If Pokemon Go Is Interfering With Your Home, Take It To Court
Michael Babboni
Personal Injury
Premises Liability
For most people, playing a videogame involves either sitting at home in front of the TV or computer, or perhaps pulling out a phone or other portable system, while riding a bus or train. But over the last year, playing games has taken on a new form, with a new type of game known as “Augmented Reality,” or AR games, that use the real world as part of the game’s field of play.Pokemon Go is the most successful example of this concept, taking the old videogame and animated series from the 1990s, and putting a new spin on it. Where people once played the game entirely on a portable console, running through virtual landscapes capturing and training new Pokemon creatures to fight on their behalf, the real world has become the play world. Pokemon Go, which now works on any smartphone, uses actual GPS data like Google Maps, and places the Pokemon players capture in real world locations that they are required to visit.
This has resulted in parks, shopping malls and other areas becoming inundated with players seeking to acquire whatever rare Pokemon is in the area. Unfortunately, it’s not just public spaces that are singled out for this. Homes are too, and in Florida, some people have had enough.
Legal Consequences
In September of 2016, the owners’ association of Villas Positano, a condo estate in Hollywood, Florida, sued the Pokemon Go creators. The reason they did it was because the Pokemon Go game had designated their estate as an area where a rare Pokemon was “living,” and so leagues of avid Pokemon Go players would make the journey to the condo facilities to try and capture the Pokemon.
Unfortunately, not only did this mean many strangers were on the residential grounds, they were negligent in their behavior. They loitered, sometimes bumping into objects and people as they focused on their phones, but worse yet, some left litter, cigarettes and even urine as traces of their presence.
This same scenario has played out in New Jersey, California, and even as far up north as the Canadian province of Alberta. It is always the same story; private residents find strangers regularly visiting their property in order to capture Pokemon, and often these strangers damage the condition of the property while they are there.
Make Yourself Heard
If you’ve found yourself on the receiving end of unwelcome visitors who blame Pokemon Go for their trespassing, you don’t have to simply tolerate it. Trespassing is illegal, and if that trespassing is occurring because some company indirectly instructs people to go to your home, that merely adds to the illegality of the act.
Come to an experienced St. Pete lawyer who can hear you out about the problems you’re having. If you have evidence, such as phone or security video footage that shows the trespassing in action, this just adds more weight and validity to your case that a good lawyer can use to finally set things right.