This thought had actually crossed my mind today — it's a way to give a lot of kids (hell, adults) a "feel" for kilometers. Which is a good thing.
Pokémon Go Is Secretly Teaching Americans the Metric System
How many kilometers are in a mile?
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The rationale for this actually derived from Niantic's predecessor game, Ingress. Since Ingress is a worldwide game, it was easier to establish a single measurement system to use throughout the entire world. Guess which measurement system was chosen.
1.6 km. = 1 mile; 1 km. = 0.625 miles (five eighths of a mile).
Same holds for Ingress. I've walked 2100 km so far, playing Ingress. I'm at a mere 15km in Pokemon.
No, I understand why it's metric, and I understand (and support) the metric system. It's just suddenly more useful.
(While Ingress used metric, it didn;t seem as key a part of the game — distance to portals was clearly either close or far away, and I used a car when something said was 1 km.)
I think that Murica went metric when 2 liter Coke bottles came out.
I remember the original games giving the Pokemons' stats in metric, so it makes sense they'd stick with it for distance.
+John E. Bredehoft Though we still measure dispensed drinks in ounces ("thirsty-two ouncer!"). And milk comes in quarts and half-gallons.
Liquor, too, comes in metric bottles.
The only way that we will get this country fully medicated is when the automotive field stops using horsepower. Until then, no amount of running laps to hatch eggs is going to help us. Plus, I think the real "fiendish plot" behind this is some form of tracking, especially since the GPS and Camera must be used for the game to work.
+Destiny Carrico Camera can be easily turned off. GPS is part fo things, but I'm really not worried if The Game knows I am taking a walk down to the local park.
If it were hacked, the effects would be detrimental, especially for children. Whoever hacked could easily see the locations of every user.
Here's something relevant:
https://plus.google.com/+DanielWetta/posts/1mbToUvABPm
+Travis Bird Well, not relevant to any Android users. And, honestly, this is clearly just clumsy programming, not some nefarious Niantic scheme.