After spending a few hours with Pokemon Go players Thursday night, we see the activity as something local businesses and government agencies can rally behind.
What we experienced at the Roanoke Canal Museum and then at the Halifax County Visitors Center was seeing a group of people finding an outlet for their love of gaming and finding a way to incorporate that love into an activity which gets them some exercise and gets them in touch with their community.
This has happened after only a week of the app being on the market and from what the enthusiasts tell us more characters are going to be released later in the year, making this a phenomenon not likely to go away any time soon.
Now it’s time for the community, businesses and local governments to use it to their benefit.
Imagine Historic Halifax, where there are many of these characters randomly generated by the GPS application, using it to draw more visitors to the site, getting a new generation of people thinking about the document brave patriots signed to declare their independence from British rule in April of 1776.
We see this as a perfect companion piece for county tourism to use in their marketing, we see it as a perfect tool for the chamber to use, especially as time for the annual Ducky Derby event draws closer.
The Main Street program can incorporate this into its marketing to draw more visitors uptown and downtown because as we learned, Roanoke Rapids has at least 50 places designated as Poke Stops, a place where more Pokemon are likely to be collected and players can gain more tools for their quests. The players estimated throughout the county there are at least 200 of these stops.
Businesses should welcome these players, perhaps give them some sort of discount, for stopping by.
We see this as something our community health initiative could embrace, even police fire and EMS could use it during some sort of safety day.
The developers of this game have taken a bold step to get gamers off their sofas and into their communities. One player Thursday told us he was unaware there was a statue of Martin Luther King Jr. in Roanoke Rapids until he started playing the game.
While the game may not be for everyone, not everyone in Halifax County believes hunting or fishing or team sports is for them.
The game evens the playing field for those trying to figure out a way to motivate themselves to get out and enjoy what the Roanoke Valley has to offer.
Don’t bother calling the lovers of this game nerds because one proudly admitted he was a nerd and has never been in trouble with the law because of his love of gaming.
Social media has made us all nerds in one way or the other so as Bob Dylan sang, “Don’t criticize what you can’t understand.”
Let the Pokemon Go players do their thing while you do yours and consider this an activity the entire community can embrace for its betterment — Editor