Keywords

1 Introduction

The notion of “place” and how we understand it takes on an additional layer of meaning when it is conceptualised through media technologies. As Wilken (2008) rightly notes, “[a] common refrain in much of the critical literature from the 1980s and 1990s has been that electronic media affect dramatically (and negatively) how we experience and understand place” (p. 29). This refrain, of course, continues today. Significantly, but perhaps not surprisingly, mobile phone usage across the globe has increased over time (see Parasuraman et al. 2017). Mobile telephony is now embedded in the modern urban aesthetic (Sterne 2012). Equally, as mobile media continues to become a ubiquitous part of our daily lives, the potential for “places” to be altered, or modified, through technological engagement is more pronounced than ever. Symptomatic of this, and again, not unexpectedly, a common sight in any given city involves large gatherings of people, in a variety of contexts, staring—oftentimes impassively—at their mobile devices. This spectacle is frequently found in those “in-between” spaces, such as bus stops or train stations, where the confluence of strangers and the ceaseless use of mediating technologies effectively sees users transform their surroundings into “non-places” (Augé 1995).

While the application of mobile devices in these examples might seem, on the surface at least, explicitly antisocial, and an argument could indeed be made as such (see Deacon 2016), this is not necessarily the case. The increase in mobile telephony has also provided people with new ways of maintaining social connections with friends, family, colleagues, and so on, without having to physically occupy the same space (Licoppe 2004). For Gergen (2002), this situation is indicative of what he refers to as “absent presence”. In these instances, individuals are physically present in the context of inhabiting a concrete space, while also cognitively absent by engaging with a virtual plane of sociability that extends beyond their immediate surroundings. Just as non-digital forms of mobile media, such as the paperback novel, for instance, have traditionally been used to forge intangible zones of privacy in public spaces (see de Souza e Silva and Frith 2012), so too can mobile phones be called upon to serve a similar purpose regarding social interactions (Habuchi 2005). In this vein, it would be reductive to simply suggest mobile telephony has cheapened social acts. More accurately, mobile telephony has elicited news modes of sociability that are predicated on different forms of spatiality and temporality (see Evans 2015; Saker and Evans 2016a, b).

Of course, the impact of mobile phones also extends beyond merely socialising with physically absent contacts. For Ling (2004) and Weilenmann (2003) another noteworthy effect of mobile phones revolves around the coordination of social gatherings. With the clear majority of people today carrying mobile phones on their person, social arrangements can be readily adjusted on the fly (see Ling 2004; Ling and Yttri 2002). To this end, Ling and Yttri (2002) suggest that mobile telephony can be employed to “micro-coordinate” sociability, with a by-product of this organisation being the “softening” of mechanical time (p. 6). The advent of mobile phones correspondingly means that social arrangements are potentially more fluid that they used to be because concomitant details no longer need to be set in stone. On the one hand, users have more freedom over the actualisation of social interactions and this is a good thing. On the other hand, individuals no longer need to be punctual because the option of “micro” adjustment is available. Depending on which side of this fluidity you find yourself, “micro-coordination” can either be exceedingly helpful, or exceptionally frustrating.

For the purpose of this chapter, what this very brief dérive through the history of mobile telephony importantly reveals is that mobile phones can affect how individuals approach and experience their environment. This tendency was clearly identified by early research on the public use of mobile devices, which often focused on the propensity of these devices to distract users from their physical environment (de Gournay 2002; Gergen 2002; Katz and Aahkus 2002), in certain instances cause pedestrian injury (Nasar and Troyer 2013). Likewise, research on the distractive potential of mobile phones also encompasses vehicle accidents (McEvoy et al. 2005), with offending drivers causing all manner of calamities because they were more focused on their mobile device than the road ahead. Health and safety issues aside, what we wish to draw attention to here is the fact these devices can explicitly reshape how people interact, engage and personalise their physical setting. And this impact has only increased as mobile phones have continued to incorporate new features and functionalities (see Evans and Saker 2017; Saker and Frith 2018).

