Pokémon Go Health Benefits [Infographic]

Will Stadtman https://www.unboxingdeals.com 13m 3,190

The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.

Get up, Get Moving, Get Healthy – Catch them all!

Parents all over the world have been trying for years to coax their children to stop playing video games and go outside for some fresh air and physical activity.

And then the Pokémon Go phenomenon happened, and suddenly kids and adults are running around in public trying to catch them all. The guy who caught them all is Nick Johnson from Brooklyn NY who caught every Pokémon in the country possible.

How much did he walk? About 8 miles or 13 kilometers a day on average; It took him two weeks, totaling up to about 180 kilometers!

While most people don’t clock up that much distance, there is no doubt that they are more active since they started playing Pokémon Go.

Here are some ways that Pokémon Go has benefited peoples physical and mental health:

1. Lots and lots of walking: You need to physically get to new places to find Pokémon and Pokéstops. Eggs need a certain distance (2km, 5km and 10km) to be walked before they hatch and reveal a Pokémon inside.
2. Fresh air & sunlight: The health benefits of clean outdoor air and natural light are well known facts. Sunlight is also critical for Vitamin D production
3. Benefits of short breaks: A wide range of studies have established that taking short breaks during the work day is beneficial. You can visit a Pokéstop, catch a couple of Pokémon and get back to work (Unlike Facebook. Twitter or Solitaire, that can easily eat up couple of hours!
4. Educational: Pokéstops are found near landmarks of significance – fountains, parks, museums, historical buildings etc. You get to learn about your city as you visit them.
5. The Social benefit: Pokémon encourages people to explore, meet up and even band together for Gym battles!

A mobile game that is healthy! Who would have thought?

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CRAZY THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT POKEMON GO

Developers

The game is developed by Niantic, Inc. which is an American Software Development Company based in San Francisco, California.

Apart from Pokemon Go, the company is best known for developing another augmented reality game, Ingress.

The company was formed in 2010 by Keyhole, Inc. founder John Hanke as Niantic Labs, an internal startup at Google, before it was spun out of Google as an independent entity in October 2015.

Niantic’s systems use high throughput real-time geospatial querying and indexing techniques to process more than 200 million game actions per day as people interact with real and virtual objects in the physical world.

In September 2015, it was announced that Niantic was solely developing Pokémon Go in partnership with Nintendo and The Pokémon Company for iOS and Android.

The inventor of Pokemon, Nintendo, has an undisclosed stake with Niantic Inc.

Impact of Pokemon Go on Nintendo

• According to Bloomsberg, Nintendo’s value reached $39.8 billion on Tuesday, beating out Sony, which stands at $38.34 billion.
• Following the release of Pokemon Go, Nintendo topped single-day performance of big-name companies such as Tokyo Electric, SoftBank, Mizuho, Nippon Steel, and Aiful.

Gameplay

• After establishing a game account, the player creates an avatar by selecting a hair, skin, and eye color; style; and outfit.
• After the avatar is created, it is displayed at the player’s current location along with a map of the player’s immediate surroundings.
• Features on the map include a number of PokéStops and Pokémon gyms. Both of them are real world buildings and monuments
• PokéStops provide you with items such as PokéBalls, eggs etc.
• Gyms serve as battle locations for team-based king of the hill matches.
• As players travel the real world, their avatar moves along the game’s map.
• Different Pokémon species reside in different areas of the world; for example, water-type Pokémon are generally found near water.
• When a player encounters a Pokémon, they may view it either in augmented reality (AR) mode or with a live rendered, generic background.
• AR mode uses the camera and gyroscope on the player’s mobile device to display an image of a Pokémon as though it were in the real world.
• During an encounter with a wild Pokémon, the player may throw a Poké Ball at it by flicking it from the bottom of the screen up toward the Pokémon.
• After capturing a wild Pokémon, the player is awarded two types of in-game currencies: candiesand stardust.
• A player can use stardust and candies to raise a Pokémon’s “combat power” (CP). However, only candies are needed to evolve a Pokémon.
• Each Pokémon evolution tree has its own type of candy which can only be used to evolve or level up.
• The player can also transfer the Pokémon back to the Pokémon professor to earn one more candy and create room for more Pokémon.
• The ultimate goal of the game is to complete the entries in the Pokédex, a comprehensive Pokémon encyclopaedia, by capturing and evolving to obtain the original 151 Pokémon.
• All Pokémon are displayed with a combat power. A Pokémon’s combat power is a rough measure of how powerful that Pokémon is in battle.
• Players earn experience points for various in-game activities. Players rise in level as they earn experience points.
• At level five, the player is able to battle at a Pokémon gym and join one of three teams, which act as larger factions within the Pokémon Go world.
• If players enter a Pokémon gym that is controlled by a player that is not part of their team, they can challenge the leader to lower the gym’s “prestige”. Once the prestige of a gym is lowered to zero, the player will take control of the gym and is able to deposit one Pokémon to defend it.
• Similarly, a team can upgrade the prestige of a gym under their control by battling the gym leader. Each time a gym’s level is raised, another player from the same team can deposit one of their Pokémon.

