While it's not yet officially available in Canada, Nintendo's Android and iOS game Pokémon Go has already taken Sudbury by storm.
The game, developed by San Francisco-based Niantic Inc., takes the popular creatures from Nintendo's Pokémon franchise and transplants them into the real world through an augmented reality mobile game that uses GPS data to place the game's “pocket monsters” to public streets, parks and other gathering spaces.
Once they create an avatar users can walk around their neighbourhood or city to find wild Pokémon they can catch by throwing a Poké Ball with the flick of their finger.
Real-world public spaces like parks, libraries and churches can serve and PokéStops, where players can get new items, and Pokémon gyms, where players can fight other Pokémon to capture the area for one of three teams: Instinct (yellow), Mystic (blue) and Valor (red).
One local Pokémon Go player has even created an interactive map of many of the known PokéStop and gym locations in Greater Sudbury.
The game officially launched on July 6, 2016, in the United States, Australia and New Zealand.
Niantic has said it is aiming to officially release the game in Canada and the United Kingdom next, but the game's extreme popularity has put a strain on the company's servers and slowed that expansion.
Despite it not being available on the Android and iOS app stores, Canadian iPhone users have resorted to spoofing their location to download the game, and
Android users have downloaded Android application packages (APKs) outside of the Google Play store to play the game.
But downloading an APK of the game can put players at risk of infecting their phones with malware, and may not be a legitimate copy of the game.
The game has proven to be so popular that it has increased Nintendo's market value by $7.5 billion and is poised to surpass Twitter in daily active users in the United States.
Greater Sudbury Police said in a press release Tuesday Pokémon Go players should exercise caution while playing the game and always be aware of their surroundings.
“From a public and road safety perspective, as people playing the game move around Sudbury they can become focused on their phone screens and they can become distracted,” police said.
“There have been reports of injuries to players who walk out into traffic or onto a busy road or fall into a body of water causing injury or a dangerous situation.”
Local Pokémon Go player Lan Shaganash said he has walked around 15 kilometres playing the game over a two-day period.
“Around where I live there are not many good Pokémon,” he said. “You literally have to travel to different parts of town just to get different types of Pokémon.”
Shaganash said through the game he has seen many parts of Greater Sudbury he typically would not visit, like the city's south end.
Even though the game is not officially available in Canada, Shaganash said there are already a fair number of players in Greater Sudbury.
With an official Canadian release expected in the near future, that number should only increase.