Following the transition from mobile phones to smartphones, research in this field has markedly moved away from conceptualising mobile media as necessarily distracting users from their immediate surroundings and has instead begun to explore how these devices might complement and create new revealings of place (see Campbell 2018, for a longer discussion of this argument). In the context of this smartphone movement, the incorporation of the global positioning system (GPS) in most of today’s handsets, as well as the development of the mobile web, are noteworthy (Evans and Saker 2017). For de Souza e Silva (2006) this confluence has led to what she refers to as “hybrid space”, which occurs when real world environments are overlaid with digital information that can then be accessed through smartphones. This “hybrid space” “has given rise to new embodied experiences and social connections in space, [using] applications dedicated to harnessing location and social ties” (Evans and Saker 2017: 4). Notable examples of early locative media include, Can You See Me Now? (2001), Botfighters (2001), Mogi (2003), Pac Manhattan (2004), Foursquare (2008), Shadow Cities (2010), and Ingress (2012). In the context of this chapter, what these locative applications readily demonstrate is the potentiality of hybrid space to alter how users engage with their surroundings.

Moving forwards, this chapter focuses on two prime examples of locative media: the early location-based social networking sites (LBSN), Foursquare, and the more recent hybrid reality game (HRG), Pokémon Go. It is our intention to provide a historical and critical overview of the different ways in which people have utilised these applications to enhance and personalise their experience of the urban, paying particular attention to how the spatial impact of more contemporary locative media can be contextualised through recourse to earlier locative applications. In both cases, we draw on original research. Regarding Foursquare, this chapter reports on a project designed to explore the spatial and social experiences of LBSN users. The study took place between August and December 2012, and involved 22 users of Foursquare situated in the Southeast of Britain. Regarding Pokémon GO, this chapter reports on a project similarly designed to explore the spatial and social experiences of HRG users. This research was conducted between May 2017 and July 2017. It used an online survey that received 375 responses from Pokémon Go users geographically spread across the globe. Both research projects involved a post-research thematic analysis of interview transcriptions, where material was highlighted that resonated with the underlying conceptual bent of these studies.

More specifically, this chapter reports on how Foursquare and Pokémon Go can enhance and personalise experiences of the urban along three lines. The chapter pays particular attention to whether the playing of these locative games led to participants approaching their surroundings using pathways that differed from their usual routes. The chapter also considers whether this reshaping of participants’ daily mobilities saw them move through different and potentially new environments. Lastly, the chapter examines whether the mediation of space and place through these locative applications led to participants experiencing a heightened sense of pleasure that extended beyond their usual ambulation. In the following section, we outline the theoretical framework that underpins this research. For the most part this involves the work of de Certeau (1984) and Lefebvre (1991), both of which examine the extent to which physical and social relations impact the phenomenological experience of place. We then detail the body of work that has gradually coalesced around locative media in the thematic context of this chapter, before outlining suitable frameworks for approaching locative media. We then detail the gamic mechanics of both Foursquare and Pokémon GO, before providing additional information about the methodological design of these studies. Finally, we present our findings.

2 Spatiality Is not Simply Given (And Neither Is Locative Media…)

Within his seminal work, The Practice of Everyday Life (1984), de Certeau discusses his visceral reaction to witnessing Manhattan from the 110th floor of the World Trade Center. As he explains.

Beneath the haze stirred up by the winds, the urban island, a sea in the middle of a sea, lifts up the skyscrapers over Wall Street, sinks down at Greenwich, then rises again to the crests of Midtown, quietly passes over Central Park and finally undulates off into the distance beyond Harlem. A wave of verticals. Its agitation is momentarily arrested by vision. (de Certeau 1984: 91)

From this position, de Certeau was outwardly able to aesthetically grasp New York in its totality, with the unravelling, and oftentimes “erupting”, city below him being momentarily “immobilised” by his eyes, and taking on the quality of a text to be deciphered. As Buchanan (2000) puts it, “[from] this dizzying vantage-point the entire city was spread out before him like a map … if he wanted to he could read it like a map” (p. 110). However, it was not necessarily the cartography of the city that gripped de Certeau’s attention per se, but rather the inability of the city to be read from such an abstracted position. As he ponders, “[must] one finally fall back into the dark space where crowds move back and forth, crowds that, though visible from on high, are themselves unable to see below?” (de Certeau 1984: 92).

