Feb. 8, 2023

TRAINER'S EYE #24 - "The Fitzgerald Family" ft. BuckeyeFitzy

In this Pokemon interview, we're joined by Buckeyefitzy, a Pokemon GO player and PVP enthusiast. We dive into his experience with the game, his love for PVP, and how he and his family use Pokemon GO to better connect as a family.

Buckeyefitzy shares his journey with Pokemon GO, including how he got started with the game and what keeps him interested in playing. We also discuss his love for PVP and what he finds appealing about it, including the thrill of battling, competition, and community.

One of the unique aspects of Buckeyefitzy's Pokemon GO experience is how he and his family use the game to connect and travel together. We talk about their adventures in participating in Play Pokemon tournaments and the importance of family bonding through shared experiences.

Trainer's Eye is a series where the stories are real and people still play this game. From PVP to Shiny Hunting, each person's Pokemon GO journey is unique and we dive into each journey here on As The Pokeball Turns!

Sources
Opening Song: "Forget You" by Alex_MakeMusic from Pixabay

Send us a text

Support the show

Visit our website: www.asthepokeballturns.com
Join Our Discord Community!
https://discord.gg/AqAbD7FbRt

Your next Pokemon adventure begins here!

Chapters

00:43 - Introduction

02:05 - Interview with BuckeyeFitzy

44:25 - Thank You For Listening! :)

Transcript

WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:52.000
My name is David Hernandez and you're listening to As The Pokeball Turns! Welcome to as the Pokemon Ball Turns, where we interview people around the community on how their Pokemon Go journey started, where it has been and where it is currently going.

00:00:52.304 --> 00:01:06.373
While for some of us the thought of family might have a negative connotation, there are popular families that hold up this ideal of families being a safe place where you can find both love and support with each family having its own quirks.

00:01:06.680 --> 00:01:15.230
The examples of families are numerous, such as The Brady Bunch, The Addams family, The Simpsons, The Banks from Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and countless others.

00:01:15.525 --> 00:01:22.775
Even when you look into the Pokemon franchise, there is actually a family known as The Winstrate Family that first debuted in the Hoenn region.

00:01:23.072 --> 00:01:34.250
The Winstrate Family has a sign outside their house that reads,"our family's hearts beat as one," showcasing the idea that the family unit is not only alive, but also united.

00:01:34.552 --> 00:01:40.137
In fact, The Winstrate Family is a family who is obsessed with both Pokemon battles and battling.

00:01:40.433 --> 00:01:41.753
Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

00:01:42.052 --> 00:01:44.072
Well, it will be with my next guest.

00:01:44.376 --> 00:01:54.867
My guest today shares not only his story into Pokemon Go, but also shares how his family has come together through Pokemon Go and PVP to continue to live long and prosper.

00:01:55.170 --> 00:02:02.227
He is a member of the B.T.W Faction, from Cincinnati, Ohio, here is his origin story into the world of Pokemon Go.

00:02:02.527 --> 00:02:04.513
This is BuckeyeFitzy.

00:02:05.753 --> 00:02:10.522
Today I'm joined by the runner up of the Salt Lake City Regionals, BuckeyeFitzy.

00:02:10.825 --> 00:02:14.906
Now, I imagine based on your name that you're probably a huge fan of Ohio State.

00:02:14.911 --> 00:02:15.596
Is that true?

00:02:15.596 --> 00:02:16.340
Indeed.

00:02:16.635 --> 00:02:23.240
I grew up for most of my childhood in the state of Ohio and went to school there for not one, but two degrees.

00:02:23.543 --> 00:02:25.810
So I am a Buckeye through and through.

00:02:26.413 --> 00:02:27.793
So how far does this fandom go?

00:02:27.793 --> 00:02:30.103
Like, do you have like Ohio blankets?

00:02:30.223 --> 00:02:32.052
Do you have like a wall painted with Ohio State?

00:02:32.052 --> 00:02:33.853
Like how far does this go fandom wise?

00:02:33.853 --> 00:02:35.532
Yeah, I mean, it, it goes pretty far.

00:02:35.532 --> 00:02:52.531
I don't know that I have a man cave or anything filled with Ohio State memorabilia, but if I had one I could probably fill it with all the stuff I've collected, both going to school there twice and then, just collecting it over the years, so it is all over the place, but my better half is an Ohio University grad, so we can't go completely Buckeye in the household.

00:02:53.131 --> 00:02:54.001
That's fair enough.

00:02:54.001 --> 00:02:56.401
That's how you do compromises, I believe is what they call that one.

00:02:56.401 --> 00:02:56.730
Yep.

00:02:57.027 --> 00:03:00.478
Unfortunately, we're not here to talk about college sports today, we are here to talk about Pokemon Go.

00:03:00.867 --> 00:03:03.358
So I gotta ask like, how did your journey in Pokemon Go started.

00:03:03.957 --> 00:03:09.221
I actually had to go remind myself of what the start date was, since we can see it on our, profile page.

00:03:09.524 --> 00:03:16.426
And I did recall that the better half I'm referring to MamaFitzy, was, the one that started in the game the week that it came out.

00:03:16.723 --> 00:03:26.530
And I was basically a little too hip for it, I was never into the Pokemon franchise, in any sense, didn't really play the video games or anything despite being a big Nintendo, fan.

00:03:26.826 --> 00:03:33.947
So she wanted to get our girls involved, which at the time our girls would've been eight and five, and two.

00:03:34.243 --> 00:03:40.003
So the eight and the five year old, they obviously didn't have phones, but they had their devices that could run the game.

00:03:40.304 --> 00:03:47.623
So she made a couple of accounts and started playing, actually got her mother involved, so the, the kid's grandmother as well.

00:03:47.919 --> 00:03:54.680
And after about a week, they were really excited about it, really enjoying it, and so I ended up making an account as well.

00:03:54.977 --> 00:04:00.417
The first couple of days, I made the account under the Pokemon Trainer Club for Khaleesi, my oldest daughter.

00:04:00.713 --> 00:04:03.623
And the intent was,"okay, well she doesn't yet have her own account.

00:04:03.628 --> 00:04:11.800
I'm gonna pass this off to her." But then within two days of catching and exploring, I was hooked and so I made my own accounts and the rest is history.

00:04:11.800 --> 00:04:14.919
So I'm a couple weeks behind everybody else that started on day one.

00:04:15.223 --> 00:04:20.473
But it did not take very long because the excitement was running through the, the entire Fitzgerald household.

00:04:21.076 --> 00:04:24.146
It sounds like Pokemon GO is a family of affair based on what you told me.

00:04:24.317 --> 00:04:28.757
So do y'all like go outside together and go play, like how far does it go just family-wise?

00:04:29.353 --> 00:04:30.314
Yeah, definitely.

00:04:30.610 --> 00:04:36.519
I will say over the years it has come and gone a little bit depending on, how many of the girls are really into it at the moment.

00:04:36.824 --> 00:04:47.684
As the game has grown and expanded into different realms from raids to PVP and so on, the girls have picked up on some of that and sometimes they'll be into one aspect of the game more so than another.

