How Pokémon Go took over the world in a weekend

From armed robberies to space invaders, the launch of the Nintendo game has had more than a few unexpected outcomes

If the clusters of teenage otaku captured wandering round Central Park on Saturday are anything to go by, Poki(C)mon Go is rapidly turning the US's streets into a George A Romero B-roll. The newly released augmented-reality game uses your phone's GPS and clock to make Poki(C)mon "appear" around you. The aim is to travel around the real world nabbing these coloured blobs - normally dinosaurs, birds, rats, snakes or dragons. As a "trainer", your role is then to build up their strength, thereby enabling them to "fight" each other. It may not sound riveting in precis, but the game has juiced Nintendo's stock price by 23%, and has proved so popular the company's servers haven't been able to keep up with demand.

Now, as a community best known for lying on sofas eating Reese's steps outside to visit "Poki(C)stops" (to gather "Poki(C)balls") and trek to "gyms" (to battle other Poki(C)mon), reality is biting back at augmented reality in surprising ways.