Thousands of people shrugged off cold weather to wander Geelong’s waterfront this week in search of characters from a new mobile phone game.
The waterfront and central city emerged as local hotspots for Pokemon Go, which emerged as a national craze this week following the game’s worldwide release.
Players stalked the waterfront with smart phones during the day and after dark, trying to find and “capture” Pokemon cartoon characters such as Pikuchu, Psyduck and Squirtle.
The characters appear on phones as users wander into locations the game identifies as Pokemon hang-outs.
Geelong landmarks such as the waterfront Carousel, National Wool Museum, Johnstone Park and Steampacket Gardens were among numerous local sites where players encountered the characters this week.
Passers-by estimated that there were up to 500 players along the waterfront on Wednesday night alone despite cold, windy weather.
Players were even travelling “fair distances” to central Geelong for its prolific population of Pokemon characters, said Paul Telfer, of city gaming centre Guf.
“It’s absolutely going off,” he said.
“My children are playing it, my staff are playing it – it’s just getting people out of the house.”
Mr Telfer credited Geelong’s many “early adopters” of technology for delivering the city’s substantial population of Pokemon Go characters.
Geelong gamers were big users of Ingress, a predecessor location-based online game that provided geographic points for Pokemon Go, he said.
Mr Telfer expected interest in the new game to continue as new characters and features emerged.
“It’s phenomenal.”
