PokemonGo and perception of reality

Someone I know was recently upset at the treatment he'd received from general public while playing this game.  This aligned with things I've been thinking lately, so I decided to jump off from there.

If you don't know, Pokemon Go is a location-based, augmented reality video game.  Location-based means the players have to go to physical locations where the game will release certain aspects of play.  Augmented reality is where a smartphone, for instance, will lay digital content over the camera image and the real can interact with the digital on the screen.  Think of it like a live green-screen.

So we've got lots of people walking around playing this game and it's caused a lot of sideline problems, like trespassing, property rights, etc.  But that's not my point.  I'm more interested in arbitrating the latent battle that has already begun to break out, as evidenced by my friend's comments and the vitriolic backlash from sympathizers with him against those who offended.  These games aren't going away, so we might as well learn how to live peaceably.

I think the controversy comes down to a fundamental mismatch in views of reality.

But before I get to that, I want to be clear, no one should ever harass another person for any reason.  Regardless of your opinions on the game or the people playing it, or not playing it, respect the other and be decent, if nice is too much to ask.  That said, I'm going to attempt to illustrate what each side of the argument perceives.

The players love the imaginative aspect of the game.  They like the merging of innocent fantasy and reality.  They like the interaction with technology.  They like video games in general, and here is finally one where they can get outside and interact with the real world.  Maybe they even get a little exercise.  When they play, they are looking at the real world through the screen and find it a novel way to enjoy themselves.  Their imagination fills in the gaps of the game and they see the two in a merged fashion.  It's a harmless way to bring a little magic to the mundane.

Those who oppose it see people, many of whom self-identify as geeks (i.e. people overly enthusiastic, often in an off-putting way, about  a topic, many of which are not physical or sports-related) walking around, sometimes absently, staring at blinking lights on a plastic box.  What's so fun about that?!  It's just one more way to disengage from reality and pretend to do something real.  They don't perceive the merged reality, or the fantasy.  They view the world in a more concrete fashion.  Players aren't catching anything.  They aren't seeing anything.  It's all fake!  Hopefully, if you're from the other camp, you can see how this would appear.  The players appear to have almost lost their minds!  Take the screen away and you've got the exact image of the homeless dude who babbles to invisible people as he walks around...though perhaps players are cleaner.

Again, I'm not justifying rude remarks in any way.  Just trying to help one side see the other's perspective.

I recently had a similar discussion with my son when he was saving replays of video game exploits to share with friends.  He kept wanting to show me his accomplishments and I was decidedly uninterested.  He couldn't understand until I told him to cover the screen and pretend to do whatever he had done to get that accomplishment.  Then I copied him with the screen covered.  He was shocked at how stupid it looked.  Essentially all he did was touch buttons in a sequence, and I was supposed to be impressed by that. 

But to him, it was a much greater experience.  The thing I tried to get him to see was that the experience only existed in his imagination, aided by complex coding of pixels and key sequences.  When talking to people on the same plane of imagination, it was great.  From outside that, it was worse than mundane.

So I'm stopping there.  No judgement on either side, except to say that you must first understand your adversary before you can defeat them.  And in so doing, you'll find that most of the time, you really have no adversary at all...it's just in your imagination.