But without PokeStops or Pokemon, the game isn’t much fun.
Advertisement
Despite a summer’s worth of schadenfreude-laced news about problems with the Rio Olympics, the most relevant one to readers is the fact that Niantic’s wildly popular AR Pokmon game hasn’t been released in Brazil.
After stories about how dorms in the athletes’ village have caught on fire, or have non-functioning plumbing; the lack of Pokémon Go turned out to be the icing on the misery cake.
Some athletes took to Twitter to air their grievances, like British athlete Joe Clarke, whose app showed no PokeStops or Pokemon in sight. The smash-hit game that has taken the world by storm-people are spending more time with it than Facebook-is available in America, Europe, and Asia, but has yet to reach Brazil.
He said, “Hello, Nintendo!”
Preparations for this month’s Olympic game in Rio de Janeiro have been dogged by accusations of poor planning and the inevitable claims that nothing will be ready to go once things kick off on Saturday, August 6.
Niantic Inc., the company that created “Pokemon Go”, has yet to set a release date for the app in Brazil.
In advance of the 2016 Games, which begin on Friday, athletes and press began arriving in Rio last week and quickly found evidence of a city unprepared: The Olympic Village, where they sleep, has been described as “uninhabitable”. Canadian field hockey player Matthew Sarmento said it would give him more time to meet other athletes. Of those, 100,000 are female condoms.
In Pokemon countries like the U.S., PokeStops are being used to attract living, breathing customers. “You should also come!”
His post generated responses such as this: “The aquatic Pokemon died with superbugs”.
“I can’t play! I am not allowed to know how it really feels to see the little animals on my cell phone”, he said on the video.
Advertisement
Athletes such as US Olympic Diving Team Abby Johnston, or French Canoe athlete Matthieu Pech, have given global attention to Brazil’s Pokémon crisis. “But we are having the Olympics”. The world is watching with baited Poke-breath.
