In this Pokemon interview, my guest JeribearTX talks about his experience with Pokemon GO. JeribearTX is an avid player who prefers to play the game free to play (F2P). He shared with us how he started playing the game and what his favorite aspects of the game are.
We also talked about how Pokemon GO has helped JeribearTX better connect with his students, which led to him starting a Pokemon GO club at the school where he teaches. He shared with us some of the activities they do in the club and how it has positively impacted the students.
Trainer's Eye is a series where the stories are real and people still play this game. From PVP to Shiny Hunting, each person's Pokemon GO journey is unique and we dive into each journey here on As The Pokeball Turns!
Sources
Opening Song: "Forget You" by Alex_MakeMusic from Pixabay
Connect with David Hernandez: Linktree
E-mail Me: asthepokeballturnspodcast@gmail.com
In this Pokemon interview, my guest JeribearTX talks about his experience with Pokemon GO. JeribearTX is an avid player who prefers to play the game free to play (F2P). He shared with us how he started playing the game and what his favorite aspects of the game are.
We also talked about how Pokemon GO has helped JeribearTX better connect with his students, which led to him starting a Pokemon GO club at the school where he teaches. He shared with us some of the activities they do in the club and how it has positively impacted the students.
Trainer's Eye is a series where the stories are real and people still play this game. From PVP to Shiny Hunting, each person's Pokemon GO journey is unique and we dive into each journey here on As The Pokeball Turns!
Sources
Opening Song: "Forget You" by Alex_MakeMusic from Pixabay
Connect with David Hernandez: Linktree
E-mail Me: asthepokeballturnspodcast@gmail.com
My name is David Hernandez and you're listening to As The Pokeball Turns! Welcome to as the Pokemon Ball Turns! Where we interview people around the community on how their Pokemon GO journey started, where it has been, and where it is currently going. Mobile gaming has increased in profitability over the years. A prime model for any mobile gaming usually involves micro-transactions to help advance the game state faster or enhance the gaming experience. Nowadays, it isn't uncommon to see people drop a few dollars to thousands of dollars on Pokemon GO to buy items like raid passes, incubators, and even ticketed events. I'm not immune to this as I never have and never will try to figure out how much I spent on this game. However, there is a group of players known as Free to Play or FTP for short, who forgo spending any money in Pokemon Go. For them, they depend heavily on whatever the game provides to play Pokemon Go ranging from bonuses provided from in-game events to coins from the gym system. My guest today is a free to play player and shares his experience with the game when you don't spend any money on it, and how that has helped him connect with the students for the classes he teach. From Sacramento, California, here is his origin story into the world of Pokemon Go. This is JeribearTX! Today I'm joined by JeribearTX. Jerry, welcome to the show.
JeribearTx:Hey David. Thanks for having me on.
David Hernandez:Definitely Jerry, and I'm really glad that you got to come on the show because you're a teacher and you play Pokemon Go, and that's just something that I'm really interested in how that affects you on an everyday basis, especially with some of the restrictions at school. But before we do dive into that, you know, how about you tell me when did you first start playing Pokemon Go?
JeribearTx:Oh, day one. I was doing a summer program for high school student and we were out in Davis, California. And I wasn't like a huge Pokemon knowledgeable person, but I had played the T C G a little bit and seen a few shows, but pretty much everybody on campus was playing. I was on campus at the University of California Davis and that's like a big university in California kind of like your UCLAs and your U.C Berkeley's. It was a lot of fun cuz there's a lot of people out there doing something GPS space, which no one's ever heard of before.
David Hernandez:And before Pokemon Go came out, did you have any expectations for the game and what it would look like?
JeribearTx:Yeah, I knew kind of the idea of it, but until I really experienced it, I couldn't believe, like it was such a thing that you could actually interact with your environment. And then I learned about Ingress, of course, which was like the predecessor. I really intrigued cuz I enjoyed video games. I have since I was very young, but I did not know what to expect when you mixed that with, a G P L S kind of bass game and having you to actually go somewhere for a purpose. That's pretty darn cool,
David Hernandez:Now, you'd mentioned how you used to play video games and you played the trading card game. So how familiar were you with the Pokemon franchise and did you play the main series at all?
JeribearTx:Yeah, to be honest, I never had a Game Boy, so I never really touched it. I've always loved like Japanese RPGs, where you do the whole turn based battles and, one of my favorites is Persona series, amazing series and it does have that same kind of thing where you have, basically your personas, which are kind of like the Pokemon in this game. And then you do like a term based battle system and go and explore areas, so there's a lot of similarities to those J R P G games I played like Dragon Quest and some of the old Final Fantasy games. I really love those.