The Teams

Once the trainers reach level 5, they are required to choose one of three teams. Trainers then battle the gyms controlled by other teams.

• Team Valor
• Color: Red
• Leader: Candela
• Mascot: Moltress: One of the three legendary Pokemon of Kanto. Flame and Flying Type

• Team Mystic
• Color: Blue
• Leader: Blanche
• Mascot: Articuno: Freeze and Flying type legendary Pokemon

• Team Instinct
• Color: yellow
• Leader: Spark
• Mascot: Zapdos: Legendary Electric and Flying type Pokemon

Ideologies of the Teams

Valor: Candela is the head of the red team, and she’s got spunk for days. Her M.O. is very much in line with what Pokémon trainers have been taught from the get-go – To be the very best Pokémon master, you’ve got to train for it. Bonding with your Pokémon helps to tap into their strengths, according to Team Valor. If that sounds good to you, go Valor. Also, if you like the fire bird legendary Moltres, that’s another reason to go with Valor.

Mystic: Blanche is in charge of Team Mystic, the brainiest of the bunch. The blue team is most interested in evolution; beyond that, the members of this faction are cool to a point of intimidation. If you’re interested in the science behind what makes Pokémon tick — and are convinced that keeping calm is all it takes for success — choose Team Mystic. Mystic is represented by Articuno, the icy legendary.

Instinct: Spark is all about trusting your instincts — hence the name of the team. (Spark is not one for nuance.) If you feel that Pokémon are innately talented, and that success in battle can be chalked up to trusting your gut, Instinct is probably the way to go. Team Instinct’s mascot is the legendary bird Zapdos.

Some Crazy Facts

• As of now, the app is only (officially) available in the US, Australia, and New Zealand, Canada and U.K. but in those countries, it has already caught fire.
• On July 8th, only 2 days after the app’s release, it was already installed on 5.16% of all Android devices in the US. If that doesn’t seem like much, consider that by Thursday, July 7th,Pokémon GO was already installed on more US Android phones than Tinder.
• Over 60% of those who have downloaded the app in the US are using it daily, meaning around 3% of the entire US Android population are users of the app.
• This metric, which we refer to as Daily Active Users has put Pokémon GO neck and neck with Twitter, and in a few more days, Pokémon GO will likely have more Daily Active Users than the well-established social network.

• In terms of Usage Time, Pokémon GO is taking up a ton of its user’s time. As of July 8th, the app was being used for an average of 43 minutes, 23 seconds a day, higher than Whatsapp, Instagram, Snapchat, and Messenger. 

• Outside of the US, users around the world have been trying to download Pokémon GO using an apk, bypassing the official app store. Since the app’s release, traffic to apkmirror.com absolutely exploded, increasing from just over 600,000 visits on July 5th to over 4 million visits on July 6th.

