Have you found yourself outside over the past week, perhaps climbing a tree or diving under a bush in a frantic attempt to catch a Pikachu, wondering who else around you is playing Pokémon Go?
Perhaps you’ve caught yourself watching Pokémon porn, placing hookup ads for sexy Pokémon trainers on Craigslist, or sharing filthy photos of Pidgeotto perched on your genitals to a Reddit board specifically designed for that purpose?
Well, you are going to be so psyched about the new seamless chat app that one company is making to bring players together.
It’s called RazerGO, and according to the company behind it (San Francisco-based Razer), it will allow Pokémon Go trainers to “toggle between public, team, or whisper chat modes” in a scalable radius from three to 600 miles. That means if you live in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, for example, you have the option of chatting just with players in your neighborhood, chatting with the all of New York City, or chatting with the entire East Coast. Not bad.
Trainers will be able to use the app to drop beacons that will notify other players where they are and allow them to enter a location-based chat room there.
The web browser version of RazerGO launches tonight at around 10pm and the iOS and Android versions are expected by July 25. As the company stated in a press release on Wednesday, the new chat app is “not in any way affiliated or associated with, or endorsed by Nintendo, Pokémon Corporation, or Niantic Labs.”
It’s unclear whether there will be any safety features built into the chat extension, such as age limits or options to block potential harassment or users who abuse the platform in various ways.
But one thing is clear by the “Rule 34” response to Pokémon Go (Rule 34: If it exists, there is porn of it). Trainers will likely use the chat feature to flirt, find each other in person, and make Pokémon hunting dates. It’s already happening in the Casual Encounters section of Craigslist, and gay men have already been commenting online about how Pokémon Go is replacing Grindr.
how much do you think @Grindr usage went down since #PokemonGo
— Matt Ortile (@ortile) July 11, 2016
https://twitter.com/jpbrammer/status/755806674175209473
If the world’s most popular dating apps are already threatened by the world’s most obsessive mobile game, then all hell is going to break lose when the RazerGO chat app is released.
Gotta catch ’em all? That’s fine, just please use protection. A Tangela is one thing, but a chlamydia is another.