Pokemon Go Fest has always existed on the periphery of my life, much like Comic-Con or Coachella: one of those massive cultural gatherings that you don't really understand until you're physically in the middle of it and see 40,000 adults dressed as trainers first thing in the morning. I knew people were still playing Pokemon Go. I just didn't realize they played it that way.
Grant Park has become a giant Pokemon playground
This year's Pokemon Go Fest Chicago broke attendance records, with more than 90,000 tickets sold for the Grant Park experience over the weekend and more than 700,000 active players throughout Chicago. Ten years after Pokemon Go first hit the public eye, the game has returned to the city that hosted the very first Go Fest. Somehow, against all odds, it still feels overwhelming.
I haven't really played Pokemon Go in years. Like most people who downloaded it in 2016, my relationship with the game eventually settled down to sporadic check-ins: opening the app while walking, grabbing something cute while waiting for the train, fifteen minutes of reminiscing about how much I once cared about catching a shiny Bulbasaur. I assumed the cultural moment had passed. It hasn't gone away, exactly, but it's mellowed into nostalgia, like fidget spinners or Vine compilations.
Then I went to Grant Park for the celebration. I love Grant Park. To live in Chicago is to develop a special ownership of public spaces, and I've always found Grant Park uniquely peaceful. Located just south of Cloud Gate, 'The Bean' if you insist, surrounded by towering skyscrapers in the center and Lake Michigan stretching out beside it. It's huge, green, and usually peaceful in a way that big city parks rarely are. During Go Fest, it looked like someone had turned the park into a temporary nation state.
Towering over the crowds was a giant inflatable Pikachu installation, PokeStops reimagined as physical landmarks, charging stations disguised as space kits. Thousands and thousands of people floating through the grass and sidewalks staring at their phones, occasionally bursting into cheers because someone nearby has found something rare. It was chaos, but in a kind of gentle way.
The real magic of Pokémon Go has never been Pokémon
The thing is, it was supposed to look ridiculous. Truth be told, parts of it absolutely do. Tourists driving through downtown Chicago visibly slowed down trying to understand why entire crowds were moving in the same direction, clutching batteries and wearing Squirtle backpacks. Every few minutes, you'd hear someone explaining the mechanics of a raid to a confused parent, or apologizing after accidentally checking another's shoulder while trying to catch a shiny Pokémon, but somewhere between absurdity and sincerity, the event hovered strangely.
Mega Mewtwo's raids were the clearest example. Twice during the day I attended, once around noon and again later in the evening, thousands of players gathered in a central gathering area for raid battles. In my raid alone, over 1400 people joined at the same time.
Pokemon Go introduced a special mechanic where players had to physically lift their phones up to help defeat Mewtwo. Suddenly, thousands of screens suddenly rose into the air in the crowd. The phone's flashlights twinkled like stars. People started cheering and complete strangers shouted encouragement at each other as they stepped on the brakes of the giant imaginary psychic cat. It was profoundly mundane, but also utterly magical.
It's easy to joke about modern life here: thousands of people gather in the park just to stare at their screens. Sure, this criticism isn't too farfetched, but standing in the middle of it felt less like the technological isolation you usually experience as a gamer and more like a collective imagination. Pokemon Go remains one of the few games designed around the idea that public space can become a social space again.
Maybe that's why Pokemon Go has survived while so many mobile trends have disappeared. The game was never about Pokémon, not really. It was about giving people permission to be outside together. Ten years later, it's still unique.
Pokemon Go
- Released
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July 6, 2016
- ESRB
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E
- Engine
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Unity
- Multiplayer
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Online multiplayer, online co-op
