Pokémon Go: The Vanguard of Surveillance Capitalism & Marketing

Mike Corthell

We are seeing the beginning of  a new form of society, a surveillance society, where marketers will know how you want to behave and they will make the mockup that matches how you behave and feed it to you. It’s what they call a new totalitarianism.

Pokémon Go, uses geolocation to place virtual Pokémon characters in the real world, has given  new life to the 20-year-old Pokémon game, with some estimates suggesting that the game has been downloaded more than 25 million times since its release on July 6th.

The game success is due to its subtle mixing of the material world and the virtual world. Pokémon Go blends a game experience with real physical activity and real, in-person socialization.

The game itself strokes a level of basic psychological pleasure. The desire to socialize with other people. The desire to act in the world in a measurable way and the need for competence and mastery, which is met by the game's goal to "catch 'em all!

What is the danger of this new surveillance marketing? Manipulation, of your social behavior and THINKING.

Nobody has ever seen, in the business world, anything like Google, ever. It’s the fastest-growing business model. They have invested huge amounts of money into what surveillance is, which is data-mining. They’re data-mining every person on the Internet for information. What you’re buying. What you like, and above all, how you behave. Pokémon Go taps into all of that. It’s 1.5 billion people. It’s what I call surveillance capitalism.  It’s the newest stage of consumer advertising and 'sheep' herding.

There are detractors. When Pokémon Go took the United States by surprise after its release on July 6th, the 'haters went out of their way to tell friends, family and social network followers they would never play the game. They encouraged pocket monster trainers to grow up, pursue gainful employment or just get off their lawns. One writer, Mattie Lou Chandler, was compelled to publish “A Hater’s Guide to Pokémon Go.” Are they just contrarians who hate everything new? Or do they see some kind of danger that most do not?