Pokémon GO: Mobile media play, place-making, and the digital wayfarer

Abstract

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 collective memories of playworlds and transmedia universes; the increasing importance of issues concerning privacy and risk in public spaces; the ongoing augmentation of place and space; and the politics embedded in this hybrid experience of the lifeworld.

Sociability on Location Based Mobile Games: An Ethnographic Research on Pokémon Go and Ingress in Istanbul

“…Ethnographic method is a qualitative method applied to determine human behavior's causality in a cultural aspect; by observing a community, it allows creating a portrayal on that community. The ethnographic method is an inductive method and requires observation of the space in which social relations occurs (Angrosino, 2008, s. [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18].…”

“…Pokémon Go is developed as a result of collaboration between Niantic and Nintendo. Pokémon Go has brought together decades of mobile media, locative arts, gaming, and Japanese culture (Hjorth & Richardson, 2017). The game combines mobile location technology and augmented reality with Pokémon narrative; it utilizes the player's mobile device's GPS ability to locate, capture, battle and train virtual creatures, called Pokémon, which appear on the screen as if they were at the same real-world location as the player.…”

“…Especially LBMGs are digital games that are important for socialization because these games are played in public space and allow face-toface communication. LBMGs can be flexibly deployed by users as a means to facilitate social interaction (Hjorth & Richardson, 2017). Salen and Zimmerman (2003) grouped the social interaction in the game on two levels.…”

Narrative's impact on quality of experience in digital storytelling

“…It uses GPS combined with Google Maps to give people an AR experience where they find and collect virtual creatures [17] [18] [19] . This shows how a location based project can make us engage more with our environments [20] [21].…”

Reimaginar la ciudad. Prácticas de ocio juvenil y producción del espacio público urbano

“…Pokémon Go was one of the most popular apps of 2016 worldwide and by February 2017 its number of downloads amounted to 650 million, which makes it one of the youth leisure practices of greatest global impact in the last years. The hybrid nature of the game, consisting of the superimposition of physical and digital environments, allows the player to enjoy a specific experience of urban space: by adding digital elements, trivial and familiar locations become meaningful game loci, scenes of a ludic adventure through the city (Hjorth y Richardson, 2017). This combination of familiarity and excitement has a powerful effect on the players, many of whom change their daily routines because of the game, engaging in behaviour easily ridiculed by the media.…”