• Pokémon Go rapidly topped the American iOS App Store’s “Top Grossing” and “Free” charts.
• The game has become the fastest game to top the App Store and Google Play, beating Clash Royale, and in its first week became the most downloaded app on the App Store of all time.
• According to SensorTower, the game was downloaded more than 10 million times within a week of release, becoming the fastest such app to do so, and reached 15 million global downloads by July 13.
• According to SurveyMonkey the game became the most active mobile game in the United States ever with 21 million active users on July 12, eclipsing Candy Crush Saga’s peak of 20 million.
• By July 15, approximately 1.3 million people were playing the game in the Netherlands, despite the app not being officially released in the country.
• On the day of release in Japan, more than 10 million people downloaded the game, including 1.3 million in the first three hours.
• By July 26, SensorTower estimated the game to have been downloaded 75 million times worldwide.[113]
• The average daily usage of the app on Android devices in July 2016 exceeded Snapchat, Tinder, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Pokemon Go downloads in 15 minutes

In the last 15 minutes since you’ve been on this page, Pokemon Go:

• Has been downloaded 49,638 times on iOS devices
• Has been downloaded 23,359 times on Android Devices
• Has earned $163,099 in revenue

Meet the Person who Caught them All

Nick Johnson, 28, the Brooklyn-based Pokémaster, told BuzzFeed he walked an average of eight miles a day for two weeks to complete his collection.

And in that time, he got to level 31, caught 4,629 Pokémon (609 of which were Pidgeys), hatched 303 eggs, walked a grand total of 153 kilometers (about 95 miles), and lost a whopping 10 pounds — and yes, he has a job.

The only pokemon missing from his collection are (Farfetch’d, Kangaskhan, and Mr. Mime), which are only available outside the country, and Articuno, Ditto, Mew, Mewtwo, Moltres, and Zapdos that have never been spotted anywhere and are believed to be uncatchable at this time.

Total Pokemon According to their types

• 151 Pokemon in Total in the game as of now, 5 of which are legendries (Mew, Mewtwo, Zapdos, Moltress and Aticuno) that are deemed uncatchable at the moment.

Pokemon Go Statistics

• Launched: July 6, 2016

• Daily Active Users as of 23 July 2016: 21 Million

• 75 Million downloads till 25 July 2016

• 10.81% Android Devices have Pokemon Go as of 13 July 1016
• 5.92% of Android owners use the app daily
• Users Spend 43 minutes daily on an average playing Pokemon Go
• Pokemon Go generates approximately $1.6 million daily from the App Store
• Pokemon Go had more first week downloads from the App Store than any other app in history
• Largest Pokemon Go demographic: Men in between the ages of 21-27
• 78% of Pokemon Users are between the age of 18-34
• It took Pokemon Go just 13 Hours to reach the top of the highest grossing app chart in the USA
• Nitendo’s market value increased by $9 billion, 5 days after the launch of Pokemon Go
• 197,000 pokemon themed playlists pooped up on Spotify after the launch of the game
• 6.60% of Australian Android users use the app daily
• 7.98% of New Zealand Android users use the app daily
• 16.04% of Android Devices in Australia have Pokemon Go installed on them
• 15.13% of Android Devices in New Zealand have Pokemon Go installed on them
• More than 30 countries have active Pokemon Go players even the app hasn’t officially launched in them
• 7/10 people who download the app, return to it the next day
• Pokemon Go is expected to generate $3 billion for Apple in the first 24 months
• The average daily usage of the app on Android devices in July 2016 exceeded Snapchat, Tinder, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
• Japan turns more than 3000 McDonalds into Pokemon Go Gyms
• 153 million people interacted about Pokemon Go on Facebook after its launch
• 645 million posts, reactions, comments, shares on Facebook related to Pokemon Go, since its launch
• Apart From the legendary Pokemon – Moltress, Aticuno, Zapdos, Mew and Mewtwo; all the others have been caught

Starting Pokemon

Players can choose from 3 standard starter pokemons at the start of the game. They are:

• Bulbasaur: Grass Type
• Charmander: Fire Type
• Squirtle: Fire Type

However, you can also get Pikachu as your starting pokemon. All you would need to do is keep walking past them until they disappear from your map. However, these Pokemon will pop-up once again once you get too far away from them. So, you’ll have to ignore them continuously four times, and in the fifth try they will be accompanied by a Pikachu.

List of Items in Pokemon Go and their functions

Pokeballs: These are your staple item for catching Pokemon. From Squirtle to Charizard.

Great balls: They’re an improved version of pokeballs and thus your odds of capturing a Pokemon with one of these is higher than with the standard model. They get unlocked at level 12

Ultra balls: Available at level 20. Ultra balls are another step up in effectiveness – and in price.

