The digital " lure " : Small businesses and Pokémon GO (original) (raw)
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Pokémon GO: Mobile media play, place-making, and the digital wayfarer
Mobile Media & Communication, 2017
This special commentary for Mobile Media & Communication seeks to put these divisive debates in context. Through the lens of Pokémon GO, we can understand and critically interpret a variety of issues involved in the politics and practice of playful mobile media. These issues move across debates around location-aware technologies in constructions of privacy (Coldewey, 2016; Cunningham, 2016), risk and surveillance (Machkovech, 2016; Mishra, 2016) to the role of mobile media in commodifying (Evangelho, 2016) and expanding the social, cultural, and creative dimensions of play (Isbister, 2016; Mäyrä, 2012). As the mobile media and game theorists in this commentary highlight, the game sits at the nexus of several technological and cultural trajectories: the playful turn; the ubiquity of location-based and haptic mobile media (and apps and games); innovative game design; the effects of digital mapping technologies; the intertwining of performative media games and art; our individual and c...
2018 10th International Conference on Virtual Worlds and Games for Serious Applications (VS-Games), 2018
Pokemon Go is a mobile game that uses geolocation and Augmented Reality (AR) to bring little monsters into the real world. In this paper, we want to outline a qualitative study which focuses on socio-technical effects of this game onto the players themselves. Episodical interviews are used to collect data which is then coded by an approach close to Grounded Theory. The results contain theories with quotations from the participants. On the technical side, players judge AR as hardly relevant for the game and more useful for advertisement through media coverage.
Pokemon Go as Technological and Cultural Artefact
Analysis of the contemporary technology of Pokemon Go (mobile location-based app) drawing on geographical theory on technology including attention, virtuality and prosthesis in order to argue that this cultural artefact produces a significantly altered human experience.
Involvement shield or social catalyst: Thoughts on sociospatial practice of Pokémon GO
Mobile Media & Communication, 2016
Around every new media technology debates circle about whether the technology is bringing people socially closer or pushing us further apart. According to popular press accounts, Pokémon GO players are absorbed into a game world on their phone with no attention or interest in the “real” world around them. But coupled with these accounts are stories of people exploring their neighborhoods and of marriage proposals in the midst of Pokémon hunting. This article puts Pokémon GO into a longer context of mobile technologies and sociospatial practice to explore the kinds of social interactions that can emerge around and through the use of Pokémon GO. In particular, the article explores how people can use the platform as both an involvement shield and social catalyst.
In the Footsteps of Smartphone-Users Traces of a Deferred Community in Ingress and Pokémon Go
Digital Culture & Society (DCS), 2017
In the article the authors carry out conceptual and theoretical reflections on smartphone communities by closely investigating two apps: Ingress (Niantic 2012) and Pokémon Go (Niantic 2016). While the games’ narratives fabricate reasons for the players to move, it is the Smartphone – understood as an open object between technological and cultural processes – that visualizes and tracks players’ movements and that situates and reshapes the devices, the users and their surroundings. A central aspect is that the ‘augmented’ cities that become visible in the apps are based on the traces of others: other processes and technologies, as well as other players. These traces of practices and movements structure the users’ experience and shape spaces. As traces are necessarily subsequent we develop the concept of a deferred (smartphone) community and analyze its visibility within the apps. By close reading the two case studies, we analyse the medial dimension of potential “Smartphone-Communities” as well as their demands and promises of participation. In order to gain a perspective that is neither adverse to new media nor celebratory of assumed participatory community phenomena, the article aims to interrogate the examples regarding their potential for individuation/dividuation and community building/dissolution. In doing so, the games’ conditions and the impositions posed to the players are central and include notions of consent and dissent. Drawing upon approaches from community philosophy and media theory we concentrate on the visible, audible or tangible of smartphone-interfaces. The traces left by the various processes that were at work become momentarily actualized on the display, where they manifest not as a fixed community but as a sense of communality.
