Moscow’s Garage Museum wants to lure Pokémon

Moscow’s Garage Museum of Contemporary Art plans to ask video game giant Nintendo to place a special geotag onsite, in order to allow visitors to the museum to play game sensation Pokémon GO.

The augmented reality game, played on a mobile phone, sees players travelling to real locations in order to capture, train and battle Pokémon.

“I’ve caught a few myself, and can see why the whole world has gone crazy for it,” said the museum’s director, Anton Belov, who considers the game an important step in the development of technology and the entertainment industry.

“We first observe the intersection of reality and virtuality in our daily life. If people in the museum catch Pokémon, it’s okay [...] then they will quietly enjoy the art. Museums need to work on catching people’s interest so that after they catch Pokémon or simply communicate via social networks, they want to come off their gadgets and pay attention to the art. Bans will not help this situation,” a source close to the museum told RIA Novosti.

Museums and galleries across the world have already had to respond to the gaming craze, with Washington’s Holocaust Museum feeling forced to ask Pokémon GO players to stay away out of respect to the victims of Nazism.

Source: RIA Novosti (in Russian)