00:04:47.980 --> 00:04:53.680
That being said, things like Community Days, we are still often going out, even if it's just driving around in the rain.

00:04:54.156 --> 00:05:00.156
We'll go out or walk around one of the local parks here in the Cincinnati area and we'll have a good time with it.

00:05:00.459 --> 00:05:03.189
We're very often it's all five of us playing together.

00:05:03.786 --> 00:05:07.069
Oh, that's so sweet like, I always love seeing families play together in the park.

00:05:07.374 --> 00:05:09.954
Just something about just seeing, it's like a new family game night.

00:05:10.257 --> 00:05:17.923
You know, you think about back in the eighties people would play game nights a little bit together and I feel like Pokemon Go has kind of brought that for other people, but just in the digital form.

00:05:18.223 --> 00:05:22.514
It's very analogous, we are a huge tabletop gaming family as well.

00:05:22.514 --> 00:05:26.624
I was raised kind of doing that in my family and have passed that tradition down.

00:05:26.927 --> 00:05:35.149
And it is very much like that just in digital form and honestly, I was admittedly a bit annoyed even when I got hooked on the game a little bit initially.

00:05:35.451 --> 00:05:40.105
I felt, eh, I don't know, you know, we're all staring at our phones outside, but it could be a lot worse.

00:05:40.105 --> 00:05:41.964
You could be doing a lot worse things on your phone.

00:05:41.964 --> 00:05:44.605
So it's just become second nature basically.

00:05:45.201 --> 00:05:49.524
Now you said that you actually grew up playing Nintendo a lot, but Pokemon didn't catch your interest.

00:05:49.829 --> 00:05:56.305
Did you just like, grow up past the age of Pokemon being appealing or was it just something specific about Pokemon at the time that didn't appeal to you?

00:05:56.904 --> 00:05:59.862
No, it was very much in the wheelhouse of when I grew up.

00:06:00.161 --> 00:06:08.851
I'm a nineties child and for whatever reason, it didn't capture my imagination quite like Zelda and Mario and other core Nintendo properties did.

00:06:09.154 --> 00:06:13.459
I mean, of the Nintendo properties, I'm definitely first and foremost a Zelda person.

00:06:15.903 --> 00:06:21.312
So I'm traversing Link through whatever adventures they're going to throw him in this this cycle.

00:06:21.812 --> 00:06:24.367
I've saved Hyrule on way too many occasions.

00:06:24.367 --> 00:06:26.617
Saved Princess Zelda like how many times?

00:06:27.156 --> 00:06:29.826
Yeah, probably 50 to 70

00:06:30.697 --> 00:06:31.776
And 50 to 70 more

00:06:32.396 --> 00:06:32.757
Yeah.

00:06:34.776 --> 00:06:35.586
Well, very cool.

00:06:35.677 --> 00:06:37.656
So you said, so y'all would drive around a lot.

00:06:37.656 --> 00:06:39.916
Is that primarily how y'all played before PVP?

00:06:40.519 --> 00:06:53.533
I think the first big change after the game had been out a year was raids and I do small amount of travels for work and so sometimes the family will come along and just, you know, explore while I'm working wherever it is and it was typically Washington, DC.

00:06:53.833 --> 00:07:01.079
It's a great town for them to go to museums and explore, but then in our free time, we'd go around and also explore whatever Pokemon we could find.

00:07:01.377 --> 00:07:07.646
And then I just recall on one of those trips, raids dropped for the first time, and I believe it was Articuno that was up first in the raids.

00:07:07.942 --> 00:07:13.230
So we have some Articuno on all of our accounts saved from exploring raids for the first time.

00:07:13.829 --> 00:07:15.509
Are you all on the same team by chance?

00:07:15.509 --> 00:07:16.649
No, actually.

00:07:16.649 --> 00:07:21.180
and we haven't changed teams, although we've strongly encouraged our middle child to do so.

00:07:21.750 --> 00:07:31.824
But, uh, of the accounts that we have in the family that are actively played, there's one Instinct, and like I said, that's our middle daughter and then the rest of us our Team Mystic.

00:07:31.824 --> 00:07:38.514
You have officially become my favorite family so far like you have no idea how many people I've seen who are valor and instinct, like where are my Mystic people at?

00:07:38.543 --> 00:07:38.934
So...

00:07:39.834 --> 00:07:46.819
Yeah and I wish I had a Pokemon history so I could, you know, really, stick it to team Valor, but honestly they're just the people that get me my Gym coins, so

00:07:47.189 --> 00:07:48.499
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

00:07:49.389 --> 00:07:53.656
since you've become familiar with Pokemon through Pokemon Go, do you have any particular favorite Pokemon at all?

00:07:54.259 --> 00:07:59.408
Well, I did name my car after Umbreon, so I guess that's probably the leading contender,

00:07:59.408 --> 00:07:59.829
Really?

00:07:59.928 --> 00:08:00.451
Uh, yes.

00:08:00.451 --> 00:08:11.466
So I, have a, black vehicle and I actually got a plate that says Umbreon, so if you happen to be driving through Ohio and you see somebody's like, oh, that's a Pokemon car with an Umbreon plush in the front, that's, that's me.

00:08:11.466 --> 00:08:18.367
Uh, so I have full bought in here, even though I've only been a Pokemon fan for now, six years.

00:08:18.670 --> 00:08:30.100
We have definitely decided,"Hey, you know, we're gonna go all in with this." The kids are so passionate about it and just like any other pastime or interest of theirs, you know, when you're a parent you wanna dive in and really kind of enjoy it with them.

00:08:30.403 --> 00:08:47.610
And in this case, it's neat because I've gotten to connect with a lot of people in my age group that are original Pokemon fans and so the community we've been able to build locally and, and of course at some of these regionals, even broader than that, has just been staggering how many people that are my age colleagues or younger.

00:08:47.910 --> 00:08:53.160
There's just a ton of people at all different walks of life and all different age groups that are into this Pokemon franchise.

00:08:53.160 --> 00:08:56.581
So that's been really neat to see and, and then join that community basically.

00:08:57.183 --> 00:08:58.668
What is it like to play in Ohio?

00:08:59.269 --> 00:09:00.019
It's not bad.

00:09:00.322 --> 00:09:04.581
We do have four seasons in Ohio, although autumn tends to be far too short.

00:09:04.881 --> 00:09:10.131
We skip right over summer to winter, too many years often, but it's really not bad.

00:09:10.272 --> 00:09:16.188
I did kind of joke earlier that sometimes we have to drive around on Community Day because it gets rainy or blustery.

00:09:16.481 --> 00:09:23.278
I mean, honestly, part of that is just having the, the three children as well and not necessarily wanting to drag them out and get them sick or whatever.

00:09:23.581 --> 00:09:31.197
But more often than not, I'd say Community Day once a month or a little bit more, we're able to actually go out and, and enjoy the outdoors.

