What Is the Point of Pokemon Go? End Game Content?

Are you an adult that never really "got into" Pokémon? You are not alone. When you wander the streets and see massive gangs of people ranging from five years old to heavy fifties with their faces glued to their cell phone screens until all of a sudden they turn around and start running in one direction like a stampede of angry buffalo.

Introduction

Are you an adult that never really "got into" Pokémon? You are not alone.

When you wander the streets and see massive gangs of people ranging from five years old to heavy fifties with their faces glued to their cell phone screens until all of a sudden they turn around and start running in one direction like a stampede of angry buffalo.

Why do they do it?

1. To Catch Them All

There are currently 151 Pokémon in the game, of which five are "legendary", four are region locked (Mr. Mime, Tauros, Farfetch'd, Kangaskhan, and one of which is currently unavailable (Ditto).

This means that without leaving your home country, you have a possible 142 Pokémon that you can catch. With hundreds more still in the pipeline, even catching the first 150 is a daunting task that can keep most people busy for a very long time.

2. To Be the Very Best

Each Pokémon has a CP rating, or Combat Power rating. This determines how strong a Pokémon is through a rough calculation involving their Attack and Defense points. Typically, the higher the CP level, the stronger the Pokémon.

As you advance through the game and learn more secrets players may find new goals involving "IV Points", or Individual Values that determine at birth how strong each Pokémon is destined to become.

3. To Socialize With Others

Pokémon Go tends to be a much more social game than something like...Halo for example. It also provides a pleasant atmosphere to chat about with other trainers, and players are generally very nice.

4. To DOMINATE Others

When there is the ability to become the very best, some players do it for the glory, and some do it for the power. The ones that do it for the power enjoy taking over enemy "gyms" in order to prove that their Pokémon are undefeatable.

5. To Exercise

As a game that actively promotes exercise, Pokémon go is certainly not the first game to ever do so. However, at the moment it is arguably the most popular.

Potential End Game Goals

1. Catch them ALL

Catching them all is certainly a daunting enough task, and to catch the region-specific Pokémon along with the other multitude will certainly keep Niantic and players busy for years to come. There are many more generations of Pokémon that were not released with the first version of the game, and Niantic specifically stated they are planning to release all of them in due time.

2. Live Battles

Although the programming is not available yet, the battling system is the game is incredibly rudimentary now. Once phone processing power rises to an even higher level, the potential for augmented reality Pokémon battles definitely provide for an interesting end-game years in the future.

3. Hololens/Magic Leap/Google Glass Ports

As the most anticipated augmented reality hardware releases of the decade, we will likely see some sort of port into them, which should greatly enhance the game as Niantic populates our world with virtual creatures. Right now the augmented reality is fairly rudimentary and does not truly give the feel of a real world experience. 

The devices above promise to change all that.

What other end-game goals do you see Pokémon Go having? Does it truly have staying power? Comment below!