Pokémon Masters Officially Certified by Google
Earlier this year on April Fools’ Day 2014, Google unleashed 151 Pokémon on its Google Maps site and challenged the world over to find and capture the pocket monsters, with the promise of a job opportunity under the title of “Pokémon Master.”
While most people were probably amused by the sudden invasion of Google Maps and may have spent a few minutes capturing Pokémon located around their town, those few who managed to capture 150 Pokémon (excluding Pokémon #151 Mew) received a message from Google Maps to fill out a form to receive a “surprise.” Now more than two months after the world had its chuckles over the joke, Google has made good on that promise by certifying the winning trainers as genuine “Pokémon Masters.”
Now those who succeeded in going the extra mile and collected 150 Pokémon are getting officially certified by Google as bona fide “Pokémon Masters.”
Successful players, including Reddit user “tinygrump”, received snail mail congratulation letters from the Google Maps software engineer Tatsuo Nomura along with 10 Pokéball print business cards under the title “Pokémon Master”.
I imagine most employers wouldn’t know what to make of that résumé line.
The letter reads:
Greetings, Pokémon Master
On behalf of the entire Google Maps team, we’d like to celebrate you for catching ’em all. Not 10, not 50, but all the Pokémon hidden throughout our maps. While we don’t currently have a Pokémon Master role, we hope you enjoyed our April Fools’ Day prank. Wynaut have a little fun once a year?
We’d like to say thanks with these cards – reserved for Trainers who completed the Google Maps Pokémon Challenge and let us know of their success.
Congratulations and thanks again for playing!
Keep Exploring,
Tatsuo on behalf of the Google Maps Team
To those not too aware of current Pokémon trends, “Wynaut” happens to be a Pokémon not a typo.
All in all not a bad reward for a joke.