Master balls: They have a 100-per-cent capture rate; master balls never fail. They’re best saved for legendary Pokemon like Mewtwo.

Lucky Eggs: For half an hour, if you’ve used up a lucky egg, you’ll get double the experience points (XP)

Pokemon eggs: Incubate them until they hatch.  Found every so often at Pokestops and use the distance you have walked while playing the game as a measure of when to hatch. Longer the distance to hatch an egg, better the pokemon you’ll get

Potions: Potions restore the health of your Pokemon after battles. Unlocked at level five, to coincide with your introduction to gym battles.

Super potions: Potions, but more effective. You’ll find them available to you from level 10.

Hyper potions: The best healer, these highly restorative lovelies are essential if you’re regularly attacking other teams’ gyms.

Max Potions: Max Potion, fully restores your Pokemon’s health in one go.

Lure modules: Lure modules can be attached to Pokestops, in order to lure Pokemon to that location. One player drops the lure module, but it then works for all players – for 30 minutes only.

Incense: If you use incense in the game, you’ll become a magnet for Pokemon – again, just for 30 minutes.

Razz berries: Razz berries help make it easier to catch Pokemon, when you give the razz berry to the one you’re targeting. Available to you at Pokestops from level eight upwards.

Egg incubator: You get one of these to start off with, and can buy more for 150 Pokecoins a time.  They’re the means by which you can move a Pokemon egg closer to hatching.

Camera: It’s a neat feature that saves you having to screenshot that rare Pokemon you just stumbled across.

Revive: If your Pokemon’s health falls to zero during a battle, that means it’s fainted; you’ll need a revive to put it back on its feet, or paws.

Max revive: A fainted Pokemon will be propped back up with full health restoration if you feed it a max revive.

Pokemon Go Tips & Tricks

1. Getting Pikachu as a Starter Pokemon: In order to get Pikachu as your starter Pokemon, what you need to do is keep walking past the original three starters (Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle) continuously for four times, and in the fifth try they will be accompanied by a Pikachu.
2. Don’t ignore duplicate Pokemon: If you keep finding Ratatas and Pidgeys, keep catching them. Catching Pokemon gives you XP and that helps you level up faster. You can also transfer your duplicate pokemon in exchange of candies, which help in evolving your Pokemon.
3. Smart use of Lucky Eggs: Don’t waste the lucky eggs. Use them when you have a couple of Pokemons ready to evolve. Evolving a Pokemon or catching a new one typically gives you 500 XP. You can double that XP by smartly using a Lucky Egg
4. Don’t use Stardust to Power Up Pokemon till you reach Level 12 or 15: Stardust will help you later in increasing the power level of the top-level Pokemon. The Pokemon that you catch when at low trainer levels are ignored when the level increases, so, any usage of Stardust over them will just be a waste.
5. Throw a curve ball: You can tap the Pokeball at the bottom of your screen, drag it forward, and swirl it in a circular manner while you are trying to catch a Pokemon. This will earn you extra XP
6. Hatch your Eggs: A 5 km or 10 km egg has a higher chance of getting you a rare Pokemon. So, always make sure that you have eggs in the incubator while walking.
7. Go to places where many people are playing: If you want to catch some amazing Pokemon, you can move over to a place that is populated with Pokemon Go players. The players typically put out lures that will attract various Pokemon. Try to group with other people while playing the game and select a region where there are numerous PokeStops around to get the best results.
8. Evolution of Eevee: Eevee is a Pokemon that can randomly evolve into any of the three Pokemon, namely Jolteon (electric), Vaporeon (Water) and Flareon (Fire). The Eevee Brothers from the original anime were named Rainer, Pyro, Sparky and they owned a Vaporeon, Flareon and Jolteon respectively. If you nickname your Eevee either Rainer, Pyro or Sparky, your Eevee will evolve into that desired Eeveelution!
9. Winning Gym Battles every time: You can easily win any gym battle against an opponent using this simple dodge and attack technique. All you have to do is notice the yellow flash of your enemy, and then dodge their forthcoming attack immediately. After dodging their attack, hit the enemy Pokemon back by tapping at your own Pokemon.

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