Pokemon Go mob descends on playground in Australia
Every night, hundreds of "Pokémon Go" players descend upon the small Sydney suburb of Rhodes to hang out in a playground - and residents of the nearby apartment complexes are fuming.
That particular spot, located in the middle of a residential area, is a Mecca for gamers. As Buzzfeed reports, the playground has three overlapping Pokéstops, which means it has triple the Pokémon, triple the items, and triple the experience points.
The game requires players to walk around, using their phones to stumble upon Pokémon and interact with real-life locations that are designated as Pokéstops, where they can gain items and experience points to level up. They can also use in-game currency to designate a Pokéstop as a "lure" for a temporary amount of time.
With a lure, Pokémon come to you, so you don't have to walk around. And the effect of the lure works for all players next to the Pokéstop, not just the player who paid for the lure.
And so, at the playground in Rhodes, "Pokémon Go" players are continuously making all three Pokéstop into lures. And because they're overlapping, players can reap the benefits of the lures all at once, without even moving.
Word of the Rhodes lures spread quickly, and now "well over 1,000 per night" visit them, one local told BuzzFeed. "There is a massive level of noise after midnight, uncontrollable traffic, excessive rubbish, smokers, drunk people, people who are 'camping' in the site, and even people peddling mobile phone chargers."
On some nights, the playground is completely blanketed with players. Some people brought shopping carts to stay in.
And so, to people who don't play the game, it seems like an epidemic.
The local city council is sending extra park rangers every night to keep the playground clean and safe, according to BuzzFeed. But local residents are still concerned.
They've complained that the noise level is high, there are too many people smoking, and that it's simply too many to handle for this small playground.
With people looking at their screens the whole time, it's also hard to avoid hitting players while driving, or to walk a dog without someone stepping on it.
"People want to 'catch them all' and with the amount of varieties at Rhodes there's nowhere better to be," one player told BuzzFeed. "Other locations have been tried and it's all Zubats and Doduo. People are sick of them."