For de Certeau, the vista from top of the World Trade Center presented an image that was, on closer inspection, conceptually inconceivable. “[The] constellation of lives that make a city what it is, the actual experience of the city … is not contained in the concept of the city” (Buchanan 2000: 110). Thus, the city in its geometric form, at once totalises the urban text, in its anthropological shape, or “urban fact” (ibid, p. 94), while failing to untangle the many pedestrian pathways and perspectives ceaselessly written below at street level. As de Certeau concurringly clarifies “[the] ordinary practitioners of the city live ‘down below,’ below the thresholds at which visibility begins” (ibid, p. 93). As a corollary to this, the experience of the “urban fact” endlessly surpasses the feigned solidity of cartography where, “something always slips away” (Buchanan 2000: 110). What is required, then, is a perspective on spatiality that engages with the lived experiences of those individuals who configure the urban experience. To this end, Lefebvre’s triadic understanding of spatiality provides another way of conceptualising the lived experience of the urban setting.

For Lefebvre (1991), a notable problem with early social theory was its perpetual focus on issues pertaining to temporality, rather than spatiality. This situation was itself symptomatic of Kant’s suggestion that time and space were merely a priori vessels of experience. Following this, spatiality was rendered as little more than a hollow conduit for experiences to flow. Consequently, “Kantian space, albeit relative, albeit a tool of knowledge, a means of classifying phenomena, was yet quite clearly separated (along with time) from the empirical sphere” (Lefebvre 1991: 2). To temper this, Lefebvre proposes that space should be understood in three converging, but not irreducible, ways. This triad includes: spatial practice, representations of space and representational space (ibid, p. 2). As Elden (2004) explicates.

The first of these takes space as physical form, real space, space that is generated and used. The second is space of savoir (knowledge) and logic, or maps, mathematics, of space as the instrumental space of social engineers and urban planners, of navigators and explorers. Space as a mental construct, imagined space. The third sees space as produced and modified over time and through its use, spaces invested with symbolism and meaning, the space of connaissance (less formal or more local forms of knowledge), space as real-and-imagined. (p. 190)

From this position, space is simultaneously perceived, conceived and lived. In other words, Lefebvre establishes this triad to bring together the mental, material and social. Were one to consider this configuration through the eyes of de Certeau (1984) it would appear in the following way. The perceived space of Manhattan would be the city itself, in its vibrating, and ceaselessly evolving totality; the conceived space would be the abstracted cartographic map overlaying the sprawling streets and back allies; and finally, the lived space would be the phenomenological experience of being within the city—of configuring oneself within the flows and forces that emanate from street level.

A good example of the kind of lived space de Certeau (1984) envisages from the 110th floor of the World Trade Centre is the practice of flânerie which emerged in Paris at the turn of the nineteenth century, and which introduced a new urban figure: the flâneur. For the flâneur, the erection of the Arcades coincided with an emerging relationship with the urban setting based on scopophilia and mobility. No longer were the city streets merely pathways from one place to another, but instead became the canvas upon which the flâneur developed an aesthetic relationship with his surroundings. “In an embodied sense then, what the flâneur highlights is the various ways in which any given space is itself constructed precisely through the engagements that make it up” (Saker and Evans 2016a, b: 4–5). Drawing heavily on the work of both de Certeau (1984) and Lefebvre (1991), space is never just an empty container that provides room for experiences to materialise. Spatiality, is, of course, more than this. Just as any given map unremittingly fails to account for the lived experiences that configure notions of “place”, spatiality co-constructs experience through the various physical and social actions that experiences are centred on.

In the context of locative media, it is fitting to posit that different locative applications have the power to modify how users interact with, experience, and personalise their physical surroundings. Fortunately, this suggestion is unambiguously supported by a growing body of work that now surrounds locative media (see de Souza e Silva and Frith 2012; Evans 2015; Evans and Saker 2017; Frith 2015). As we have mapped out elsewhere (Evans and Saker 2017) research in this field readily demonstrates that locative applications have the power to reshape how users experience their physical setting. The endless contact with communal ties that locative applications provide, as well as the interminable possibility of forging serendipitous social interactions based on the physical proximity to networked friends, are just some of the features that comprise modern mobile media. Equally, it has been our suggestion that an important element of many of these applications is the various ways they dexterously intermingle “ordinary life” with play (Saker and Evans 2016a), and therefore challenge traditional understandings of play that suggest this phenomenon is spatially and temporally cordoned off from “ordinary” life and contained in what Huizinga (1992 [1938]) refers to as being a “magic circle”.

