One of the staples of journalism is the “localizer” – taking a bigger story and telling it through local people. Yesterday I, like about 5,000 other reporters, did a localizer about Pokemon Go, the GPS-based smartphone game that had scores of people wandering the streets of Concord as if they were extras in “The Walking Dead” (although without the makeup).
As I interviewed people, it occurred to me that 20 years ago I was doing a very similar story about the release of Riven, the sequel to Myst, one of the first computer-game releases that drew attention from the outside world. (The story has long since disappeared in digital archives.) What goes around, comes around, I guess.
I must say, it was a whole lot easier to find people playing Pokemon Go on the streets than it was to find people playing Riven at home.
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