David Hernandez:So Pokemon Go was your first experience with Pokemon as a video game?
JeribearTx:Definitely, yeah, I have two daughters. and when they were younger they just loved collecting the cards, they thought the cards were cute. And I'm like, this is a game and I'm a board gamer, that's probably actually my number one hobby. I was like, well, let's figure out this game, so I discovered you needed these energy cards, so I went and bought a bunch of those energy cards and made a bunch of decks and so we played against each other. The kids thought they was only okay, actually was more interested than they were.
David Hernandez:What about the trading card game got you interested? Was it just your love for board games or was there something more to it?
JeribearTx:The stats, you know, if you play a lot of Japanese RPG type games, I'm a math teacher and a computer science teacher, and the numbers and the stats and I guess the Pokemon battle each other, how it worked out that was interesting. I thought it was a little bit light. I like kind of really strategic board games and I thought the concepts were a little light and look heavy, but still a great game.
David Hernandez:Did you ever go to stores and play with the locals or anything like that or was it just something between you and your daughters?
JeribearTx:Yeah, just between my daughters and I, we've been to a lot of stores cuz I enjoy board games and a lot of those stores, they have tournaments going on, playing Magic and Pokemon, but I've never participated. I think the closest I came is playing KeyForge, which is another head-to-head battling game.
David Hernandez:So since Pokemon Go's come out, you've played constantly every day, or do you ever take a break at all?
JeribearTx:Yeah, pretty much every day. Sometimes to the dismay of my family, but yes, pretty much, every day.
David Hernandez:Does your family ever join you with Pokemon Go at all? Like do y'all go to parks or anything like that?
JeribearTx:Yeah, we started that way, then it just became me probably after about a year.
David Hernandez:Oh? The game did interest them enough?
JeribearTx:Yeah, I like to grind. It's a very, grindy game as my girls always call it. I enjoy the grind and I play a lot of games like that, but this is definitely my favorite and I should mention, I am a free-to-play player. I have never spent a dollar on the game and I've really enjoyed the game. They've done an excellent job making a game fun for even free to play players. And I do that because actually, I think. It's, uh, more challenging and I actually enjoy the challenge, so, that's something I should definitely mention.
David Hernandez:So take me into like the world of the free to play player, and let's start with the old gym system. How hard or easy was it to be free to play back under the old gym system?
JeribearTx:I can barely remember. I think it was 10 Pokemon in the gym, 10 bliss in the gym, I should say. but the coins were easier to get, a little bit easier to get. But, yeah, I mean, I just go out at night, and there's a couple of gyms near our house and there's a couple of players in my neighborhood and we just kind of knock each other out, in the gyms and I can almost guarantee I'll get 50 a day and that's pretty darn good.
David Hernandez:Do you ever feel were very restricted by not having enough coins for certain items or certain rate passes or even the, quote unquote new items that cost actual money?
JeribearTx:Hmm. I'm not sure what you have to spend money on, but not really. I mean, definitely like, if there's a day everybody's doing like I'll do as many as I can. I'll save up coins you know, keep up with the news. You know, it's something's coming out, so you just kind of save up the coins. I don't level up as fast, I guess, for people who remote rate all the time.
David Hernandez:What I was more alluding to was like I don't know if you remember the Go Tour Kanto or Go tour Johto, where you actually have to spend physical money to buy those tickets. Do you choose to not play those times or...
JeribearTx:Oh yeah! The free to play experience for those, Kanto tour, Johto tour once are not bad. I've definitely, if there's anything that was like exclusive, I have plenty of friends who do play and have paid, I should say and we can just trade. I'm not a huge shiny collector. I love Pokemon that are good for PVP, good for raids. I will analyze every Pokemon before I throw it away. make sure I've not lost anything special and I have some pretty darn good PVP teams and also some really great Raid teams.
David Hernandez:Do you have a preferred league that you like to play in?
JeribearTx:I definitely started mainly just doing great leagues. and I have a lot of Great League Pokemon that I've set up and spent a lot of Stardust on, but then I started doing Ultra League and I really like that. I will do master league when you twist my arm. And what I do is I just bring in two or three ice Pokemon and just try to take out all the dragons that are in the master league and it actually works out pretty well. You're not gonna win everything but, Glaceon and a Mamoswine, a team like that, you can win a lot of battles. People will use all their shields because they see an ice pokemon and then they don't know that you have two more back there and they just give up.
