Pokemon GO isn’t out in Japan yet – it’s anybody’s guess when it will be at this point, though it is widely expected to release there before the end of this month – but it looks like, after having taken stock of the blatant disregard for safety rules that the app has caused in the rest of the world, the Japanese government is trying to get a jump on it all by preemptively issuing safety warnings.
The Japan Times reports (via Kotaku) that the National Center of Incident Readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity put out a nine-point bulletin warning people of possible problems surrounding the game- and they also are asking people to share these points with younger players.
Hopefully, this should mean that the kind of public safety hazards that have come to light in the rest of the world as a result of players playing the game can be avoided in Japan. But then again, it’s not like people in the rest of the world aren’t aware of how to look after themselves, either- it’s just that when you get into catching them all, you apparently seem to lose all sense of your surroundings. Let’s hope Japanese players are smarter about that, since they have so many examples of what not to do by this point.