00:09:31.500 --> 00:09:39.621
As far as the community, and again, I can really only speak to the Cincinnati area community, it was really, of course, quite, busy for those first couple of years.

00:09:39.621 --> 00:09:47.611
but the core group of people that you see on community days and the like, I mean, you see the same faces if you're playing in the same areas, the same little suburbs or towns.

00:09:47.912 --> 00:09:52.496
So I would say it's got a pretty strong following still particularly for a game that's six years old.

00:09:53.100 --> 00:09:55.590
How harsh does the weather get in winter over there?

00:09:55.590 --> 00:09:59.616
Like do y'all have to like, sometimes not be able to play or do y'all play while driving in the snow?

00:10:00.220 --> 00:10:03.009
Yeah, so we don't get a ton of snow down in Cincinnati.

00:10:03.309 --> 00:10:07.445
It's not quite the same as it is up in Cleveland, where they get a lot of lake effect snow.

00:10:07.751 --> 00:10:15.206
For us, you know, we probably will only get one or two significant snows a year and more often than not, those don't happen until February.

00:10:15.504 --> 00:10:28.799
Granted, that's still a time of year when you'd be playing Pokemon, but at most, I think there's only been maybe once or twice where we've had real significant snow over the last five years, because we don't get snow all the time when it does snow, you are busy playing from the house, right?

00:10:28.799 --> 00:10:36.313
Which during the pandemic, all the bonuses that they made to, make playing from home, a lot easier, made those circumstances not so dire.

00:10:36.616 --> 00:10:42.043
But, there have been other times where a reasonably good community day and you're kinda stuck in the house just catching what you can.

00:10:42.639 --> 00:10:49.080
Now, of course, you're definitely more focused in PVP nowadays, but before P V P, what was your primary objective when it came to Pokemon Go?

00:10:49.085 --> 00:10:52.169
Was it primarily just family based or did you like collect stuff?

00:10:52.772 --> 00:10:56.716
So for me personally, it was Pokedex filling and collections.

00:10:57.019 --> 00:11:06.432
That's always been, and still is to this day, a fascination for me is I guess there's some completionist mentality that I have to try to catch'em all or whatever the saying is.

00:11:06.735 --> 00:11:14.869
So while I still enjoy that, I still enjoy hunting down trades with local people that have traveled afar to get regionals we can't get here in the States.

00:11:15.168 --> 00:11:24.027
Obviously that part of the game has fallen a little bit to the backside as there's only so many Pokemon released a year now, or, so many, new ones that can come out.

00:11:24.331 --> 00:11:30.480
Even though that was my primary focus in the beginning, the game has obviously changed for me and for all of us as we've gone along.

00:11:31.083 --> 00:11:33.674
Now, I know you've said you traveled around because of your job.

00:11:33.977 --> 00:11:35.988
Have you had a chance to ever travel for Pokemon Go?

00:11:35.988 --> 00:11:39.107
Like have you gone to like a tournament or to go fest or stuff like that?

00:11:39.703 --> 00:11:50.842
So we did do Go Fest in Chicago in 2019, which was, uh, obviously one of the the best trips and, uh, I recommend the in-person GoFest to anybody that can make it happen.

00:11:51.144 --> 00:11:53.259
That was one of the things that we did.

00:11:53.568 --> 00:11:57.109
We had in-person Silph tournaments once those started up in town.

00:11:57.405 --> 00:12:01.849
And then primarily we weren't traveling for any particular reason related to Pokemon.

00:12:02.153 --> 00:12:10.283
But for example, when we went down to Sanibel Island in Florida a few years ago, there were things down there like Heracross at the time to catch.

00:12:10.582 --> 00:12:13.432
My wife and I took a trip to Hawaii and same deal, right?

00:12:13.432 --> 00:12:19.638
There's Corsolas there, so we would obviously incorporate whatever we were going somewhere for business or otherwise.

00:12:19.908 --> 00:12:22.908
"Hey, are there regional Pokemon around or somewhere close?

00:12:22.908 --> 00:12:31.457
And is that something that we can involve ourselves in or go catch?" because again, back then, catching new and different Pokemon was definitely the primary drive for me.

00:12:31.754 --> 00:12:35.234
And then once we got into battling, obviously there have been some trips with that.

00:12:35.538 --> 00:12:42.378
One of my business trips to Europe, Silph had started up and so one of my very first Silph tournaments on my card is at the beginning of season two.

00:12:42.378 --> 00:12:47.023
I played in a tournament in Germany, which was incredible just because I don't speak German.

00:12:47.322 --> 00:13:01.923
So the language barrier is difficult, but they can speak broken enough English and we all can speak Pokemon, so it was just neat to experience the game and join a community that I really have never seen again and, and wouldn't see before that date.

00:13:02.222 --> 00:13:06.448
What was it like to go to a random Silph tournament in a different country?

00:13:06.448 --> 00:13:09.235
Like you said it was broken English, so how did y'all communicate and.

00:13:09.235 --> 00:13:10.395
do the PVP tournament?

00:13:10.698 --> 00:13:13.158
So credit to the, the community.

00:13:13.458 --> 00:13:20.763
I forget the, the particular name of the one there in Munich, but credit to them for, certainly having organizers that were more than welcoming.

00:13:21.062 --> 00:13:28.618
I think I had messaged them on Discord or the like looking into the tournament because that's where I'd found out that it was happening and then where it was announced.

00:13:28.917 --> 00:13:35.385
This tournament, it wasn't in an establishment, it wasn't in a building or a place of business, it was actually just in kind of a local park.

00:13:35.682 --> 00:13:37.679
Thankfully the weather was quite nice.

00:13:37.977 --> 00:13:45.445
And despite the language barrier, we made it through, I think for three of the four rounds I played, I don't know that I really had much conversation with the opponent.

00:13:45.750 --> 00:13:53.006
Just knowing that I didn't speak German and they didn't feel very comfortable speaking whatever level of English that they could, but it was a really neat experience.

00:13:53.006 --> 00:13:55.624
that was, right at the beginning of Silph for us.

00:13:55.923 --> 00:14:01.833
It was also exciting just because it was new to be battling PVP in a show six play, three format.

00:14:02.134 --> 00:14:06.214
But to do so kind of out of your comfort zone, it's definitely an experience that I'll never forget.

00:14:06.813 --> 00:14:09.163
What was it about PVP that got you hooked in?

00:14:09.759 --> 00:14:12.799
So ironically, we'll go back to GoFest there in 2019.

00:14:13.100 --> 00:14:23.019
We had only played in a couple of our local Silph tournaments, so our local community and to this day, they're quite good at organizing raids and doing that part of the game.

00:14:23.321 --> 00:14:28.206
But one or two of my raiding friends had mentioned,"Hey, we're running these tournaments once a month.

00:14:28.524 --> 00:14:32.884
They happen at what happens to be my favorite brewery in Cincinnati, Rhinegeist.

00:14:33.195 --> 00:14:40.956
They were just encouraging trying to build their player base and bring more people in and of course they knew, because we have a reputation for being a family of players.

