Pokemon Go Melbourne

Pokemon Go in Melbourne: Discovering Graffiti

by Yair Frid, onUncategorized , September 28, 2016

This week we served two customers that needed graffiti removed. In both cases the graffiti attack was discovered when they walked out of their house using the back door, as they were accompanying their children who were playing Pokemon Go. One of them told us: “We never use the back door and that is why […]

This week we served two customers that needed graffiti removed. In both cases the graffiti attack was discovered when they walked out of their house using the back door, as they were accompanying their children who were playing Pokemon Go. One of them told us: “We never use the back door and that is why we hadn’t realised that our wall had been graffitied.”

What is Pokemon Go? It is the most popular smartphone game so far. It came out July 6th and only two days after its release in the United States, New Zealand and Australia, it became the most downloaded application.

This game gets people outdoors, going for walks, doing exercise, which is great for your mental health and can help reduce depression. But there have also been some criticisms with this game as there has been an increasing number of millennials that play the game on their phones while driving. There have also been people playing in inappropriate places, such as the German concentration camps or at the memorial monument for the 9/11 victims.

Pokemon Go is more than just a game. It has been pivotal in transforming the world of technology. Pokemon Go uses Augmented Reality and GPS to connect to real places creating a scavenger hunt.

Here in Melbourne people are playing it a lot and that means heading out to explore the streets. It is common for people who walk, looking for Pokemon are visiting new places. Hosier Lane is a street completely covered by graffiti, it is visited by hundreds of tourists every day, and nowadays many others who are now looking for Pokemon also visit it. However, there are many other streets and alleys in the CBD of Melbourne full of graffiti and street art that are not as popular but they are now receiving new visitors every day, exposing the work of many artists to new eyes.

We do not know what consequences this will bring, but Melbourne is one of the world capitals of graffiti and street art. Thanks to Pokemon Go, many people, who otherwise would not have had the initiative to do so, will discover high quality works.

We hope that the exposure to this urban art will inspire new generations of children and young people to create and become real artists, not only graffiti taggers who deteriorate the city of Melbourne.

Wherever you go to find Pokemon, it is important to be aware of your surroundings and it is recommended to always go with a partner or, better yet, accompanied by an adult.