An 11 year old kid can't go out at night and catch Pokemon on their own, but they sure as heck can sit at home playing games.
I'm an old man but I do most of my game playing from bed at night and in the morning (terrible habit I know) and so does my wife. I'd love to be able to add Pokemon to my daily games rotation but right now I can't.
But getting the same 11yo to spend his weekends in the park instead of on the couch .. that’s a turning point we’ve been missing for years.
Over the span of my youth (I'm 34, so consider this 80s-90s) I lived the transition from building forts in the woods and rafts on the rivers (never went well, never stopped us trying) to arguing over who's turn it was on the playstation.
Now I read articles about "free-range children" and parents getting in trouble for even letting them walk to school, and .. I realise I'm biased by my inputs (no-one writes articles saying "hey, nothing's changed"), but it seems like this is a different era. And damnit, I'm not old enough to call things eras yet.
But it does seem the 'mobile' has been missing in 'mobile gaming'. We've built an entire industry on "always available gaming" or "something to stare at on the subway gaming", but it's taken 34yo men playing what's basically an easter-egg hunt, to remind us what 'mobile' actually means.
I think most kids still intrinsically like the outdoors-- there is a lot of cool stuff out there.