David Hernandez:It sounds like you're very anti-meta when it comes to at least the Master League.
JeribearTx:Exactly, yes, with it countering the meta, that's exactly the only way I can handle Master league because I definitely, am not gonna grind out 200 and what 96 XL candies for every, legendary Dragon end. I'm, I'm not gonna be able to do that.
David Hernandez:Especially if you're free to play, cuz you're very limited on the amount of raids
JeribearTx:Exactly. Yeah, exactly. you know, countering the meta.
David Hernandez:Tell me about what it's like to play Pokemon Go where you at currently? Like is it very populated? Is it very rural?
JeribearTx:I live close to downtown Sacramento near the capital and there is pretty large amount of people who play every Community Day and it's a pretty good crowd of people and as I mentioned before, I'm a high school teacher and we started a Pokemon Go Club last year and they'll go out with me, they'll just meet me either at the Capitol and we'll walk around as a crew and, do raids and just catch as many community day Pokemon as we can. It's a lot of fun.
David Hernandez:Definitely! And tell me like, how did the Pokemon Go Trainer Club first start?
JeribearTx:Oh, that's a pretty interesting story. I basically had a bunch of students who were talking to me, and, they found out I played, they knew another teacher on campus also played, actually several teachers played. We decided to start a club and just to make it kind of fair, I said,"okay, I'm gonna start fresh just like you guys." So they all started fresh. None of them had an account and then I created a teacher account And got to level 40 before one year that account, playing with them,
David Hernandez:my gosh! And so with that account, that's just how the club first started?
JeribearTx:Yeah, we just kind of started from scratch and the more they played, the more they got into it and some of them are pretty serious and then we pick up new people all the time.
David Hernandez:And what do y'all do as a club? Like is it just constantly, y'all just focus on like the community days and spotlight hours? Or do y'all do something else outside of that
JeribearTx:We'll chat about, what's coming up, we'll trade Pokemon, that's probably the thing we do the most. And, uh, lunchtime we can walk to the corner of the school and there is a gym there. But, yeah, a lot of lunchtimes, we hang out together and then every Tuesday is our official club time, but a lot of times they just come by and they just wanna trade.
David Hernandez:How do you think starting that club has affected your relationship with your students?
JeribearTx:Very positive. I mean, some of'em got to know me through that and now some of them come to our board game club, some of'em are in my computer science class and so yeah, we have a good time. I teach video game design, so we kind of always talk about those elements of video game design and what's great about, games including what they do in Pokemon Go to kind of like capture people's attention and hold their attention.
David Hernandez:Since you do teach video game design, I dunno if you can or not, can you gimme some insight on like how you kind of see Pokemon Go as a video game?
JeribearTx:Yeah. So, I asked all my students to present on a game designer and when they don't have any ideas, I said, well, that's okay. What you do is go find your favorite video game, find out who designed it and then go find out their story. And as an example, this year what I did was I said, okay, I'm gonna do Pokemon Go. I'm gonna find out who designed it, I'm gonna do research on it, and so I did a sample presentation for them. And what I found out was that Pokemon Go actually appeals to several groups of people, those who are, you know, the shining collecting type, the PVP kind of type, the exploration kind of people. This idea of core aesthetic, like, why do people wanna play your game? And that was a really cool thing that I discovered was that just like Minecraft, there are so many different kinds of people who like Minecraft because Minecraft appeals to people in so many different ways. Those who wanna build monuments, those who want to like play PVP, those who wanna just explore, survive, and kill the dragon, you know, like there's all kinds of people who played Minecraft and I think Pokemon Go has done a really good job appealing to many different audiences.
David Hernandez:You think Pokemon Go with how it does appeal to everybody and it's not a game that really has a quote unquote end goal has influenced the video game design to present day.
JeribearTx:Yeah, well, I think still left to be seen, cuz I think Pokemon Go still has some tricks up their sleeve and they're probably gonna try and do in the next coming years. But already their innovation for sure, we talk about innovation in our class is this idea of playing a game where you go out and you explore the world. This augmented reality thing, and I know they really have some huge ideas that I think are definitely not realized yet related to augmented reality. I think some cynical people talk about like, Hey, they give you all of these, uh, Poffin tasks so that you'll go and scan the environment you live in for them." So we're kind of like their worker bees. What do they give us? Poffins!, So, yeah, I don't know. I, I really don't know what the devs are thinking about and for the future, but I've enjoyed most of the things they put out there. I know some people complain about their, receptivity of, their player base, but, you know, they're not perfect. But I definitely think that they've definitely made a game that's a ppealed to me and I played a lot of video games and definitely this is the kind of the only one I'm really playing right now. I have time for with uh, two girls and a job.
