‘People who wouldn’t normally talk to you ... you now have a connection to’

THE sudden overnight success of all things Pokemon Go was summed up by St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Glasgow, which tweeted last week: “We are a PokeStop and a Pokemon gym. Please bear with us whilst we work out what that means.”

For those in the know, the sight of people wandering along clutching their mobile phone, before suddenly stopping and jabbing frantically at the screen can only mean one thing – they have found a Squirtle or if they are lucky, a rare Dragonair or Weepinbell; some of the 150 or so Pokemon fictional monster characters which are available to collect with the game.

The game is free to download but players can spend real money on Pokecoins to buy items such as lures to “attract” Pokemon to a specific location. It all began as an April Fool’s joke. In 2014, Google unveiled a “Pokemon challenge” inviting users to capture Pokemon - which started life as popular video game characters in the 1990s — on Google maps. Niantic Labs, which developed Pokémon Go, together with a company part own ed b y Ni nt e n d o , spotted the opportunity to combine this the idea of its tion-based game gress.

Jamie Smith, 24, a music student from Paisley, is among the game’s Scottish fans. He said: “It has resonated with old school players, people in their mid-20s who are students and still into that kind of thing and then kids as with locaIn- well. They also put it on a platform which is accessible to everyone and they made it free.” Daniel Clafferty, 25, an accountancy graduate, said a major appeal of the game is that it “gets people out of the house” and is a shared experience. “If one of you sees a Pokemon on your screen, you can say to someone it is over there,” he said. “You can all get the same one at the same time, it is more about collaborating than fighting against each other.” James Stevenson, 31, who works in a rail control room, said: “I have a couple of friends who have quite young kids and they were Pokemon fans back in the day — this is something they can share with their kids as it is such an accessible game, there is not a great skill level involved to begin with.” Scott Christie, 24, an IT worker who lives in Edinburgh, said: “I have had people walk past me, notice I was playing and talk to me. People who wouldn’t normally talk to you, you would pass in the street, you now have a connection to.” Howe ver, the game has a downside. Three students were robbed at knifepoint of their mobile phones while playing Pokemon Go in Hulme, Manc he s t e r, on Friday night. It happened just hours after Greater Manchester Police warned of the dangers and advised users to pay attention to their surroundings.