Media Education, 2021
AR technology creates the possibility of overlapping two realities. It is a space used, among others, in education. AR increases the visual attractiveness of the game and the involvement of its users. However, some applications were not created with the intention of using them for this purpose, although they have the potential not only to entertain but also to teach. One of such games is "Pokemon Go!". which The following research methods were used in the study: 1) in-depth interview to learn about the specifics of the game "Pokemon Go!" and its potential educational opportunities; 2) observation allowing to write down the behavior of players while using the game; 3) a survey to find out the motivations and thoughts of the players. It was attempted to determine whether there will be any interaction between the players and the physical locations used in the game, using the format of the game chosen for the study, which was the passage along the proposed route. It turned out that thanks to the players' suggestions, a potentially optimal way of using the game was determined, which could be used in further research on the phenomenon of the educational dimension of the "Pokemon Go!" game.
Physical space has become intertwined with digital information with the escalatory development of information and communication technologies such as ubiquitous computing, mobile and wearable devices, GPS technology, wireless networks, smart city applications and augmented reality. The relationship between urban space and location-based technology has transformed everyday life practices; and one of these life practices is playing game. Location based mobile games (LBMGs) are being played on streets and provide interaction with urban environments. Mobile devices become the interface between the player and urban space, and players experience the urban through the game narrative. Nowadays, the most popular LBMGs are Ingress and Pokémon Go. Although the both games were created by the same company and configured on the same map, they arouse different effects. LBMGs have a great potential to shape gaming experiences thus researching different effects of Ingress and Pokémon Go hold an academic importance. The difference between these two games can only be revealed by participating in game communities and conducting a qualitative research. Because of that, this study is built on an ethnographic research about Ingress and Pokémon Go; and the results of the research revealed the importance of sociability. In this study, firstly, LBMGs are defined and the influences of these games on everyday life are discussed. Secondly, the differences and similarities are examined between Ingress and Pokémon Go according to the analysis obtained from participant observation and in-depth interviews. Finally, the importance of sociability is emphasized and foresights are provided in the light of research results to contribute to the game studies.
Understanding the Pokemon Go Phenomenon Through Augmented Reality Research (Oct. 1, 2016)
Pokemon Go is a game app that successfully introduced augmented reality (AR) to mass consumers due to its user friendly game design, as the AR game app offers ease of use, the free-to-play (F2P) marketing model, and the childhood nostalgia factor by referencing the well-established Pokemon manga, toys, and media franchise that has become globally popular since 1995. However, academics and game designers have been researching and creating augmented environments with augmented reality technology for decades, focusing on the use of AR technology to enhance the social experience of working in private and public sectors beyond entertainment, such as journalism, surgery and medicine, archeological exploration, and other uses (for example, see Geogia Teehs Augmented Environments Research Lab bibliography for a list of scholarly research on AR design and use cases). Due to the popularity of Pokemon Go, more AR apps will proliferate in the mobile market, and become regular staple installs on mass consumer devices. Several implications and forecasts can be made for the future of education given the popularity of Pokemon Go. Since the majority of students are mobile device consumers, this means that in the very near future, students will be using augmented reality (AR) apps, and later on virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) apps (as they become more affordable), as an inextricable part of daily life. Given that the use of mobile devices in education is becoming a trend, as more digitally connected educators are encouraging students to use mobile devices to conduct research and complete assignments, educators will need to begin considering the educational implications of AR, and how to utilize AR apps for educational purposes, such as the inclusion of AR apps usage as part of the requirements for achieving digital citizenship literacy.
The Geography of Pokémon GO: Beneficial and Problematic Effects on Places and Movement
The widespread popularity of Pokémon GO presents the first opportunity to observe the geographic effects of location-based gaming at scale. This paper reports the results of a mixed methods study of the geography of Pokémon GO that includes a five-country field survey of 375 Pokémon GO players and a large scale geostatistical analysis of game elements. Focusing on the key geographic themes of places and movement, we find that the design of Pokémon GO reinforces existing geographically-linked biases (e.g. the game advantages urban areas and neighborhoods with smaller minority populations), that Pokémon GO may have instigated a relatively rare large-scale shift in global human mobility patterns, and that Pokémon GO has geographically-linked safety risks, but not those typically emphasized by the media. Our results point to geographic design implications for future systems in this space such as a means through which the geographic biases present in Pokémon GO may be counteracted.