00:14:41.259 --> 00:14:46.437
They're like,"Hey, you know, the girls can play too" and so we went into it and tried a couple of tournaments.

00:14:46.735 --> 00:14:55.219
So then turn that around a couple months later, we go to Go Fest and that was, I believe, the first time that they had a battle arena set up at Go Fest.

00:14:55.520 --> 00:15:00.110
And if you won, you would move on to the next little stage and you'd kind of work your way up the bracket.

00:15:00.414 --> 00:15:13.529
And so all of us joined not really knowing, again, despite our little bit of self experience, not really knowing what we were doing and I think everybody else in the family, including my mother-in-law, got, knocked out in the first round, but the girls had great fun with it.

00:15:13.830 --> 00:15:21.754
I had figured out through some research on the road as we drove to Chicago that Medicham, and Azumarill and Venusaur make up quite a good core.

00:15:22.052 --> 00:15:28.621
So I just played something very basic and played it reasonably well and managed to get up to the finals of my bracket.

00:15:28.924 --> 00:15:33.048
For whatever reason, that was just such a little exciting experience that was unexpected.

00:15:33.349 --> 00:15:40.554
Obviously there was a ton about go fest that we loved, but that experience kind of stood out to me and if I'm honest, that's probably what locked me in.

00:15:40.851 --> 00:15:46.965
As lucky as that break was that I didn't run into some killer battler in the first round or whatever, it just sparked it.

00:15:47.261 --> 00:15:51.634
And from that point on, I was all in on doing the Silph tournaments.

00:15:51.932 --> 00:16:01.437
Just a few months later then the pandemic hits and if anything, that kind of solidified it, because Silph was one of the few ways that we could still have an outlet basically during those months.

00:16:02.039 --> 00:16:06.779
Did the entire family catch onto the PVP part or is it only like, like few people besides yourself?

00:16:07.370 --> 00:16:14.484
My two oldest daughters basically had their moments with PVP where they are all in and it is their favorite part of the game.

00:16:14.783 --> 00:16:27.907
Right now, my oldest daughter is still in that mode, and as I'm sure we'll discuss in a little bit, it certainly didn't hurt her interest that she qualified for Worlds last year, the first time that we had a Worlds for Pokemon Go.

00:16:28.220 --> 00:16:40.573
She is the one that is currently right there in, maybe not quite as many Silph tournaments as me, but certainly is doing multiple Silph tournaments for the formats a month and is engaged in various Discord servers and always battling.

00:16:40.874 --> 00:16:46.884
Then our middle child actually was the one who really got the spark first, and it was coming off of that GoFest.

00:16:47.200 --> 00:16:49.894
She really, really enjoyed in-person tournaments.

00:16:50.197 --> 00:16:55.740
So actually the pandemic is kind of what killed it for her, and she hasn't ever completely come back.

00:16:56.043 --> 00:17:00.397
She's still quite good at battling and much better than her age would ever let on.

00:17:00.697 --> 00:17:05.051
She beat a lot of really good battlers in our community and, surprised them quite frankly.

00:17:05.351 --> 00:17:14.417
And then our youngest child obviously has kind of come in a little bit later than the rest of us and has never really gotten the spark, although here in the last self season, she did join.

00:17:14.728 --> 00:17:22.336
So all three of my daughters and I would play in our locals Cincinnati tournaments and she certainly has fun with it, but she's not as engaged as the other two have been.

00:17:22.936 --> 00:17:24.436
Well, how about we go in and actually talk about it?

00:17:24.436 --> 00:17:26.747
So how was y'all experience getting to worlds last year?

00:17:27.347 --> 00:17:44.971
Yeah, so it was almost a happy accident, basically, so again, we'll turn the clocks back So we were looking at the calendar, I think the first regional had happened in the States was in Indianapolis and because Cincinnati's not that far away from Indianapolis, a couple of our local players had decided to go up and play in that event.

00:17:45.270 --> 00:17:52.478
They had an absolutely awesome time, loved everything about it, thought it was just a great experience and so that's what they brought back to us.

00:17:52.780 --> 00:17:56.320
And then we were able to watch a couple of the regionals as they happened later.

00:17:56.621 --> 00:18:05.471
I believe the one in Milwaukee stands out because someone that is an age colleague of, my two older daughters, of course, got third at that event.

00:18:05.772 --> 00:18:13.248
That being BirdPower and so they got to see these events on stream and they got to see our local community be excited about it.

00:18:13.550 --> 00:18:23.230
And of course, we haven't yet until this upcoming season brought back in-person tournaments, so just being able to go play in person was also an exciting thing for all of us in the family.

00:18:23.534 --> 00:18:26.917
We actually were pretty conservative through the pandemic and still kind of are.

00:18:27.218 --> 00:18:31.094
My wife got covid really bad and got hospitalized for about a week.

00:18:31.397 --> 00:18:35.948
But I asked my wife, do you think it'll be okay if I take up the two older girls to this event?

00:18:35.948 --> 00:18:40.830
And that event was N A I C, so North American International Championships, which happened to be in Columbus.

00:18:41.130 --> 00:18:48.450
And she said,"yeah, they have safety protocols." You actually had to show a vaccination proof at the time for those Pokemon events last season.

00:18:48.751 --> 00:18:52.385
So it's like, okay, let's open up the doors a little bit and go try it.

00:18:52.682 --> 00:18:58.939
So we did and it turns out that our middle child was not able to play in GO because of the age of consent laws.

00:18:59.239 --> 00:19:04.568
So unfortunately, anybody who is under the age of 13 can't currently play in competitive GO.

00:19:04.878 --> 00:19:18.246
I have relatively strong feelings about that, but nonetheless, she played VGC, so we kind of got a crash course in the video game and trying to figure out sword and shield and I don't think we did very well with it, but nonetheless, she at least would have something to play.

00:19:18.546 --> 00:19:25.747
Khaleesi, who's our oldest and I played in our separate age brackets at N A I C and she ended up getting third.

00:19:26.050 --> 00:19:31.346
I did quite terribly my first in-person tournament in three years, I didn't even win a single game.

00:19:31.346 --> 00:19:36.027
I went oh and four across my two matches, and I did play a couple of really good players.

00:19:36.326 --> 00:19:41.450
So it wasn't that I was losing to bad players, but I had had quite a poor experience of it myself.

00:19:41.750 --> 00:19:48.170
All that being said, I got to see people that were on my current faction in person for the first time in many months.

00:19:48.571 --> 00:19:53.521
I got to see people on the faction that I would eventually switch to, right, and build relationships with them.

00:19:53.834 --> 00:19:57.463
So the weekend in and of itself wasn't a loss at all, even though I had done poorly.

00:19:57.768 --> 00:20:05.352
And then the, world's invites, I believe went to top four at North American International Championships and the Travel Awards were to the top two.

00:20:05.652 --> 00:20:13.321
But because HotPoket was in the seniors division last year and had already won the Indianapolis Regional, the travel award actually passed down to Khaleesi.

