Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
A HOLOCAUST MUSEUM in the US is asking players of Pokémon Go to stop trying to catch monsters within its walls, calling it “extremely inappropriate”.
The US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC is currently looking to remove itself from the game as a Pokéstop, an area of interest for players where they get experience points and in-game items.
The game, which requires players to walk around and catch monsters in the real world, has become an instant hit since it was released last week. The game uses GPS and augmented reality so you can see the characters you’re trying to catch in the real world.
It has only been made available in the US, Australia and New Zealand but that hasn’t stopped people from other countries finding other ways to download it.
Its success, however, has brought with it some unforeseen issues like players trespassing in places like hospitals or, in one case, abandoning their vehicle to catch a Pokémon.
“Playing the game is not appropriate in the museum, which is a memorial to the victims of Nazism,” the museum’s communications director, Andrew Hollinger, told The Washington Post.
We are trying to find out if we can get the museum excluded from the game.
While some places are trying to remove themselves from the game, others are using it to their advantage. Some restaurants in the US are using the game as a way to drum up business.
An Atlanta café owned by digital ad agency Huge turned out to be roughly 30 feet away from two prominent Pokéstops. So it spent about $40 (€36) in real money to add digital “lures” to the stops, refreshing them every 30 minutes. The lures increase the chance that rare Pokémon will turn up nearby – drawing players in turn.
“Our corner was essentially lit up all day long,” says Huge executive creative director Derek Fridman.
In San Francisco, enthusiastic players working for Kawika’s Ocean Beach Deli likewise set out lures and branded the store as a “charging station” for drained phones. (The game is notoriously hard on batteries).
Given that the shop is bracketed by Pokéstops on one side and a Gym (where players fight against each other) on the other, players “have no choice but to walk past us,” says owner David Nottage III. “So we put up some signs.” The deli plans additional Pokémon-related activities in the future.
Additional reporting from AP
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
just a matter of days until a person is killed by a car somewhere in the world because the walked in front of a car. No doubt it will be debated in the Seanad, just like how people were being raped on facebook!
Maybe they’d be able to make a claim like that girl chasing her dog the other day…
At least it’s getting youngsters outside.
lol…
They’re not asking to ban the videogame but to stop players from trying to catch Pikachus in a museum built to remember the horror that fell on the Jews only yesterday.
Maybe Pokemon corp could make it a bit pedagogical and explain to the players where they are standing, at least.
Not just Jews, Holocaust also refers to Poles, Slavs, Catholics, Romany, homosexuals…
I think that is sometimes overlooked
ok
True not only Jews. I visited that museum once a few years back. Fascinating displays and so much written on the tragic event that was the Holocaust. Could only find one small reference to homosexuals though. If I was ignorant and missed it and few other references to other minorities I’d only think Jews died in the Holocaust.
And smokies.
Can’t believe people are injuring themselves while playing this and then posting photos of their injuries as if it’s Nintendo’s fault.
I guess the days of having a game of football or going on a cycle are long gone.
Full kit cyclists are everywhere, clogging up the roads every Sunday in their sponsor covered spandex
Fat people are everywhere…clogging up the roads because they wot walk the half mile to the shop to buy more sugar.
No harm, fat folk are easily navigated. 3 abreast full kit cyclist w@nkers however….
At least they stop at every traffic light /s
Agree, Foghorn. Fckin Tour de France goes by our place every weekend.
Has the human race stopped learning now, sometimes I fear for the future?
Better waking around getting exercise than sitting playing HALO on their Xbox
At least this game encourages movement
More bollocks!
You gotta get them all ;)
Saw a couple doing a duck face selfie in Dachau in front of the gates….. Some people are just idiots
Kids will become addicted to this & it will be the schools who will have to deal with it as parents wont be able to cope. What a load of crap but a great business idea for the inventor/designer of the game.
Didn’t take long for the “kids will be ruined by (insert new phenomenon that I do not understand)” line.
Think of the children fozz, THINK OF THEM!! outdoors walking around enjoying themselves on an adventure. theyll be ruined i tell ya, RUINED!!!
A holocaust museum in the usa?
Many holocaust survivors moved to the US during and after the war. They were the ones to set up the museum.
Supported by cherrios
Have a read of Norman Finkelstein’s “The holocaust industry”. He shows how non-holocaust survivors exploit the memory of the Jewish victims of WWII for political and financial gain, as well as to promote Israel. The museum is directly funded by the govt, and is exclusively targeted at American Christians to empathise with Israeli foreign policy and continue the massive subsidising of the war industry there.
I live in a small town in Ohio and all the kids, my own included,are walking around the street looking for these “pokemon”, they congregate around churches or halls for these “gyms”! We’re in the shopping centre and the phone will buzz if there’s one nearby, my one can’t put the phone away in case she misses one. What a load of rubbish. She’ll have the phone away come the end of August!
You’re just raging because you’re still stuck with a Caterpie.
Yeah, you’re right! Stupid caterpie.
It’s a holocaust museum Jason not a f@@king Starbucks.its not about numbers through the door.
I don’t see what the museum’s problem is. There are plenty of businesses out there taking advantage of the new craze to boost footfall. Use it to your advantage as there are plenty of companies out there that would love to have the free attraction that is a pokestop outside your door.
It’s a matter of decency.
Anyway it’s not in Europe, so why do you care?
You don’t see the problem? Its a Holocaust museum! I was there a few years ago when I was on a J1. Its a wonderful place but mood there is very somber for obvious reasons and its very common to see people getting emotional while on the tour. Can you imagine then people running around chasing Pokemon in the middle of it?
Its just inappropriate. A place like this can’t use it to their advantage.
There’s been ongoing debate in Ingress, the precursor to this game, for 3 years as to whether or not churches/playgrounds/cemeteries were appropriate places to play games with no conclusions in sight. Hardly surprising that this has emerged as controversial. Incidentally people were finding dead bodies and getting mugged as a result of ingress long before they even considered the tie in with Nintendo.
History was and is still full of monsters…
have your say