The Geography of Pokémon GO: Beneficial and Problematic Effects on Places and Movement

Ashley Colley; Jacob Thebault-Spieker; Allen Yilun Lin; Donald Degraen; Benjamin Fischman; Jonna Häkkilä; Kate Kuehl; Valentina Nisi; Nuno J Nunes; Nina Wenig; Dirk Wenig; Brent Jaron Hecht; Johannes Schöning

The Geography of Pokémon GO: Beneficial and Problematic Effects on Places and Movement

Ashley Colley, Jacob Thebault-Spieker, Allen Yilun Lin, Donald Degraen, Benjamin Fischman, Jonna Häkkilä, Kate Kuehl, Valentina Nisi, Nuno J Nunes, Nina Wenig, Dirk Wenig, Brent Jaron Hecht, Johannes Schöning

Communication Studies

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

128 Scopus citations

Abstract

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.

Original language	English (US)
Title of host publication	CHI '17 Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Pages	1167-1178
Number of pages	12
State	Published - 2017

Cite this

Colley, A., Thebault-Spieker, J., Yilun Lin, A., Degraen, D., Fischman, B., Häkkilä, J., Kuehl, K., Nisi, V., Nunes, N. J., Wenig, N., Wenig, D., Hecht, B. J., & Schöning, J. (2017). The Geography of Pokémon GO: Beneficial and Problematic Effects on Places and Movement. In CHI '17 Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1167-1178 )

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title = "The Geography of Pok{\'e}mon GO: Beneficial and Problematic Effects on Places and Movement",

abstract = "The widespread popularity of Pok{\'e}mon 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 Pok{\'e}mon GO that includes a five-country field survey of 375 Pok{\'e}mon 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 Pok{\'e}mon GO reinforces existing geographically-linked biases (e.g. the game advantages urban areas and neighborhoods with smaller minority populations), that Pok{\'e}mon GO may have instigated a relatively rare large-scale shift in global human mobility patterns, and that Pok{\'e}mon 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 Pok{\'e}mon GO may be counteracted.",

author = "Ashley Colley and Jacob Thebault-Spieker and {Yilun Lin}, Allen and Donald Degraen and Benjamin Fischman and Jonna H{\"a}kkil{\"a} and Kate Kuehl and Valentina Nisi and Nunes, {Nuno J} and Nina Wenig and Dirk Wenig and Hecht, {Brent Jaron} and Johannes Sch{\"o}ning",

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AU - Colley, Ashley

AU - Thebault-Spieker, Jacob

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AU - Degraen, Donald

AU - Fischman, Benjamin

AU - Häkkilä, Jonna

AU - Kuehl, Kate

AU - Nisi, Valentina

AU - Nunes, Nuno J

AU - Wenig, Nina

AU - Wenig, Dirk

AU - Hecht, Brent Jaron

AU - Schöning, Johannes

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PY - 2017

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N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

M3 - Conference contribution

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EP - 1178

BT - CHI '17 Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

ER -

The Geography of Pokémon GO: Beneficial and Problematic Effects on Places and Movement

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