Pokémon Go (3): Diegetic and Non-diegetic Action

So far, I’ve encountered some sort of issue every time I’ve tried to play Pokémon Go outside of the apartment. Usually the app crashes or refuses to function after I open it or it refuses to work at all. I walked not too far from where I live today while trying to access the app when it started drizzling. After I opened the app, it reported that there was not enough data on the server and I needed to log in to my account. After the first time I tried logging in, the app claimed that it didn’t recognize the account even though it worked a couple hours before. I’m getting more and more peeved at Pokémon Go and the complications that arise when I try to play it. Either there’s no internet connection, no GPS signal, not enough data from the server, or I have to log back into my account. Whenever I try logging back into Pokémon Go, the app tells me that I need to retry. I complained about the game to one of my friends, and she said that the crashing is why she stopped playing it.

I recall that this game was overwhelmingly popular during the summer even though the app crashed a lot in the U.S. because so many people were playing it at the same time. It’s not as widely used now, probably because of the fact that it continues to malfunction so much and due to the cold weather (on the west coast of the U.S, anyway).

Pokémon Go has an interesting amalgamation between diegetic and nondiegetic action. The player engages with creatures on the app, which holds a digital space that incorporates the player’s surroundings. There’s diegetic action in the music and the sounds that plays while interacting with Pokémon. Would actions that happen outside of the app while playing it be considered non-diegetic, like a person crossing the street behind one of the Pokémon? It seems like Pokémon Go merges the virtual world with the outside world that we understand as reality. I suppose this combination is in fact part of diegetic action since the experience lies in the app.

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