Virginia Postrel, Columnist

Pokemon Go Just Can't Catch a Break

The smartphone game is known for hooking users and getting them to walk more. Apparently it isn't as great at either as we thought.

December 18, 2016 at 4:00 PM UTC

By Virginia Postrel

Virginia Postrel is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. She is a visiting fellow at the Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy at Chapman University and author, most recently, of “The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World.”

Be afraid.
Photographer: ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP/Getty Images

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Last week was rough for Pokemon Go, the smartphone game Niantic Inc. released to great enthusiasm in July.

On Monday, the company announced a much-anticipated update. Players were looking forward to a bevy of new creatures to catch and maybe a chance to earn double points as they had during Halloween and Thanksgiving promotions. Instead all they got were a handful of new baby monsters and Pikachu in a Santa hat. To make matters worse, the babies can only be hatched from eggs, which means walking many kilometers, preferably with a bunch of incubators you’ve bought from the Pokemon store.