00:20:13.625 --> 00:20:23.291
So we get back home and now, again, understanding the context that we're super conservative, haven't taken any trips, haven't done any travel for almost three years.

00:20:23.588 --> 00:20:35.556
I now bring this back home to my better half, and I ask her, I say,"okay, this is kind of a once in a lifetime experience, right?" I had never qualified for world Championships of anything myself, and I don't think she had either.

00:20:35.852 --> 00:20:38.102
Our oldest is not really into sports.

00:20:38.398 --> 00:20:51.582
This is one of the few things she's got a lot of passion for, we should support this and she kind of knocked my socks off and said not just, oh yeah, you know, we should use the travel award to take one of the parents and her to go, which I thought was what we were going to do.

00:20:51.878 --> 00:20:56.888
But she just flipped it back around on me and said, you know, our whole family should be there to support her, you know?

00:20:57.038 --> 00:20:57.338
Oh wow.

00:20:57.429 --> 00:20:58.509
Do this as a family.

00:20:58.628 --> 00:21:00.608
Let's do it And so

00:21:00.759 --> 00:21:01.058
That's awesome!

00:21:01.419 --> 00:21:03.094
All credit in the world goes to her.

00:21:03.176 --> 00:21:07.116
for being willing to take that risk and get back out there in the world a little bit.

00:21:07.421 --> 00:21:18.971
So on very short notice, because N A I C was at the end of June, so we're making this decision basically at the beginning of July and everybody but me and the family had expired passports, so we're expediting.

00:21:19.267 --> 00:21:30.459
The very next week we're at the post office filling out way too many papers and expediting paying, paying way too much money to expedite passports, so that we can all get over to London in the middle of August.

00:21:30.759 --> 00:21:35.858
I'll just tell you, it was a fantastic experience and we went over there for a week and a half.

00:21:36.189 --> 00:21:37.449
Again, we tried to do it right.

00:21:37.759 --> 00:21:44.183
We didn't want Khaleesi to be jet lagged for her matches, so we wanted to go over a few days before and then also just not waste the trip, right?

00:21:44.183 --> 00:21:52.270
If we're gonna go on that long of an airplane trip, might as well let the kids see London, let them see England someplace that, you know, you never know whether they'll go back.

00:21:52.570 --> 00:21:57.290
They certainly hadn't been there before, none of them had been to Europe, at all, unlike Kelly and myself.

00:21:57.590 --> 00:22:04.070
It was a four day event in London, and again, it was just on a much bigger scale than even things like Go Fest.

00:22:04.403 --> 00:22:11.806
It was just a collection of people from all over the world and all over Europe that were all just really passionate about Pokemon.

00:22:12.102 --> 00:22:17.239
And it didn't really matter whether they were into VGC or TCG or Unite or GO.

00:22:17.548 --> 00:22:29.666
Everybody was really into the same intellectual property, the same core underlying game and it was just really neat to see all that passion in all of the different branches and all the different games that were played at Worlds.

00:22:29.967 --> 00:22:33.662
And then, of course, got to watch Khaleesi play in her senior's division.

00:22:33.971 --> 00:22:40.278
She unfortunately didn't win either her matches, but she did play against BirdPower in the first round of the losers bracket.

00:22:40.582 --> 00:22:43.368
And it was one of the closest matches.

00:22:43.368 --> 00:22:50.147
I mean, I think it's a lot harder or a lot more stressful as a parent to watch your child compete than to do it yourself.

00:22:50.458 --> 00:22:57.854
And knowing how good BirdPower was, I was just so pleased and happy the match basically came down to one fast move.

00:22:58.152 --> 00:23:06.638
Then Bird Power lost her next round, so they ended up taking both of them over to the prize wall at Worlds Together and they talked for probably an hour and a half or two hours.

00:23:06.971 --> 00:23:35.886
It's one of those friendships probably made for life that wouldn't have happened, but for this random, crazy circumstance of, Hey, we saw this regional on the stream, it looks good, let's go try," and then she qualifies for worlds and three months after we're even beginning to think about this endeavor, we're sitting in London right at World Championship It was a crazy whirlwind experience and honestly I just hope for the future of the game that other families, get to experience that same sort of fun whirlwind, right?

00:23:36.185 --> 00:23:47.358
That Pokemon for us has kind of become now a little bit of a tourism thing where we're traveling a little bit and yes, the primary reason is for these Pokemon events, but it gives us an excuse to go explore the world.

00:23:47.663 --> 00:23:51.203
Uh, and perhaps, that's what Niantic wanted us to do all along, right?

00:23:51.203 --> 00:23:52.523
Was get out there and explore.

00:23:52.523 --> 00:23:52.913
So...

00:23:53.153 --> 00:23:53.963
get out and go.

00:23:54.023 --> 00:23:54.233
Yep,

00:23:54.334 --> 00:23:54.614
yep.

00:23:54.618 --> 00:23:56.814
If it gives us an excuse to do so, then so be it.

00:23:57.415 --> 00:24:02.371
Now, as a father, how did it feel to see your daughter trying to compete for becoming a world champion?

00:24:02.972 --> 00:24:05.403
I mean, it's just incredibly gratifying, right?

00:24:05.708 --> 00:24:17.241
Certainly as she's grown as a battler, it was just really neat to see her grow in the ways that all competitors do and then, you know, have a chance to show herself or prove herself on the big stage.

00:24:17.539 --> 00:24:23.439
It's almost hard to put into words just how proud you are as a parent to see your kids succeed and what they're passionate about.

00:24:24.028 --> 00:24:33.009
For sure and especially because, you know, not every one of us is athletic, but it's amazing just to be able to see your daughter could participate in this one thing that really brought the whole family together.

00:24:33.009 --> 00:24:34.449
And continues to, right?

00:24:34.449 --> 00:24:38.473
I, think even more so now that the play Pokemon Circuit has wrapped in GO.

00:24:38.771 --> 00:24:43.115
If anything, it has drawn our family's excitement levels up even more for the game.

00:24:43.417 --> 00:24:46.057
Now, I'm gonna switch gears real quick before we get into Salt Lake.

00:24:46.355 --> 00:24:55.604
You are very detailed cause I saw the pictures you posted on your Twitter where you and your daughter had like pictures of different teams from I believe, past tournaments.

00:24:55.604 --> 00:25:00.833
Yeah, so we do take a very, data analytics approach, preparing for things like big tournaments.

00:25:01.134 --> 00:25:03.713
So a far cry from what I talked about earlier, right?

00:25:04.010 --> 00:25:17.729
Now we have the opportunity, thanks to Go Stadium and other outlets that report on these events, to really kind of dive into the metrics and say, okay, what is happening at these Play Pokemon regional tournaments and what is the meta looking like?

00:25:17.729 --> 00:25:18.929
How is it developing?

00:25:19.229 --> 00:25:31.762
Our experience from doing Silph metas over the years has helped in this regard as well, because as a Silph meta goes on throughout the course of a month, if you start a tournament at the beginning of the month, it can be quite different from what you end up playing towards the end of the month.