David Hernandez:Now I'm gonna ask you, this is probably be the last question I asked for gaming. What are your thoughts on AR gaming and how it affects our present day? Do you feel that AR gaming is kind of a hindrance, it's not something that we're probably ready for as a society or do you think that's kind of the future that people are shooting for and it's something maybe Niantic is kind of on the, so you will pulse of it.
JeribearTx:It's interesting, yesterday I just watched a YouTube video, I think it was put out by CNET, that news organization. And they were talking about Apple jumping in on the AR/VR world and a big player like that potentially working with a Niantic and putting Pokemon Go maybe in a true AR headset world. Then we're talking about something like revolutionary. I guess that's my strongest feeling. They need another partner.
David Hernandez:Yeah, cuz that's always what I've wondered in regards to the AR aspect, cuz it was in reality, you know, if Pokemon was how it's supposed to be in the video game, we would all be catching Pidgey and Ratatta around the city. We wouldn't be catching any legendary Pokemon and stuff like that. And I remember watching a game theory video by Matt Pat long time ago, and he talked about, one of the questions we have to ask is, how real do we want an AR or VR game to be? You see some of that ethical dilemmas or questions coming into play when you talk about city versus rural area to where the rural areas never have enough but city players, we're lucky and blessed to have all that we do have.
JeribearTx:I think the event system where, hey, it's community day, then they can have exceptions and they've already had tiny bit of that like we live in North America and there's definitely shades of things that we get that rural players wish they had. It's definitely not to the extreme that you were talking about, about mainly, well you're in a city, you should be catching Pidgeys and that's about it. not quite to that level.
David Hernandez:Definitely. Definitely. So talk to me about your students. Like, you know, how involved are you in the group? Like, do you have any notable students you wanted to like talk about?
JeribearTx:Yeah! I will say they have a tendency to change their in-game player names more than than most. Uh, but yeah, definitely there's a few that are pretty active that go out with me pretty much every single time we have an event. We talk about, you know, the news organizations, the news write-ups. They're reading, they're researching, they're discovering, they're analyzing, I mean, they're learning a lot of analytical skills, I have to say, playing the game and they're having a good time too.
David Hernandez:What's their motivation to play this game from what you've seen?
JeribearTx:I think if we didn't have each other, they'd stop playing. Yeah.
David Hernandez:Really? It's the community aspect.
JeribearTx:The community, yeah. Doing things together, getting excited together. We have a one student since freshman year, he just has this grand voice and is always excited. He's always excited. And then we have the other students that are like know every detail. They could tell you the CP of the hundos, of the latest Pokemon, that's in the raids every single time. Like there's other, those, those kind of students too.
David Hernandez:How heavy is PVP like influenced them or shiny hunting and stuff like that? Like do any of them do that as well?
JeribearTx:Definitely I think I have an influence. Me saying you can have every shiny I have, I'll trade you guys. I really don't care too much about Shinies, but they don't quote do anything, uh, that, that's my line, always, if you want mine, you can have it, I'll trade it to you. They don't do anything. They still really enjoy Shinies a lot more than I do. PVP, I think they all do it when there's Elite Charge TM available. Uh, that's pretty much kind of the level that we go at. Not too big into pvp, they just enjoy collecting the Pokemon that are meta relevant for PVP probably more than actually fighting and using them in PVP that often, but yeah, they'll, go up to level 20.
David Hernandez:How many of them are already level 40? Are they kind of all below 40?
JeribearTx:Oh, I think all of them are gonna hit 40 this year. I mean, those that play a lot, I think they will, if they stay consistent.,
David Hernandez:What do y'all do when y'all go to Community Day? Like, do y'all just walk around for the full three hours? Do y'all like sit around somewhere to go chat and eat?
JeribearTx:I think most of'em are free to play, so what we do is they usually don't have a lot of storage. So we'll do is we'll probably grind for about, you know, hour and a half. Then we'll trade, toss all the junk, and then most of'em play till the end and then we'll trade some more at the end and evolve the good ones and everybody takes home six or so Community Day Pokemons, fully evolved, lucky traded we try to do that.
