Here comes yet another Pokémon Go hater. Warning of impending doom to our sacred Singaporean morals and best interests, one concerned lady made clear that she was not a fan of pocket monsters in a forum letter written to The Straits Times.
Refusing to fall for the potential merits of the augmented-reality game (kids will actually go out to the great outdoors; strangers can come together; wanted criminals can get arrested), Estella Young gave tut-tuts of disapproval over having it played here.
“Apart from the reported incidents of Pokemon zombies injuring themselves or others due to poor situational awareness, is it in Singapore’s best interests to permit a game over whose targets it has no control?” she says, presumably wagging her finger as well.
Young argues that Pokémon Go will present greater risks due to uncontrolled surges of human traffic, and it’ll be disrespectful to places such as houses of religious worship and cemeteries.
To be fair, she does have a point. Places such as the Arlington National Cemetery (a military cemetery in Virginia, USA) and the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum (former German concentration camps) have issued reminders for trainers not to catch Pokémon on their grounds.
Jumping into the realms of fearmongering, Young also brings up the fact that Pokémon Go is a potential terrorism risk by way of the game’s Lure Modules. When used, what it does in the game is to attract Pokémon to a landmark (Pokéstop) for half an hour — thus bringing trainers by the dozens to the spot to catch some uncommon monsters.
The letter writer isn’t so easily lured (ba dum tss) by this premise.
“And in this age of lone-wolf terrorism, an extremist could easily buy a “Lure” to draw players into a low-security zone before launching a mass-casualty attack,” she says.
“Singapore would do well to seek a degree of control over how Niantic assigns its Pokemon targets before letting the game into the country,” Young concludes.
As you can imagine, people weren’t so easily convinced by her Combat Points.
One level-headed individual brings up a good point though:
Whatever your opinion of this newfangled mobile game, just know that it’ll be here to stay, no matter what. Already, increased buzz here has been building up in recent days — Singapore is currently included in the upcoming launch countries on the Pokémon Go server list.