00:25:32.063 --> 00:25:34.048
So same deal with play Pokemon.

00:25:34.348 --> 00:25:44.038
We've taken that same approach and print out meta charts that show, what percentage of players are playing each of the, the Pokemon, all the way down to team building, right?

00:25:44.337 --> 00:25:53.805
My favorite chart that I took a picture of during my tweet storm thereafter Salt Lake City was just a PVPoke sim chart of the top 30 Pokemon that we thought would make up the meta.

00:25:54.105 --> 00:26:20.194
And so I'm just looking at the matchups, the one and the two shields, and deciding,"okay, what fits the gaps that the other five Pokemon, leave on my team." I was thinking about that quite frankly, up until the night before the tournament in Salt Lake City, but again, we're taking a very data analytics approach to it as a family and trying to figure out,"okay, yes, we wanna run what we know and we wanna run what we enjoy." You know, we wanna do so in a way that gives us the best opportunity to succeed.

00:26:20.194 --> 00:26:25.085
And the effort definitely showed because both you and your daughter were pretty close to facing each other in the final round.

00:26:25.386 --> 00:26:30.940
I believe, if I'm not mistaken, I think had she had won against MormonMatt, you two would've played each other.

00:26:30.940 --> 00:26:31.509
Yes.

00:26:31.539 --> 00:26:42.640
So we were one away from it twice, although I will admit, we weren't so sad that it didn't happen, because we had played each other in the winners bracket in Peoria two weeks before.

00:26:42.943 --> 00:26:46.067
So Salt Lake City was never really on the, agenda, right?

00:26:46.369 --> 00:26:54.949
When we looked at the regionals, schedule for this year, after we got back from Worlds, we said, okay, Peoria's a relatively short drive, we'll go to that one.

00:26:55.255 --> 00:27:00.796
But really it wasn't until the end of February in Knoxville that we were certain to go to another one.

00:27:01.094 --> 00:27:12.617
After we had invested all this time kind of preparing for Peoria, staying up to date on the meta, doing all this team building and practicing, we made the decision the Tuesday before that Paige and I were gonna fly out to and give it our best shot.

00:27:12.617 --> 00:27:14.327
So it was kind of a last minute decision.

00:27:14.631 --> 00:27:15.800
Obviously it worked out.

00:27:16.101 --> 00:27:30.070
I think having prepared for Peoria in such great detail, where all three of us in the family that can play did play and then kicking the tires on a couple experiences that we hadn't had before so Paige and I had to play each other in Peoria in the winter's bracket in the second round.

00:27:30.375 --> 00:27:35.978
I happened to beat her, but then our next matches, hers in the losers bracket and me in the winner's bracket were both on stream.

00:27:36.278 --> 00:27:38.849
That was the first time that either one of us had ever been on stream.

00:27:39.143 --> 00:27:44.448
It is quite a bit intimidating, the first time you go up there, no matter if you're used to that thing or not.

00:27:44.755 --> 00:27:47.694
We both took our lumps, but I felt like we learned from it.

00:27:47.994 --> 00:27:51.917
And then when we got to Salt Lake, where almost all of our matches were on stream.

00:27:52.214 --> 00:27:54.585
In fact, all of my matches were on stream.

00:27:54.887 --> 00:27:58.998
At that point, having been through the experience once, it's kind of a little bit old hat, right?

00:27:59.301 --> 00:28:07.664
And even if we had to play each other at the end of the bracket there in Salt Lake, we would've been through that experience before having done it just two weeks earlier in Peoria.

00:28:08.268 --> 00:28:14.855
Do y'all have like any conversation beforehand saying like, if we face each other, we go all-out or like anything like that beforehand?

00:28:14.855 --> 00:28:15.184
Oh yeah.

00:28:15.184 --> 00:28:19.325
No, there's no mercy in the Fitzgerald family uh, at, at all

00:28:19.984 --> 00:28:20.164
Right.

00:28:20.298 --> 00:28:22.968
And I know I've been asked that by my factions mates as well.

00:28:23.268 --> 00:28:29.718
They say,"well, you know, if you get paired against her, do you take it easy?" and it's like,"no, only one of the two of us had qualified for worlds.

00:28:29.718 --> 00:28:42.528
So she's, she's on her own, but it's just the irony as well of the first time she has to play in the, master's age bracket, she gets paired against her dad in the second round and it's not something that intimidates her, right?

00:28:42.827 --> 00:28:46.307
We actually do get paired quite a bit in our local Silph tournaments in that.

00:28:46.607 --> 00:28:50.502
So we play competitively against one another a fair amount as it turns out.

00:28:50.799 --> 00:28:59.603
It's still just difficult because it's one of your primary training partners and and they know all of your play style quirks and, vice versa, so it makes it quite difficult.

00:28:59.906 --> 00:29:07.589
The exciting thing about Salt Lake is the way that the bracket turned out, we were on opposite sides of the bracket and we both won all of our matches in day one.

00:29:07.886 --> 00:29:15.686
And had we both won, then we would've played each other, but we would've been playing each other in the winner's finals, which the winner of that is locked into a world's invite.

00:29:15.982 --> 00:29:19.686
Going back to kind of our family story after we had experience London.

00:29:19.686 --> 00:29:21.186
And what a neat trip that was.

00:29:21.487 --> 00:29:27.569
My wife and I decided for the family that we were gonna basically treat this as, Khaleesi's travel sport this year.

00:29:27.869 --> 00:29:30.964
Which sounds a bit silly, but again, she's not into sports or anything.

00:29:31.268 --> 00:29:33.032
She's 14 years old, right?

00:29:33.212 --> 00:29:38.198
How many more years are we gonna have to like truly invest in something and, give her a good life experience?

00:29:38.505 --> 00:29:50.050
And then the goal was for one of the three of us to get a qualification for Japan because again, it presents an opportunity to travel the world and expose our family to culture and an experience that they won't get otherwise.

00:29:50.355 --> 00:29:59.208
That's why we went to Peoria, that's why we ended up going out to Salt Lake, and we probably still will go to five to seven of the 15 US regionals.

00:29:59.508 --> 00:30:05.184
We're gonna do that because we're trying to give Khaleesi every opportunity to re-qualify, and experience Japan.

00:30:05.482 --> 00:30:12.765
But we also knew that if any one of us in the family qualified again, that we would go and then the whole family gets to go, which was the whole goal of the season.

00:30:13.064 --> 00:30:22.910
And same deal on the losers bracket, what you were just referring to earlier, had she beaten MormonMatt, then she would've played me in the losers final and same deal, the winner of that gets a world's invite.

00:30:23.210 --> 00:30:33.856
So in either of the cases, we would've played each other, unlike Peoria, where it was just good old Round 2, it would've been for the best stakes possible and it would've meant that the Fitzgerald family for sure was gonna take an invite.

