Someone made Pokémon Go for Telstra payphones

Ten years after Pokémon Go took over hearts and minds, there’s a new "real-world" location-based game to obsess over with a very Australian twist.

As the name might suggest, Payphone Tag has players claim Telstra payphones to score points and increase their ranking. Players need to venture to payphones in real life, call the game's number, and enter their unique PIN. This "captures" it, increasing the user's ranks. Creating triangular clusters acts as a multiplier, and players can even form teams.  

Payphone Tag was built by Alex Allchin, a developer responsible for a number of geospatial projects. Allchin already had a dataset of every payphone in the country from FreePhone - a site of his where you can call any payphone - and recently discovered he could buy an Australian landline number for just $2. 

"I bought a phone number and wanted to do something fun with it", wrote Allchin on the Payphone Tag site. 

Payphone Tag has been live for about a month, and at time of writing, there have been less than 1,000 active players in the last seven days. Allchin told WhistleOut interest has been increasing, however, following a TikTok he posted that racked over 200,000 views. Telstra itself highlighted the game on its social media profiles. 

While the player count may not be huge, the audience appears to be engaged. Payphones have been captured over 41,000 times at time of writing. That's over 41 captures per player. 

"The first time I saw someone capturing phones at 11pm on a Friday night, I thought that this has potential to grow because people are getting hooked playing it," said Allchin. "Having Telstra share it was a real surprise, it's great to see [the company] embracing it. I wasn't sure how [the company would] feel about the extra traffic which the game might be causing to the payphone network!"

Allchin says the community response has inspired him to invest more time in building Payphone Tag. 

"I was previously spending much of my free development time building out a mapping website for bushwalkers in NSW, which is relatively niche," said Allchin. "I have spent hundreds of hours on it and I did it because it was something I wanted to exist, but it didn't."

"The usage though, is far lower than what Payphone Tag has, so it's interesting to contrast the two projects. I think as long as there's an active community who wants to play, and I have the capacity to do so, I'll support it."

"I'm also interested in how the game changes as the number of players grows. With a fixed set of phones but a growing player base, the rate at which captures and steals happen will continue to increase, making it harder for players to hold their territory and captures. Will this turn people away from the game or encourage people to play even harder? Maybe there are new gameplay mechanics which would lead to a better player experience as the player base grows."

Because Telstra payphones are free to make calls from, Payphone Tag is free to play. Allchin attributes the free nature to the game's appeal, and notes one doesn't "even need to have a mobile phone to play". He isn't against adding some form of monetisation, however, but doesn't want it to give players any gameplay advantage. 

"Having some level of revenue would help increase the longevity of the game and allow for continued feature development, which I think benefits everyone," said Allchin.

"You obviously have the ads route, which I'm not a great fan of, but I do think you could do something cool with hyper-localised ads over the phone line, for example, the game plays a 'get 10% off your next coffee at Cafe ABC when you mention Payphone Tag' for the payphones right near that cafe."

Allchin has other ideas for expanding Payphone Tag, including different gameplay modes, but one he is already working on will make use of Teletypewriter (TTY) payphones. Around 100 Telstra payphones have a special keyboard that sends tones over the phone line that are decoded on the other side, effectively allowing people to communicate via text. Allchin describes it as an "analogue version of SMS". 

"The idea is that players will be able to leave messages via the payphone keyboard for the next player to read. It really plays into the whole spy theme quite well."

In addition to sharing Payphone Tag on social media, a Telstra spokesperson told WhistleOut the game has resulted in a noticeable spike in call volumes. The company doesn't seem to mind, however. 

"Payphone Tag taps into Australians’ love of what we consider a national icon," said the spokesperson. "We’re seeing Aussies rediscover payphones on their own terms – racing between them, competing with mates, and turning everyday infrastructure into something social and fun."

"It’s a great reminder that Telstra payphones are free for local and national calls and still play an important role in communities right across Australia."

Alex Choros

Managing Editor + Group Telco Editor | X | Instagram | Threads | LinkedIn

Alex Choros is the Managing Editor of WhistleOut Australia and an award-winning journalist. He's been writing about consumer technology for over a decade and is an expert on the Australian telco sector, to the point where he knows far too many phone and internet plans by heart. In addition to leading the WhistleOut editorial team, Alex is responsible for ruining the office Sonos with his troubled taste in music.

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