Moving forwards, then, and following on from the theoretical framework developed above, this chapter reports on how Foursquare and Pokémon Go—in both instances, locative media that incorporates gamic elements—can enhance and personalise experiences of the urban environment along three lines outlined above. While locative media have been studied in the context of spatiality (see Evans and Saker 2017; Saker and Evans 2016a, b), as previously detailed, and has thus questioned the impact on mobilities and so on, there is a lack of research that explicitly draws on research pertaining to different instances of locative media separated by time. It is therefore the intention of this chapter to demonstrate how the spatial impact of earlier locative applications, like Foursquare, can be used to understand and interpret the spatial impact of more recent HRGs, like Pokémon Go. In doing so, we hope to add contours to related research within the canon of locative media. In the following section, we outline the gamic mechanics of both Foursquare and Pokémon GO, before providing additional information about the methodological design of these studies, and then presenting our findings.

3 Foursquare

Foursquare was developed by Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai in late 2008, launched in 2009, “and had 50 million registered users by May 2014” (Evans and Saker 2017: 5). In late 2014, however, Foursquare began concentrating more on place-based recommendations, with its check-in functionality, which is a central part of this chapter, being moved to a separate application, Swarm. Prior to this shift, Foursquare ostensibly functioned in three broad ways: it allowed users to “keep up with friends”, “discover what’s nearby”, and “save money and unlock rewards”. Put differently, it functioned in a social, locational and playful manner. Regarding the social side, Foursquare allowed users to share their location with a defined list of friends by “checking in” at a venue or location through the application. This could thus create the opportunity for ad hoc social interactions, and so on. Regarding the locational side, users were able to leave place-based suggestions, or “tips”, which could be seen by other users when they were physically nearby. Further, users checks-in were stored within the application itself, and thus became akin to a locational diary. Regarding the playful side, Foursquare effectively “gamified” “ordinary” life by awarding points for check-ins, and allowing users to become the “mayor” of any given establishment if they checked-in more than any other users over a 60-day period. Mayors could then enjoy “real” world rewards, such as special offers and discounts, as well as the knowledge that other users could see their status. In addition, Foursquare also awarded various badges for different check-ins, and combinations of check-ins. It is this original version of Foursquare that we are discussing within this chapter.

4 Pokémon Go

Following its release on the July 6, 2016, Pokémon Go has been downloaded over 750 million times (Kinsley 2017), and become the most popular HRG to date. In contrast to Foursquare, Pokémon Go is an augmented reality (AR) application. Using the camera functionality of smartphones, alongside the global positioning system (GPS) and gyroscope found in the clear majority of smartphones, users are presented with an image of their surroundings that is then superimposed with Pokémon. The aim of Pokémon Go is to capture Pokémon. Here, players must physically traverse their environment to discover and then apprehend Pokémon. Once a Pokémon has been found, the process of capturing it involves flicking a Poké Ball in its direction through the AR functionality of the game. If players are successful, the Pokémon will then be under theirs. Outside of capturing Pokémon, players will also be presented with Pokéstops and gyms. Pokéstops are where players can collect items such as eggs and Poké Balls. These items can be used to support the process of apprehending Pokémon. Pokéstops are commonly found at noteworthy places, such as historical sites, monuments and art installations. Gyms are where Pokémon trainers battle each other. Gyms visually appear on players’ screens in the form of colourful towers, and are similarly found near places of interest. On entering a gym for the first time, players are required to join and pledge their allegiance to one of three teams. Having done this, players can then battle at both “friendly” and “rival” gyms. Battling at a “friendly” gym helps strengthen the team by increasing its “prestige” through the acquisition of “prestige” points. In contrast, successfully battling at a rival’ gym lessens the enemy’s prestige. When the enemy’s prestige is reduced to zero, the friendly team take control of that gym.