00:30:34.161 --> 00:30:52.891
Obviously I know from, watching a bit of the stream after the fact and talking to people throughout the, the course of that weekend and after, you know, certainly Bird Power's story was, huge, her and Khaleesi both making top four was a huge story for, the young, female players of the game, which are certainly an underrepresented crew in the game.

00:30:53.193 --> 00:30:55.458
But then also just our family story, right?

00:30:55.753 --> 00:31:00.425
I mean, I don't know how many opportunities you're gonna get to see two family members make top eight.

00:31:00.723 --> 00:31:04.715
I think that's gonna be a pretty unique thing that won't repeat itself too often.

00:31:05.012 --> 00:31:14.010
And we were just so thrilled that it basically paid off everything that we'd kind of invested our time in preparing, practicing, team building, all of that.

00:31:14.310 --> 00:31:19.586
We were able to knock off who I quite frankly would consider to be better players than either one of us.

00:31:20.190 --> 00:31:25.506
But that's the great thing about PVP is that you have the opportunity to beat any battler you, come across.

00:31:25.803 --> 00:31:29.252
It's all just a matter of how you play that particular set of battles.

00:31:29.846 --> 00:31:35.625
Speaking of Bird Power, since we're on the topic, she clearly has your family's number because y'all faced her so many times already.

00:31:35.925 --> 00:31:38.750
Have you look back at the footage, figured out ways you could have done something better?

00:31:38.750 --> 00:31:42.200
My best chance of beating BirdPower was having Khaleesi do it for me.

00:31:42.740 --> 00:31:53.954
And I've told her that If she just throws the earthquake against her game three instead of going for the bait, and getting that bait called as BirdPower is often very great at doing and was just amazing at doing all weekend in Salt Lake.

00:31:54.258 --> 00:31:58.428
Then she's in the winner's Final with me and it's a whole different story at that point.

00:31:58.734 --> 00:32:01.384
You know, again, all credit goes to, to BirdPower.

00:32:01.798 --> 00:32:06.929
We actually got together with Bird Power and her aunt and essentially hung out with them all weekend.

00:32:07.229 --> 00:32:15.484
So from that Thursday night to the following Monday evening when we both flew out, we took that opportunity to build that friendship that had started back in worlds at London.

00:32:15.781 --> 00:32:20.364
The day before regionals started in Salt Lake, we were hanging out at the planetarium together.

00:32:20.666 --> 00:32:26.061
The girls were enjoying all the various science experiments, and fun things you can do at the planetarium.

00:32:26.372 --> 00:32:40.593
What we called ourselves after the weekend was Team Planetarium and on that Friday night, before regionals, BirdPower turns to the other two of us and says, Hey, why don't we all just top eight tomorrow?" I just kind of chuckle and I go,"okay, you know how unrealistic that"

00:32:42.303 --> 00:32:43.353
famous last words,

00:32:43.353 --> 00:32:43.635
Right?

00:32:43.635 --> 00:32:52.613
We had been at the convention center hanging out with Arrow and Cindy and some other, and Axon, some, really great battlers that people know from World Championships last year.

00:32:52.913 --> 00:32:56.932
So I knew the density of the quality of play was still gonna be really good.

00:32:57.236 --> 00:33:01.759
There were still some really top tier battlers there that you would have to overtake if you were gonna do well.

00:33:02.059 --> 00:33:03.799
And I'm just like, you know, what are the chances?

00:33:03.799 --> 00:33:04.099
Right?

00:33:04.099 --> 00:33:07.190
Two young girls and me, an old timer in the game, right?

00:33:07.490 --> 00:33:12.500
I do decent in individual Silph, but I don't consider myself top tier or anything by any stretch.

00:33:12.799 --> 00:33:18.885
So it's like,"hey, two out of three would be great, right?" That was my snarky response back to her is two outta three would be great.

00:33:19.190 --> 00:33:21.920
And then they both played in the morning group on the Saturday morning.

00:33:22.221 --> 00:33:25.875
They both won all their matches and were set to play one another in the top four.

00:33:26.173 --> 00:33:30.583
And I'll never forget before the afternoon bracket starts and I'm about to go up on stream.

00:33:30.880 --> 00:33:36.278
The two of them are chit chatting it up and they turn back to me and they say, Hey, all three of us are gonna make it right?

00:33:36.580 --> 00:33:41.290
Now it's your turn to hold up your end of the bargain." and I'm like,"oh, it's so no pressure, right?"

00:33:42.770 --> 00:33:43.911
She called you out, man.

00:33:44.770 --> 00:33:52.285
Definitely, but you know, there's nobody, I mean, certainly if both of our family members had gotten the invites, that would be best case scenario.

00:33:52.580 --> 00:34:03.611
But there's literally nobody else at that tournament and nobody else in the Pokemon Go competitive PVP community that I would rather lose to than BirdPower just because we've grown so close, right?

00:34:03.907 --> 00:34:15.065
In this case, the two kids have basically grown this awesome friendship and she and her aunt are just really neat people to hang out with, so, other than Khaleesi, I couldn't have handpicked a better opponent that I would wanna face.

00:34:15.668 --> 00:34:20.679
Now you've actually said you had some strong thoughts about the removal of the senior division in Play Pokemon.

00:34:20.679 --> 00:34:22.208
Would you be willing to share those thoughts?

00:34:22.809 --> 00:34:25.329
I've explained earlier our family story, right?

00:34:25.628 --> 00:34:39.827
The fact that even though we were quite known as battlers within our local community, we were just a family that decided,"Hey, let's go to one of these local events and see how it goes." And not every one of those stories is gonna turn into, oh, somebody qualified for worlds.

00:34:40.130 --> 00:34:49.768
But you might get that spark or you might have something happen like, what happened to Paige and admittedly, because the numbers were a little smaller on the senior division side, the opportunity was there.

00:34:50.063 --> 00:34:57.039
If you were a good battler, you could get a qualification to Worlds and certainly she had to do well enough to end up winning that travel award.

00:34:57.338 --> 00:35:05.289
The only two people she finished behind were Wda and Hot Pocket, who were both amazing battlers that can hold their own against every adult in the world.

00:35:05.588 --> 00:35:21.998
So she basically beat all of the battlers that, she had the opportunity to beat, and then opened up this opportunity for our family to go to Worlds, have this awesome experience of traveling, for the purpose of Pokemon, but also experiencing the world as you can, traveling for these events.

00:35:22.295 --> 00:35:28.766
I view the future of Pokemon Go and Play Pokemon competitive circuit as a huge opportunity for this game.

00:35:29.065 --> 00:35:31.916
The game, the phone app has only been around for six years.

00:35:32.213 --> 00:35:43.956
it doesn't have the same 25 plus year history of the video game series and the TCG and if you want this game to be a long-term player, in my opinion, you have to grow the future of the player base.

00:35:44.255 --> 00:35:48.126
So what happened to our family is a story that I think is repeatable.

00:35:48.425 --> 00:36:04.856
So if you get more, senior division players, so teenagers, that get these opportunities, and then can compete in their own age bracket, and have good successes, then that's something that they can kind of parlay into further interest as they grow into, you know, 16 plus and then go into the master's division.

