New Zealand man quits his job to play Pokemon Go

Tom Currie made a life changing decision of quitting his bartending job at a seaside restaurant in New Zealand to play Pokemon Go.

Relying on friends and family members, Currie, 24, will now depend on them for financial support as he struts his way through cute monster-packed world of the augmented reality mobile phone game, he admitted to the BBC.

The game has allowed Currie to visit and travel to new places which he says “[have] been the best part of playing instead of going to work every day.”

Launched over a week ago, Pokemon Go is a mobile game created by Nintendo in which players can walk around in real life, search for and capture Pokemon cartoon characters on through their smartphones.

A new job

“When I resigned, I didn’t tell my manager I was going out into the world to hunt Pokemon,” he told BBC’s Newsbeat.

“But after my story got picked up I gave him a courtesy call to update him just in case the media contacted him.”

Currie’s boss reacted to the news and hoped that he would “have fun for your Pokemon trip.”

While adding “Good on you Tom. It is really funny.”

Currie also told Newsbeat that his father texted him after hearing the news, saying:

“He always knew [Tom] would be famous.”

Since playing Pokemon Go, Tom has captured 91 of the 151 available pokemons in the game.

But says he will be returning to work once he’s captured them all.