When I was a young lad way back in 1997, I turned on my GameBoy for the first time and heard a now-familiar, dramatic 8-bit tune, and a black-and-white sprite of Professor Oak welcomed me to the world of Pokémon. Pokémon went on to grip generations of kids (and more than a few adults). Although the Pokémon Company continued to produce video games, toys, trading cards, and bedroom sets, it never really hit the heights it did in the late 90s-early 00s – until 2016.
That year saw the release of Pokémon Go, an AR mobile gaming app that encouraged users to get outside and walk around in search of digital Pokémon. Users of the best fitness trackers would have seen their step counts skyrocket. Again, Pokémon temporarily had the world in a vice, and though the player base remains quite strong, it’s nowhere near what it was in the app’s early days. Pokémon Sleep, the newest app from Niantic and the Pokémon Company using the IP for health purposes, aims to grab people all over again, now with sleep instead of steps.
