For nearly three years Southwestern College has been teaming with little monsters, epic fighting and dazed students wandering the campus, wondering what could possibly come next.
This time, though, it is all in good fun. Pokémania has gripped Southwestern College.
Chula Vista’s center of higher learning is also the center of the South County’s Pokémon GO craze. Thousands of students and visitors crane their necks, hunched over their phones hunting for the next exotic cyber fighters.
Pokémon GO allows users to relive a childhood dream of catching ’em all. With 807 Pokémon, the augmented reality game encourages players to walk to new locations to catch region-specific Pokémon on their phones. Hand-held technology can hold hundreds of Pokémons, some cute, some powerful, many still evolving.
Users battle at virtual gyms for territory and hunt for valuable items by visiting Pokéstops, where they uncover talisman to heal their battle-scarred Pokémon or make them stronger.
Legions of students make friends through the game, meeting up at events called raids where they fight for legendary or powerful Pokémon. Raids vary in level, from one star to five stars, which is impossible to beat alone, requiring strategy and cooperation.
Jonathan Galvan, a sophomore history major, said he did not know anyone on campus when he started playing in 2017. Pokémon GO led to him meeting a new friend, sophomore electrical engineering major Francisco Medina, during the fall 2018 semester.
“We used to see each other mostly at raids,” Galvan said. “It wasn’t until later on that we started hanging out and eventually we became friends.”
Medina said many students on campus become friends thanks to the game.
“Even if they’re not part of the main group, we see people from other raids,” he said. “We still know them, we count them as friends because after the raids we see people from other raids that stay and we talk.”
Senior biology student David Cuevas met Medina and Galvan through the app. Cuevas said he started playing Pokémon GO when it was first released in 2016.
“I met a group of friends through the game and they’ve become some of my best friends,” he said. “We all have different majors and some interests, so without the game the probability of this group forming would be slim.”
Pokémon GO can be played solo, but is easier to play with friends. In fact, the game measures players “friendship level” based on how many gifts they send each other. The four levels for the friendship meters start at “good friends” (one heart) and ends at “best friends” (four hearts), which nets the best rewards.
Without the game, Cuevas said, it is harder to make friends on campus since everyone has their own agendas.
“Most students like to focus on their academics and they don’t tend to spend a lot of time on anything else,” he said.
Cuevas said the game also offers a variety of ways to make friends through Pokémon GO outside of raids.
“(Raids) make it easier for people to establish connections with people to obtain a strong Pokémon as a reward for beating it,” he said. “A few ways the game encourages player interaction is trading, PvP (player versus player), and friendship in the game, which have bonuses for defeating the raids.”
Playing with friends increases the damage buff players and friends receive in raids, and grants bonus experience points. It also makes it easier to trade Pokémon, as it costs less game currency to trade them between friends.
Galvan said there are probably three or four main groups playing Pokémon GO on campus.
The unofficial Facebook page “Pokémon GO SWC” posts details on events going on in the game as well as locations and times for raids on campus. SC has four raid locations: two by the bus stops, one by the library, and the other towards the photo department building.
While the Facebook group has 111 members, Medina said he sees other students who play for social reasons.
“Often times, students are playing the game and they do not know a thing about Pokémon,” he said. “They play Pokémon GO because it helps breaks the ice in a way and helps students make friends.”
Pokémon GO offers players the choice of joining one of three teams: Valor, Mystic or Instinct. There are no initial awards for selecting a team. The benefits are most relevant during the raid events. Everyone can participate, but the team with the most players has a better chance to catch the Pokémon. This usually gives the upper hand to teams that coordinate which raids to meet up at to put themselves in an advantageous position.
Players also train at friendly gyms, stationing Pokémon to defend them and gaining Pokécoins, allowing players to buy talisman unobtainable from Pokéstops. Players challenge gyms of opposing teams to lower the defending Pokémon’s power and eventually take them over.
SC players share a friendly competition with one another over which team is better. Pokémon GO community members often joke about the other teams, creating memes that good naturedly poke fun at each other.
Galvan said SC leaders could use Pokémon GO as a way to help more students connect with others.
“It’s a really great idea, because a bunch of people from our group actually don’t know anybody else besides us,” he said. “That was the only way for them to getting into the group and they just got to know each other like that. I think it’s a good idea.”