5 Method

The data used in this chapter is based on two original research projects, one focusing on the seminal LBSN, Foursquare, and the other focusing on the more recent and hugely popular HRG, Pokémon Go. In both instances, these research projects were designed to respectively examine the impact of LBSNs and HRGs on spatiality, mobility and sociability. Accordingly, research questions revolved around these themes. To be clear, we were not interested in making wide-ranging generalizations about LBSNs or HRGs, but were instead concerned with gaining rich data on how “ordinary” people employed different locative media in their daily lives. With this in mind, both projects adopted a qualitative methodological approach. The first involving semi-structured interviews and the second involving an online survey.

Regarding the first project on Foursquare, research was conducted between August and December 2012. In line with the methodological bent of this project, a purposeful sampling strategy was adopted. Here, researchers were interested in speaking to a wide range of users. In sum, 22 Foursquare users, all of whom lived in the Southeast of Britain, were recruited through Twitter, and then subsequently interviewed. This area was specifically chosen so the researchers could conduct face-to-face interviews, where possible. In total, 22 Foursquare users were interviewed in person, and 2 further interviews were conducted through Skype. Participants included 5 women and 17 men, with ages ranging from 19 to 65. The mean age was 32. Interviews were semi-structured and focused on the impact of Foursquare on how participants moved through their surroundings and engaged with others. In the main, interviews lasted roughly 60 min, with the view being that “anything going much over an hour may be making unreasonable demands on busy interviewees, and could have the effect of reducing the number of persons willing to participate” (Robson 2002, p. 273). Aside from the 2 interviews that were conducted online, interviews took place in venues that participants frequently checked-into on Foursquare. All interviews were recorded and then transcribed by hand.

Regarding the second project on Pokémon Go, research was conducted between May 2017 and July 2017. We used an online survey that received 375 responses from Pokémon Go users geographically spread across the globe. Users emanated from the following countries: 235 from the UK, 75 from the US, 17 from EU countries, 4 from Australia, 2 from Canada, and 1 from Hong Kong, Kuwait, and India. Forty respondents chose not to state their location. 213 respondents identified themselves as female, 157 as male, 1 as gender fluid, 1 as bigender, 1 as nonbinary, and 1 chose not to disclose. The survey included both closed and open-questions, and congruently revolved around issues pertaining to on spatiality, mobility and sociability.

Both research projects concluded with a post-research thematic analysis of interview transcriptions and survey data. Here, material was highlighted that resonated with the underlying spatial and social bent of these studies. An interpretive stage was subsequently employed to tease out meaning from the marked material, before interpretations were hierarchically ordered in terms of their thematic significance.

6 Findings

6.1 Modified Mobilities

Our research on both Foursquare and Pokémon GO found that these locative applications explicitly pushed participants to spend more time outside engaging with the “real” world, and less time in doors. As Mark, a then 18-year-old undergraduate and early adopter of Foursquare explained.

I started wanting to go out more, to check-in to places and to get like points and things like that. I think it”s made me want to go out a lot more for some reason. (Mark, 18, male, Foursquare)

In the main, the reasoning behind Mark’s desire to spend more time outside was proportionate to his desire to play the game. More time spent moving through his physical setting meant that he had more opportunities to “check-in” to different places, and thus more opportunities to gain additional points. Significantly, then, Mark’s wish to send more time outside implicitly challenges traditional understandings of play’s relationship with ordinary life (Huizinga 1992 [1938]). The overlaying of Mark’s physical setting with digital information has explicitly made his ordinary life feel more playful, which has subsequently motivated him to spend more time in the outside world.

This increase in the time spent outdoors, as an effect of locative play, was similarly echoed by Pokémon Go participants.

Playing after work instead of just going home.

(Rhiannon, 24-35, female, Pokémon GO)

I leave the house after work instead of just stay in.

(Yareli, 45-54, female, Pokémon GO)

Aside from going to work and back, I make extra efforts to go out every day to keep up my pokestop/catching daily bonus. I find on day’s off I will also go out far more than I ever used to.

(Tilly, 18-24, female, Pokémon GO)

I go outside a lot more than I otherwise would and often take alternate routes that I otherwise would not for the purposes of finding a particular Pokémon, pokestop, or gym.

