and, yes, possibly even sex.
But I think the novelty will soon wear off and Pokémon Go will be a relatively short-lived craze because these older kids will become bored and find the whole thing to be a bit embarrassing. A year from now an occasional hipster will pack a tofu and quinoa falafel (Does such a thing exist? I’m sure it does) and take a ride on his collapsible bamboo bicycle to visit a lonely and forgotten Pokémon. But he will do it ironically because it will make for a good story to tell back at the Happy Carrot café and tech startup where he works. And then the whole Pokémon Go thing will fizzle out.
So what makes a good craze? Just because it won’t last forever, we shouldn’t forget that Pokémon Go has been an amazingly successful craze. With its fusion of tech modernity and childhood nostalgia, it has brought people together, generating along the way a great deal of excitement and memories as well as profit.
Nintendo’s stock may well drift back downwards but they did succeed in building on their quirky and bizarre Pokémon story and they could do it again. Whatever is the unknowable alchemy that helps to create a craze, it must have something to do with honestly staying true to an original story. I wouldn’t be surprised if Nintendo resurrect the Legend of Zelda for the digital age and I would take part in that treasure hunt having spent far too many hours collecting gold coins and bashing unsuspecting villagers on the head in the magnificent and peculiar landscape of that video game before my game console was hit by lightning. That was a sad day.
The Pokémon Go craze will surely die out like the Harlem Shake and the Ice Bucket Challenge. It won’t become an Olympic sport and Nintendo may never again repeat that success. Even the Wham-O toy company, despite its enormous success with the Hula Hoop and Frisbee, has disappeared into obscurity after the death of its founding genius. But crazes come and go and, just like a childhood, nothing lasts forever. So enjoy them while they last.
