If I’m with a group, it significantly cuts down on this, but not always (especially not at any location ready to pat people down). Any time I’m going to the airport, a convention, a themepark, even a street fair, I mentally prepare for this kind of thing. This isn’t the first time I’ve had people meant to protect me attempt to intimidate me. I was questioned about why I was in the area (it was my neighborhood), what I was doing out so late (it was barely dusk), told it was past curfew (I’m an adult, and even if I weren’t, the curfew is 10 p.m.), told I couldn’t park on the street at night (that was a lie), and on and on. This happened at least monthly for the first five months of my return. And again a few weeks later by a nature trail. However, shortly after coming back to the states, I was stopped one evening by an officer when playing POGO at about 8 p.m. Having lived in Japan for several years, I’m used to racial profiling in two countries. I was occasionally stopped at bag checks while traveling in the country or randomly on the street, but I never had issues playing Pokemon Go in Japan, and a previous partner never got stopped while playing Ingress.
Not for one minute have I ever felt my life was threatened, but I know when “random screening” isn’t random. This isn’t just an American issue either. I can pass if I really put in the effort, and sometimes when I don’t. I’ve (politely) been called Latino, Persian, Japanese, Jewish, even Ainu, among others. I’m first generation Egyptian on one side of my family and European-American on the other side. The issue, sadly, is that the issue isn’t limited to civilians.
MMOs aren’t totally safe either, but as Raph Koster warned, even Ultima Online had a real-life gang issue, but ARGs ignored history and haven’t put in a “call the police” button. Let’s start with the harshest of realities that ARG players face but MMORPG players don’t: Playing an ARG in America while being a minority is dangerous. Some things just seem inherent to the genre. But I can’t put all the blame on Niantic, especially after my time with ARG competitor Maguss. I remember playing that title and thinking, “Man, this game is dangerous! There’s no way they’ll just clone this for POGO, right?” And yet, here we are. However, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, and I’m not just talking about game mechanics that have plagued Niantic games since at Ingress. While MMOs take a lot of time, the nice thing is that their downtime can lead to forming bonds, or give you time to exercise. Augmented reality games can give you both at once, especially Pokemon Go, since it’s the best-known ARG we have (and the mountains of merchandise make it easier to stand out as a fellow player). I’d like to think that I’m kind of a healthy gamer.
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