JAMES LILLIN
Staff Writer
On Aug. 31, the semesterly Activities Night in Dods Hall was filled with familiar faces, with fraternities and sororities stomping through the lanes looking for pledges and a cappella groups decked in matching t-shirts advertising auditions.
Among the regular proceedings, however, the just-formed, temporarily recognized Pokémon Club was garnering an impressive line of students interested in playing games, watching the show and trading cards.
“I think it’s going to be the biggest club on campus with ‘Pokémon GO’ being so popular,” said senior acting major Angelo Heimowitz.
The idea for a Pokémon Club first started with Jason Cheung, a sophomore majoring in computer science, mathematical science and co-op engineering.
“I was one of the orientation leaders during the summertime, and during the orientation, the ‘Pokémon GO’ game [was] just released,” said Cheung. “I realized that there were a ton of freshmen who really loved Pokémon and wanted a club to reflect that.”
Cheung wasted no time in filing for temporary recognition with the Student Association (SA) so that his new club could have a table at Activities Night, and he looks forward to earning an official provisional recognition from SA as soon as possible.
Cheung sees his new club as one that can help to bolster and maintain a new wave of Pokémon fandom at Fredonia.
“I see someone with their entire room full of Pokémon posters and bedsheets, but there isn’t really a club that promotes the Pokémon culture,” said Cheung. “It’s a club for all the Pokémon lovers, and even if you don’t know about Pokémon, we’ll teach you.”
The Pokémon Club hopes to foster a particularly strong connection between students who are already using the ‘Pokémon GO’ app, with Cheung, an avid fan of the game’s Team Mystic, and his two other e-board members, each representing one of the three ‘Pokémon GO’ teams.
Pokémon Club treasurer Felicia Ostrowski, a sophomore majoring in psychology, represents Team Valor and hopes to hold events for many different types of Pokémon games.
“We are the only new club on campus, so we still don’t know everything that we’re gonna do, but we got a huge amount of signatures,” said Ostrowski. “Some of the bigger things we have planned are going on group walks for ‘Pokémon GO,’ but we also want to hold launch events for [the upcoming Pokémon games] ‘Sun’ and ‘Moon.’”
Club Vice President Alain Moffett, a sophomore majoring in biochemistry, represents Team Instinct and fell in love with the ‘Pokémon GO’ app quickly, in no small part due to an extremely rare early encounter.
“I saw a Dragonite when I was level 7, a full blown Dragonite, and I couldn’t catch him,” said Moffett. “I was very, very upset.”
One early hurdle that the club is expecting to encounter is the gradually declining popularity of ‘Pokémon GO,’ which has been subject to harsh blowback due to numerous technical issues coupled with poor communication by the developer.
With the tech website Engadget reporting that “the game’s active users have shrunk by more than 10 million from its mid-July peak,” Pokémon Club is hoping to diversify interests to avoid just becoming a ‘Pokémon GO’ club, offering events centering around the movies, TV show, games and cards, while still not abandoning regular ‘GO’ events.
“There may be a lot of connectivity issues and server issues,” said Cheung, “but that’ll be resolved in due time.”
“[The developers] Niantic only have about 50 people working on the game,” added Ostrowski, “so they’re trying their best.”
Since Activities Night, their optimism about the game’s future has been reaffirmed by a huge ‘Pokémon GO’ update announced on Sept. 2, adding a buddy system, where trainers can select their favorite Pokémon to follow them throughout their journey, offering up various in-game bonuses corresponding to the chosen Pokémon.
The Pokémon Club looks to be set for a successful semester, having signed up dozens of interested students while remaining open to suggestions for future club events.
Ultimately, the Pokémon Club hopes to nurture a resurgent wave of Poké-love, all while keeping the club’s atmosphere positive and friendly.
“I want it to be a club where people can hang out, come together, enjoy Pokémon and not be rude about it,” said Ostrowski. “We want to help people achieve their trainer dreams!”