
The Everything Disease: A Forensic Analysis of the Popularity of Pokemon - blasdel
http://kotaku.com/5331307/the-everything-disease-a-forensic-analysis-of-the-popularity-of-pokemon
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pmichaud
That guy needs a copy editor. I couldn't make it through.

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joshu
I accidentally the whole article! You are in luck.

a) The folks that produce Pokemon do some sort of game where you have to go to
95 train stations and get a book stamped with a symbolic Pokemon representing
that train station. All 95 stamps get you a small chance at a plush Pokemon,
or the opportunity to buy a commemorative plastic Pokemon cup.

b) [He claims that] Japanese companies do not isolate successful and
unsuccessful aspects of a successful enterprise, and instead think that
"everything" was part of the success. So they can't cancel the stamp hunt.

c) There's nothing about the games. Aside from the utility of having the
number of collected pokemon be a point of competition between children.

d) I can't believe I wasted those minutes and now I want them back.

e) I want a firefox extension that lets me suggest alternate or additional
meanings to chunks of text. In this particular case, entire paragraphs could
have been condensed to a zero-byte string. Someone get cracking.

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patio11
a) This is called a stamp rally, and they're fairly common in Japan, not just
for Pokemon. They're extraordinarily popular because they combine tourism, the
ability to demonstrate that you've been somewhere (if you go somewhere you
have to bring photos and gifts back to the people who didn't get to go -- that
is just how it is done), and completionism. You can also get a stamp for
visiting every town in Mie Prefecture. (Think Kansas, with rather less
tornadoes and white people.) And people do.

b) Based on how many people were lined up at the Pokemon stamp rally stations
during my last business trip to Tokyo 2 weeks ago, I don't think any rational
marketing manager would cancel them.

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joshu
Sure. I was just summarizing the article. And complaining about it.

