Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-29878085-20161019215217/@comment-28656770-20161019221610

(It might be, but I tend to think of this being more for general Wiki discussion more than anything else.)

Well, why would you, honestly? Before Pokemon GO, people didn't really interact with the world in the way they do now. Simply put, there wasn't a need to, and now there is. Directing people away from where they could otherwise cause harm to themselves or others is always a-okay by my book.

As a side note, I'm pretty sure nearly everyone knew what a Pokemon was long before the game even hit the App Store. Pikachu is a MASSIVE icon, and the games themselves were originally met with a great deal of attention at the height of their popularity in the late 90s/early 2000s. Even beyond that, they've never NOT been on store shelves, on kid's TV as advertisements or shows, or in Kid's Meals at McDonald's at one point or another. The franchise has reached that point where it's just permeated all of our mainsteam pop culture, whether anyone really realizes it or not. The only reason anyone's talking about it as much as they have is because of GO's release. Even ignoring that, people would still know. This just increased its visibility.