David Hernandez:Do you ever talk to any of the parents at all about, how you can bond over Pokemon GO with their son or daughter?
JeribearTx:They usually just say thank you and they know their kids are having a good time. Some of them I know because they're part of the PTA or other reasons. It's just something else we do and so a lot of the parents kind of know us. All the students know who we are, every teacher on campus and we usually know pretty much every student on campus.
David Hernandez:Yeah, it sounds like the parents are very involved. They're part of the pta, so y'all kind of know each other by name.
JeribearTx:It's nice! we're like a family.
David Hernandez:What do you hope to do with the Pokemon Go Club moving forward? Like do you have any special plans coming up?
JeribearTx:Well, some of our clubs, we have officers, and I realized you asked me this question, we didn't really have officer positions this year. We just kind of dove into doing stuff, so yeah, maybe I should ask them about that. Something we probably should do and give'em a chance to lead the club and set the agenda and, decide what we're gonna do. It's really just a great, reason to meet up.
David Hernandez:Definitely! I don't know if you can relate, but I remember when I grew up, my teachers didn't know anything about Pokemon. My teachers were the ones who were taking the cards away and stuff like that.
JeribearTx:Especially classes like math where it's like, okay, you know, if you finish your homework, you guys can go sit in the corner and play Magic. Um, I didn't play Magic, but I definitely remember people sitting in the corner playing Magic and Pokemon when they finished their math homework.
David Hernandez:So I gotta ask you like, what keeps you motivated to play Pokemon Go?
JeribearTx:Interesting. they definitely have new content. I try to think of, ways to create meta relevant PVP teams, that's one thing that's kind of interesting. When I look at the schedule of, events of what you can do, different things they've tried, like these Hoopa raids, I think they're trying new stuff. It keeps me excited
David Hernandez:As a free to play player. Do you ever feel like you're kind of on the outside looking in at times or do you always feel like you're engaged in some way with Pokemon Go?
JeribearTx:Yeah, I can give you a very honest opinion. They have really done a good job. If you're not a obsessed with Shinies, if you're not, trying to do 100 raids, the free, free to play experience is actually really good, really, really good. I've played other games like Star Wars, galaxy of Heroes where it's a serious grind, but it doesn't feel very good, not at all, if you're a free to play player, it's not fun. I think they made the free to play experience actually quite, quite good. And if you're not afraid to spend time on the game, you can get what you need for the most part, other than shinies, I think the shiny thing is a different story. But like I said, you can have my shinies
David Hernandez:So as a free to play player, do you feel like Niantic should be obligated to kind of be able to match your play style? Or is it kind of you just get whatever you get?
JeribearTx:I don't know how they do like a pulse of the playerbase, but my free to play style encourages other people to play the game. Bring my students, into the game, them being interested in the game and, they definitely hold my attention. I don't know how they do it cuz I'm pretty picky, I guess after 46 years of life. I, I'm kind of picking on what kind of games I play. And I'm set the point where I just don't play anything else. This is pretty much the one video game that I play.
David Hernandez:Here's my last question, what do you hope Pokemon Go eventually introduces that it hasn't already existed yet? Or what's something you would like to see added?
JeribearTx:Ooh, anything co-op is interesting to me. So is there more that we can do together? You know, in the TCG, you can bring a deck and the deck has tons of Pokemon inside, so what happens if instead of just a PVP battle, you got a team versus team kind of thing maybe? That would seem maybe interesting and maybe having you be able to play with your Pokemon with someone, you can play with someone else's Pokemon in a virtual environment. But what if you could do more than just play with them, like help each other, train each other, I don't know. I'm excited to see what they come up with.
David Hernandez:Before we do go, do you have any last minute words you wanna say? Anything you wanna say to maybe if your class listens to this podcast?
JeribearTx:It's been fun and, uh, I've definitely thanked him for, a fun two years, playing the game. Like I mentioned before, I do have another hobby that I do a lot of, which is board gaming and so that's definitely something if you're, a Pokemon Go fan, there are some wonderful modern board games out there. I think probably my favorite game is Great Western Trail and Blood Rage, so if you guys want a board game recommendation, those are some good ones.
David Hernandez:Thank you for listening to another episode of As The Pokeball Turns. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Feel free to follow me on all my socials by clicking the link in the description of this episode, and I'll see you next time. Here's the sneak peek for the next episode of As The Pokeball Turns.