Pokemon Go Directly To Jail if you hunt here, says Oz Justice Dept The Department of Justice in the Australian State of New South Wales has warned Pokemon hunters that if they hunt for digital critters inside courthouses they may find their next trip is to an actual jail. The Department took to Facebook to warn Pokemon Go addicts that “GOING TO COURT IS NOT A GAME: POKEMON GO TRAINERS SHOULD …
Are people also at risk for using their cellphone when calling others? If the answer is no then I think there's no (or a shaky) legal basis here. Thing is: Pokemon Go isn't recording visual or audio, it's displaying it in real time and then projecting images on top of it.
When asked people can surrender their phone and no recorded material will be found, so... jail? Why?
@Joseph
I don't think it's a case of what they are worried about people seeing, it's pretty obvious really. People are in court because they are accused of committing a crime. Not really somewhere you want children to be going potentially on their own.
"But it's perfectly okay to splash their photo and name across mass media, because it's in the public interest to know who has been arrested, just in case."
Or if their name is Cliff Richard and a certain police force with a penchant for publicity are involved.
Black heli for reasons that should be obvious...
"POKEMON GO TRAINERS SHOULD LOOK ELSEWHERE FOR DIGITAL CRITTERS"
Fine for playing while you're driving then? Spent several hours on the road with my sister who played it just about non-stop. Though she did say certain pokemon functions can't be done while driving. She has morals you see.
Now, excuse me while I wipe my arse with the paper the laws were were written on.
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"If you're old enough to be in a courthouse, you're too old to be playing kids games like Pokemon."
Just a couple of points...
1) I enjoy playing videogames.
2) Pokemon (and all it's variants) are considered to be videogames*, even if they appear to be marketed to kids. (most videogames seem to be marketed to kids...)
3) I am 39 years of age.
Age should be no barrier to any form of entertainment that brings you joy.
Unless you're physically hurting someone, then you should probably stop.
Unless that's what they want, then you should carry on.
Additional point, there will be a lot of people playing Pokemon Go that grew up with the franchise, particularly from it's early days on the Gameboy.
P.S. - "Act your age". There FTFY!
*In the interests of disclosure, I have never played a Pokemon game, and I'm probably never likely to, they don't seem like my bag. But hey, you never know, right?
"old enough to be in a courthouse" - aren't courthouses public spaces where everyone, no matter how young or old, can bring their case to be heard? OK, most of what goes on there is going to be as boring as hell to anyone with a zest for life, and they need a standard for behaviour so that they can get the business done, but they are fundamentally public spaces, for the people.
When I was in court a couple of years ago, I was going with my DSLR to take pictures of the York light show that was running at the same time. They would take that off me before letting me in, despite the fact my phone would take better photo's indoors due to it having a flash...
* (jury service)
A picky lawyer could argue that if the camera of the phone is one and displaying "live" images, especially with overlays, then the image is being recorded in a memory buffer, post-processed and then displayed. So at least a fraction of a second is being recorded before being displayed and discarded.
Slippery buggers those lawyers.
...what's a Pokemon?
I seem to vaguely remember a set of cards from years ago along the line of Top Trumps. And I think the grandkids might have mentioned a cartoon called Pokemon.
Suddenly it's all over the news, even the BBC and El Reg is alluding to it in stories about galaxies and the universe. I feel as if I've may have missed out on something.
They originally came out in the 90s in Japan, and were there called Pocket-Monsters (and still are, but in the "west" they are known as Pokemon).
They are a cardgame+videogame+cartoon+toys franchise, and is centered around the notion of a world where pokemon-trainers go out into the world to capture wild pokemon - you then use them to battle other pokemon trainers in leagues (so your now domesticated/enslaved pokemon form part of your stable of fighters).
There is the collecting aspect (got to catch them all - complete the set), and the exploring aspect (a recurring theme is that there are pokemon out there that have never been seen before, so think "brave explorers looking to expand the limits of human knowledge" kind of thing. The cartoon obsiously expanded on that with drama and more complex relationships between the characters/pokemon (they are sentient beings)
As it came out in the 90s, a lot of 30 somethings grew up with it, and are now presented with the idea that this thing which hit all their pleasure centers when they were young (adventure! excitement! challenge! responsibility! collecting! playing! etc!) is now real, and they can actually catch pokemon on their way to work. In fact, 25 to 35 somethings seem to actually be the largest demographic of players.
In case I made that sound like I dissprove of it, I certainly do not - I got a pikachu in a hatched egg the other day :) (In the new Pokemon Go game you find pokemon eggs, which you hatch by walking (the game records how far you have walked while trying to hatch eggs).
Oh, and in case you have missed the various articles floating about the internet, the new Pokemon Go game is an AR game (Agumented Reality - a game overlaid over the real world, very similar to geocaching) - it basically takes the "capture wild pokemon" concept, and overlays it onto a "google maps" like mapping system along with GPS tracking, so you have to walk around parks etc to try to find and catch pokemon, which you can then train up and then use to battle other pokemon trainers in "Gyms" (which are locations in the real world which if you are close to physically, you can visit in the game itself)
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