Pokemon Go: Strong accounts selling for big money and other tales

After an initial release in the US, Australia, and New Zealand, the craze has now gone global. In fact, so quick has been the game's climb up the app charts that the International Business Times says it has already overtaken Tinder on Android smartphones in the US.

However, one New York Pokemon player may need to dig the dating app back out, after he accidentally gave away he'd been cheating on his girlfriend when catching one of the game's many creatures.

According to the New York Post, Evan Scribner, from Queens, didn't take the game's GPS logging into account when he decided to play the game while visiting an ex-girlfriend in Brooklyn.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

When his now more-recent ex-girlfriend saw he'd caught a Pokemon in the area, she demanded to know what he was doing – but Scribner had no explanation and came clean.

Many more heart-warming, funny, strange and scary stores of keen and reckless Pokemon trainers are emerging…

Cashing in on the craze

It seems gamers with more money than time are buying their way to Pokemon mastery, the Daily Telegraph reports, with accounts stacked with strong and rare creatures trading on eBay and Craigslist.

Hundreds of players are trying to make a pretty penny on their hours spent with the game and some of the best accounts are attracting prices in the thousands – one bidding war ended at £7,300. However, such trading goes against the game's terms of service and some gamers have been banned.

This isn't the only way fans have been cashing in on the craze. Mashable reports on an Uber-for-Pokemon service where people drive players around town for a hefty hourly fee. There's also a dedicated Pokemon Go minibus roaming New York charging a fare of 99 cents (around 75p) a stop.

In addition, "professional" trainers will spend all day catching Pokemon for you – for a decent fee, of course.

The daddy of all moments to find a Pidgey

The Independent picks up the story of Jonathan Theriot, who couldn't resist catching a Pidgey sat on wife Jessica's bed while she was in labour with the couple's third daughter.

Theriot posted a screencap of the moment on Imgur, which has since been viewed more than 2,500,000 times.

Speaking to BuzzFeed, the now dad of three said his wife "wasn’t mad at all. She just kind of laughed at it. It was primarily an eye-roll once she realised what I was doing."

South Koreans head north to get their fix

The Guardian reports that owing to mapping restrictions, South Korean players are set to leave their home towns and descend on a remote town near the country's border with the North to play the game.

Government restrictions mean it is impossible for the game to work properly with Google Maps in South Korea. But Sokcho, a town of 90,000 on the peninsula's east coast, has mistakenly not been classified as South Korean territory by mapping services, making it the only location in the country the game will work in.

South Korean media has reported that bus tickets to the town from the capital Seoul have completely sold out.

Unusual hives of activity

Many of the in game's locations have rather different make-ups in the real world and so have fans travelling to strange, dangerous and outlandish locations.

Key federal government buildings in the US, such as the White House and the Pentagon, are listed in the game as Pokemon gyms, reports Inverse.

While the site at the White House is accessible to the crowds standing outside it, the one inside the Pentagon requires access to the building – but one insider still appears to have claimed it as their gym.

The notorious Westboro Baptist Church is also listed as a gym and according to USA Today, it has been claimed by a player using a Jigglypuff called "LoveIsLove".

The controversial church is well known for its vocal opposition to the LGBT movement.

Bosnian players warned not to enter minefields

Different locations give gamers different problems - although few will be as dangerous as playing the game in Bosnia.

Trainers in the former war-torn country have been told to keep one eye open for landmines in their paths, the BBC reports.

The stark warning was issued after reports of players wandering into live minefields to capture rare Pokemon.

There are thought to be around 120,000 mines still buried in Bosnia and at least 600 people have been killed in landmine accidents since the end of the conflict in 1995, adds the broadcaster.