Pokémon GO will celebrate its 9th anniversary this summer. MeinMMO author Paul Kutzner fondly recalls the beginnings of the game.
Recently, I stumbled upon a post on Reddit where trainers shared their experiences from the early days of Pokémon GO and how unique they were.
I was also there right at the launch of the game and had experiences that I still fondly remember today, which players who joined later will likely never be able to fully understand.
Trainers, Trainers everywhere!
Right at the start of the game, all my friends who were familiar with the Pokémon franchise immediately began playing. But we were not alone: in our city (one of the largest in Germany by population), trainers could be seen everywhere on the streets.
No matter where you went or looked: everywhere you could see people walking around, glued to their phones. There was no “typical player” or fixed age group: the game seemed to captivate just about everyone.
Even from afar, without looking at your phone, you could quickly figure out where the hotspots were, with many PokéStops and good spawns. A glance at the crowd of players was enough for that.
In the beginning, there was the footprint system in Pokémon GO. Here, Pokémon “nearby” were displayed with 0 – 3 footprints. The fewer footprints visible, the closer you were to the Pokémon. It often happened that while hunting for a Pokémon, you would see another group of trainers who would call out to you, “Hey! The Snorlax is up ahead by the trees!”.
Speaking of Snorlax: Pokémon like Dratini, Lapras, or Snorlax held a very different value at the start of Pokémon GO. Nowadays, you are sometimes overwhelmed with strong monsters at events, but back then, they were something rare and special. Thus, the joy of being able to add such a monster to your collection was huge.
This was due not only to their rarity but also to the small number of Pokémon in the game. After all, Pokémon GO launched only with monsters from the first generation.
In the early days, it was not uncommon on weekends to find yourself among hundreds of players at certain spots simultaneously. Due to the smaller number of PokéStops available at the start, these places became central meeting points in my city.
There were even times when you would suddenly run off together with an incredible number of trainers because you heard someone shout from some corner, “There’s a Dratini!”. When playing in parks, it often happened that you were asked about your team affiliation, and afterwards, you would take down local gyms together.
Even though the servers of Pokémon GO were often overwhelmed and overloaded at the beginning, making it difficult to even log into the game, it was still a fantastic time.
This shared feeling of playing, the constant exchange with strangers, the joy of catching a rare or strong Pokémon: all of this was simply intense. To this day, no time or event in the game has been able to evoke the feelings from that time. And I fear that it will remain that way in the future.
Nevertheless, I like to look back on that time and am grateful to the game for allowing me to gather those experiences and live through that period.
What about you? Were you out and about in the early days and weeks of the game as well? Feel free to share your experiences from that time in the comments. I have already noted in another article that the missed Pokémon from that time can indeed stay in memory: Even after years, it still hurts that I missed 2 monsters in Pokémon GO.
