A Challenger Appears! South Korea Develops Analogue of Pokemon Go

Unwilling to merely sit and watch at the growing popularity of Pokemon Go, two Korean companies decided to develop their own analogue of this mobile app.

A Korean augmented reality enterprise called the Social Network has recently announced that it began the development of a new app, Pororo Go, which it hopes will rival the increasingly successful Pokemon Go.

The new app is based on a popular Korean animated series, 'Pororo the Little Penguin, and is being developed by Social Network in Iconix, the owner of the Pororo brand.

The Social Network first caught the public eye during the South Korean presidential elections of 2012 when the company launched an official augmented reality app. Since then, the Social Network has developed similar products for Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Card, CJ E&M and other prominent Korean businesses.

The developers claim that unlike Pokemon Go, which is made purely for entertainment and is mostly aimed at an adult audience, Pororo Go and its augmented reality features will be tailored to serve as an education tool for kids.

Pokemon Go is a new mobile app developed by Nintendo and based on 'augmented reality' technology. The game essentially prompts its users to go on a scavenger hunt for the titular ‘pocket monsters’ or Pokemons – characters from a 90’s video game and hit children's cartoon television series — using the player’s cellphone camera and GPS app.

The game has already causes several incidents around the world. For example, the administration of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, located at the sites of two infamous former Nazi concentration camps, had to ban the 'Pockemon hunt' on the premises, calling such behavior 'disrespectful'. Additionally, four NYPD officers were caught on video while apparently playing the game.