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Like many countries across the world, the launch of Pokémon Go in Singapore has come with a certain amount of controversy
The Lion City has officially been invaded by an army of pocket monsters after the official launch of Pokémon Go in Singapore today.
The highly anticipated mobile game also landed in the rest of Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Laos, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Brunei, Cambodia and Vietnam.
The game has launched in Taiwan as well; China remains the only Asian country without an official Pokémon Go release.
The announcement comes three weeks after it first landed in Asia via Tokyo and two weeksPokémon Go arrives in Singapore – and rest of Southeast Asia after it came out in Hong Kong.
The roll-out process across Asia (and the globe) has been restricted mostly by the need for Niantic Inc. and Nintendo to ensure they have servers that can handle in inevitable Pokémon onslaught. For example, it took the game five hours to become the most downloaded app in Japan and servers struggled to handle the load and users experienced login issues.
The popularity of the game has reached such a fever pitch across the world that it has created controversies from government reactions to the game. Singapore has been no exception.
Also Read: Coming Home: Pokémon Go officially launches in Japan
The launch of Pokémon Go will come with some extra scrutiny in Singapore thanks to comments made on July 24 by Minister of Communications and Information Yacoob Ibrahim. He said,
“We have to study very, very carefully whatever that is brought into Singapore…We will monitor the situation, how this particular game is being played and… its impact on society.”
Min-liang Tan, the Founder of one of Singapore’s most successful startups, Razer, hit back hard at the government statements in the below Facebook post.
However, not all authorities in Singapore issued cautions about the game. On July 24, the police — who are the ones charged with dealing with the Pokémon-related headaches — tweeted a fun reminder to keep track of valuables as an unmonitored wallet could fall victim to a nefarious ‘trainer’.
Keep an eye on your valuables at all times! You never know who’s out on a different sort of hunt. #CatchEmAll http://pic.twitter.com/fGJkcuzMIR
— SingaporePoliceForce (@SingaporePolice) July 24, 2016
Also Read: Bei-kaa-chyu: Pokémon Go officially launches in Hong Kong, 2nd location in Asia
In the grand scheme of things, all of this is trivial politics because as of today, the only thing that matters is Singaporeans get to explore their city, meet new people and discover Squirtle swimming under a bridge crossing The Singapore River.
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