New Pokemon GO parody apps offer a romantic twist on the creature-catching formula. At the height of the game's popularity, a Pokemon GO dating service was made available to players of the highly popular mobile game.

Called Pocket Boyfriend GO and Pocket Girlfriend GO, the free to play apps switch out cartoon creatures for cartoon-style love interests. As players walk around their area, a radar will alert them to nearby love interests, with players able to throw Pocket Balls at men and women who show up. Tapping the Balls repeatedly sees players successfully add them to their collection of cuties. The collected boyfriends and girlfriends also come with their own descriptions (e.g "stylish tall guy" and "successful student") which may be a worthwhile incentive to catch 'em all, Pokemon GO-style.

The idea of catching cartoon people rather than fictional creatures may be a bit concerning to some - even if PokeBalls can offer relaxing hangout spots. But most do not seem to be bothered by this idea as Pocket Boyfriend GO and Pocket Girlfriend GO has been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times. Developer Pocket Catch Games has also seen thousands of installs for its other Pokemon GO clones, including Infected Pony GO, Pocket Pets GO, and Pocket Zoo GO.

pokemon go romantic pidgey

Arguably, these are poor knock-offs of Niantic's hit game but even heavy-hitters have gotten involved in the fun. For example, the reveal of Garfield GO was one of the silliest (and the best) things at E3 2017. That is an officially licensed game based on the lasagna-loving feline, showing that the opportunity to make money from a trend is just too appealing for any developer to resist.

It seems unlikely that the Pokemon GO clone trend will go away any time soon. Pokemon GO has made over $1 billion from microtransactions and Garfield GO, Pocket Girlfriend GO et al. all want a slice of that incredibly lucrative pie. In the same way that the success of Candy Crush Saga and Flappy Bird also led to tons of match three and obstacle course clones, Pokemon GO's success is inspiring people to make knock-offs too. The only way that this will die down is if the popularity of Pokemon GO dies down first and as Niantic continues to release much-wanted updates, that will not be happening in the near future.

Pocket Girlfriend GO and Pocket Boyfriend GO are available on Android.

Source: The Next Web