Niantic Labs had previously used Nazi concentration camps as destinations inside its other augmented reality game, Ingress. What it is not, obviously, is a place to play Pokemon Go.
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The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum told The Associated Press that it will not allow people to play Pokemon Go on smartphones while visiting the former German death camp.
Of all the suitable places to go Pokemon hunting, The Holocaust Museum in Washingston DC is probably right near the bottom of the list. Arlington, the burial ground for the nation’s war dead, tweeted out a mournful demand: “We do rule out playing “Pokemon Go” to be suitable etiquette on the grounds of ANC”.
Pokemon Go, despite its astronomical success since launching last week, isn’t winning everyone over, it seems.
We’re not knocking the game, but “gotta catch ’em all” shouldn’t pull players where they don’t belong. PokeStops could also be a major reason why the museum, and even the cemetery, is attracting great attention from Pokemon masters around town.
Not so for Washington’s Holocaust Museum, which has also asked people to be respectful and refrain from gameplay there.
“The game has a geographic database of notable or interesting locations meant to be visited in person – PokeStops, where players can retrieve helpful items like potions, or gyms, where they can train their Pokemon”.
The digital creatures have been reported at the former concentration camp Auschwitz in Poland, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC and the National September 11 Memorial in NY, provoking frustrated responses from the representatives of some of the sites. “It is inconceivable that we should treat this place as a place for games or to have fun”, said Bartosz Bartyzel, spokesperson for the Auschwitz Museum and Memorial. “We are looking into how the Museum can be removed from it”, he said. The app is just available in the United States, Australia and New Zealand- but reports from users are popping up in controversial sites outside of these countries.
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Arthur, a 26-year-old lifelong Pokemon fan, is offering his services for $25 per hour: I can focus on catching a specific species of Pokemon to evolve for you.
