{"id":15944,"date":"2021-03-19T07:25:37","date_gmt":"2021-03-19T13:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/?p=15944"},"modified":"2022-01-21T13:47:35","modified_gmt":"2022-01-21T19:47:35","slug":"campus-members-enjoy-pokemons-25th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/2021\/03\/19\/campus-members-enjoy-pokemons-25th-anniversary\/","title":{"rendered":"Campus members enjoy Pok\u00e9mon\u2019s 25th anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Written by Ben Lane<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Pok\u00e9mon franchise is celebrating its 25th anniversary throughout 2021, and the game is still popular among Harding students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Originated in 1996 in Japan, Pok\u00e9mon came to the United States in 1998 for Gameboys. Like in Japan, the game quickly became popular in the U.S., and its updates and spin-offs of the original game have kept it relevant. Now in its 25th year, Pok\u00e9mon has announced a series of events the franchise plans to release throughout the year.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The franchise\u2019s most recent event, a virtual concert featuring Post Malone, gathered millions of views since its release on Feb. 27. Malone, Katy Perry, J Balvin and other unnamed artists will release an album with 14 Pok\u00e9mon-inspired songs by the end of 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIf I\u2019m being honest, I\u2019m not a huge Post Malone fan, but I think it\u2019s really cool that they have that connection there for people who do like Post Malone,\u201d junior Malachi Shero said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Harding has its own Pok\u00e9mon community, and while there are no planned celebrations on campus, students are able to virtually celebrate if they choose. The community is sustained largely through the Pok\u00e9mon Go app \u2014 which has over 1 billion cumulative downloads \u2014 and students can be seen playing the game around campus, even after its initial release in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIf you\u2019re standing outside the Lee Building and you see somebody walking, looking at your group, looking at the Lee Building, looking at their phone, it\u2019s: \u2018You\u2019re a Pok\u00e9mon Go player,\u2019\u201d senior Riley Judd said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pok\u00e9mon Go offers players the option to cooperate in battle against Pok\u00e9mon characters. At these cooperative battles, Shero noticed the same people would attend each event, and he and other regular participants \u201cnaturally\u201d grouped together. Now, Shero is part of a Pok\u00e9mon Go GroupMe chat where players can coordinate their attacks. Judd also participates and has made friends through the app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI do have good connections with some of those people that I wouldn\u2019t really have had without getting to go run around Harding, being silly trying to catch Pok\u00e9mon,\u201d Judd said. \u201cIt is still just good fun. There\u2019s great fun in suspending your disbelief, catching these creatures who are now your best friends, raising them, meeting other people. With how far Pok\u00e9mon has come, it\u2019s so much easier to meet actual people via Pok\u00e9mon and make connections that way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sophomore Ethan Gardner is following the franchise\u2019s anniversary events and releases.&nbsp; He is most excited for the release of the remake of Pok\u00e9mon Diamond and Pearl \u2014 one of his childhood favorites \u2014 but Pok\u00e9mon is more than a childhood game to him.&nbsp; \u201cIt helps encourage my desire to travel because it\u2019s all about going throughout a region and making friends and creating bonds with people,\u201d Gardner said. \u201cIt has always fostered and encouraged interacting with people in real life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Written by Ben Lane The Pok\u00e9mon franchise is celebrating its 25th anniversary throughout 2021, and the game is still popular among Harding students. Originated in 1996 in Japan, Pok\u00e9mon came&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15196,"featured_media":15953,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15944"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16723,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15944\/revisions\/16723"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}