00:36:05.159 --> 00:36:20.878
The other thing that struck me as we were sitting at worlds and watching some of the Vgc finals and the trading card game finals is that when those top eights would happen or those last rounds of Swiss would happen, the competitors on stream would be shown and then they'd put up their former accomplishments in the game.

00:36:21.175 --> 00:36:31.023
And for the master's division, almost half of the accomplishments listed for a lot of these players were World's Finalists, Seniors Division 2017, right?

00:36:31.023 --> 00:36:32.737
Or, you know, you, you pick a year.

00:36:33.041 --> 00:36:42.110
But it was stuff that happened back when they were in the Junior and Senior Division and you can see why those players then become the next generation of top tier battlers in their games.

00:36:42.414 --> 00:37:02.831
I think the same is gonna hold true for Pokemon Go and if we grow the circuits as much as we can and we give the kind of the organic opportunity for the younger trainers among us to have successes, and then parlay that towards the future, all you're gonna do is build the future of the player base in a battling community that, quite frankly, is very passionate.

00:37:03.130 --> 00:37:14.014
You're gonna have a natural, spinoff of people and if we don't have another, source of new players to bring into the game, then at some point, the game doesn't justify a spot on the Play Pokemon competitive circuit anymore.

00:37:14.309 --> 00:37:32.177
I know that I'm coming at this from a biased position, but I have a really interesting story to share that is, hey, our family would've never been this engaged in Pokemon Go, and we would've never been engaged in competitive Pokemon Go to this extent if it hadn't been for the opportunities granted in that first little partial season where they did have a seniors division bracket.

00:37:32.480 --> 00:37:36.440
Because if Khaleesi doesn't qualify for worlds, we don't go to London.

00:37:36.739 --> 00:37:45.527
And then yes, we might have attended a couple more regionals but we certainly wouldn't have been engaged as much with this and also encouraging, people in our community to do the same.

00:37:45.829 --> 00:37:57.079
I think if we're serious about this game being something that is still here 10 years from now, then this is just one of the things, looking at the other two games that have had that long-term success that you just have to do.

00:37:57.382 --> 00:38:00.304
I would like them to figure out the age of consent law.

00:38:00.601 --> 00:38:08.170
I am an attorney in my day job, it is not that type of law, but I can assure you that age of consent is a problem that can be overcome.

00:38:08.490 --> 00:38:17.731
Now, all that being said, this isn't to say that those players, especially on the top end of those players, they absolutely can compete in the master's division and they can do quite well.

00:38:18.034 --> 00:38:20.434
I'm not so concerned about those players.

00:38:20.733 --> 00:38:31.320
I'm concerned about the next tier of players down that if they don't have a way to get a little bit of success, they might not get that same spark and they might not then buy in for the long term in this game.

00:38:31.922 --> 00:38:36.751
And, to tag team on that, I don't see you as saying that, oh, we need to make it easier for people.

00:38:37.052 --> 00:38:42.324
You see it in sports, like you don't see a six year old going into the N F L, that'd be suicide, right?

00:38:42.623 --> 00:38:55.914
But you see them do a little league and then you see'em go to elementary if it happens, and then middle, like there's a progression to where you can kind of go back, especially when they get that college level or the NFL level, you can kind of trace back to when they first started playing it.

00:38:55.943 --> 00:38:59.467
And it's like a whole, round of Escalades they've had since they've grown up.

00:38:59.467 --> 00:38:59.797
Right.

00:38:59.797 --> 00:39:06.114
And I know one counter arguments I've heard is that the game isn't by its very nature, very inviting to younger generations.

00:39:06.418 --> 00:39:13.521
So we're just never gonna have that player pace and to that I kind of say, well, you know, my family cares to disagree right?

00:39:13.911 --> 00:39:19.695
Um, it's a little bit on these parents of young children to get their kids involved in this stuff.

00:39:19.992 --> 00:39:31.302
And if more families get involved, again, it's kind of a snowball effect, if they see that happen on stream, then they're gonna be more apt to get their kids involved and try to have that same type of experience with them.

00:39:31.599 --> 00:39:42.869
If anything, those were the most gratifying messages, and I got a ton of messages, the, the days after Salt Lake City from some players that I hadn't played for three years, coming out of the woodwork to send congratulations to us.

00:39:43.168 --> 00:39:49.708
But a couple of them just shared how they were watching it with their daughter and being like,"Hey, someday that's gonna be you and me." right?

00:39:50.005 --> 00:39:50.865
And that warms my heart.

00:39:50.871 --> 00:39:52.726
I'm like, yes, I certainly hope so.

00:39:53.028 --> 00:40:03.458
I certainly hope that other parents and kid combos can have that experience, because being able to share something like that with your child, is just again, one of the best experiences in life.

00:40:04.059 --> 00:40:14.248
Now, let's pretend there's somebody who's maybe coming back into Pokemon Go and they have a daughter or son What would you tell them on how to get involved with their son, or daughter with Pokemon Go?

00:40:14.853 --> 00:40:18.882
I mean, I think the best way to experience it is just to dive right in.

00:40:19.195 --> 00:40:25.659
The game is far more, interesting and I would argue user friendly than it was, four or five, six years ago.

00:40:25.963 --> 00:40:33.344
Things like the events that Niantic puts on, where they encourage you by Quest lines to participate or in the leveling process, right?

00:40:33.643 --> 00:40:40.356
They encourage you to take, part in all of the different aspects of the game, whether that's, PVP, battling or Raiding, or exploring.

00:40:40.657 --> 00:40:47.673
They really are trying to get you to experience at least a little bit all of the different parts of the game, as you're leveling up from 40 to 50.

00:40:47.969 --> 00:40:58.914
So same deal, I would tell somebody with young kids,"Hey, just start an account" and honestly doesn't matter if you're playing 10 minutes a day and just doing your daily incense, or if you're grinding for a couple hours.

00:40:59.210 --> 00:41:07.246
Go out there and, experience the game, pick up each different part of the game as you have an opportunity to, whether that's Raiding or battling and GBL and so on.

00:41:07.550 --> 00:41:12.679
If somebody were to come to me and say, Hey, I know a little bit about battling, What steps should I take next?

00:41:12.980 --> 00:41:17.690
I would encourage them, if they have the means and they're close to one, to just go to one of these in-person events.

00:41:18.005 --> 00:41:21.454
And that could be a Silph tournament or it could be one of these Play Pokemon regionals.

00:41:22.059 --> 00:41:29.329
So with everything you've talked about, go into all the regionals and everything else, what do you consider your biggest accomplishment when it comes to Pokemon GO?

00:41:29.931 --> 00:41:34.072
It's hard to not say qualifying for worlds right?

00:41:34.251 --> 00:41:34.702
You can say it.

00:41:34.702 --> 00:41:36.561
Hey, I'm not, I'm not discounting that

00:41:37.086 --> 00:41:39.831