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Hundreds of thousands of players have downloaded the game since
its Aug. 6 launch in Vietnam, with many annotating the Google
version of the country's map to aid their quest, the Information
and Communications Ministry said in a statement.
The game is not licensed, however, and people should not play it
"near or inside the areas of offices of the Communist Party, the
state, the military and national defense sites and other
restricted areas", the ministry said late on Wednesday.
Players engrossed in the game may run into trouble in spots such
as railways, highways, airports, rivers, lakes and mountains,
apart from the risk of losing personal information, the ministry
added.
"Playing Pokemon Go while in traffic causes more bad than good
influence on people," Captain Nguyen Minh Duc of the Hanoi
traffic police told an online forum on Thursday.
"Traffic rule breakers do not only cause harm to themselves but
also affect others."
Pokemon Go uses augmented reality and Google mapping to make
animated characters appear in the real world, overlaid on the
nearby landscape viewed through players' mobile phone cameras.
The game has prompted safety warnings after players glued to
their phones stumbled, were robbed or wandered into dangerous
places.
Last week neighboring Cambodia banned the game from a former
Khmer Rouge torture center and prison after players showed up at
the site, now a genocide museum, hunting for Pokemon characters.
Thailand also plans to place spots such as the Royal Palace
grounds, Buddhist temples and hospitals out of bounds for
Pokemon Go players.
Vietnam and Thailand have the fastest growing smartphone markets
in Southeast Asia, along with the Philippines.
(Reporting by Ho Binh Minh; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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