(Brian, 18-24, male, Pokémon GO)

For Brian, a marked by-product of his engagement with his HRG, was that he would decisively choose different pathways and routes between point A and B, to increase the likelihood of him discovering new Pokémon to capture. From this position, the merging of physical space with digital information (de Souza e Silva 2006) through Pokémon Go functions in a similar manner to the construction of the Parisian Arcades at the turn of the 19th Century. This deepening of space—albeit digital space—co-constructs a new kind of environment to inhabit, with the scopophilia in this instance oscillating between physical space and the mediation of physical space through the digital interface of the smartphone. The purposeful decision to choose routes not previously taken, was similarly touched on by other participants. As these extracts readily attest.

Travel different routes to pass more stops, go out to catch rare Pokémon.

(Lucy, 25-34, female, Pokémon GO)

I intentionally direct my routes, when completing daily errands, to go through areas with less common Pokémon or to include pokestops or gyms.

(Nada, 35-44, female, Pokémon GO)

I alter my walking route to and from work to hit gyms or stops. I also have found decent routes with high Pokémon density to catch.

(Liam, 25-34, male, Pokémon GO)

The intentional reshaping of common routes was also experienced by participants who used Foursquare. As Paul notes

I remember there was one specific day, where it went mental. We went on a massive walk around the city, checking in at the parks as we walked through them, we would specifically go to places, extra shops, just to check-in. That was a particularly slow day that allowed us to do that, but it was a good laugh.

(Paul, 24, male, Foursquare)

At the same time, and as touched on by Paul, in many instances participants were not simply choosing different routes between one location and another per se, although this was, of course, part of the decision process, but were more importantly choosing to take lengthier routes to increase their chances of happening upon a greater volume of Pokémon.

My walk to work takes significantly longer. I take a lot of detours now.

(Flo, 18-24, female, Pokémon GO)

I may take longer routes to places or go for walks which I may have not gone on otherwise. (Bryony, 18-24, female, Pokémon GO)

I may take longer routes to places or go for walks which I may have not gone on otherwise. (Denise, 18-24, female, Pokémon GO)

I always make time to play and sometimes go a certain route that may be slightly out of the way (Mike, 35-44, male, Pokémon GO)

Choosing routes that were ‘out of the way’, was something similarly touched by Amy, a then avid user of Foursquare with a penchant for collecting badges.

We went out of our way to go past Wembley Stadium so I could get a football badge. (Amy, 37, female, Foursquare)

This idea, then, of taking a longer route is immediately noteworthy, as it runs counter to the kind of decision making processes that one would assume usually underpin urban ambulation. For the most part, taking the quickest route between A and B is typically deemed to be more valuable to pedestrians than choosing a pathway that is markedly longer. In this vein, what our research demonstrates is the power of locative media to symbolically reshape the urban aesthetic, and with it the mobilities that support notions of place, just as it underlines the socially constructed nature of space (de Certeau 1984; Lefebvre 1991) and its malleability. Within the context of locative play, participants might choose to spend more time moving through their environment following different routes, as this temporality comes with rewards that extend beyond locative efficiency. Regarding Foursquare, this meant participants had more opportunity to check-into more places. Regarding Pokémon Go, this meant participants had more likelihood of coming across Pokémon to add to their collection. Because of this, participants found that their everyday mobilities overtly increased when they engaged in locative play. However, this increase was particularly felt by Pokémon Go participants.

I walk everywhere now. Any excuse to pop out of the house is welcomed and we try to discover a new park or place each week

(Parker, 25-34, male, Pokémon GO)

Walk more and go to places I wouldn’t normally go

(Alice, 25-34, female, Pokémon GO)

I have lunch at the cafe in range of the nearest gym. I regularly go for extended walks to play the game which I would not have done previously.

(Evan, 18-24, male, Pokémon GO)

I walk more, and I plan errands around gyms, especially now with raids

(Jackie, 45-54, female, Pokémon GO)

Echoing recent studies of Pokémon Go that have suggested this HRG might improve the health of players by significantly reducing sedentary behaviours (Nigg et al. 2016), our research similarly found that a symptom of Pokémon Go was that participants became more physically active.

7 Frequenting New Places

In both cases, our research on Foursquare and Pokémon GO also revealed that further consequence of using these locative media was that participants began frequenting new places and environments that they had not been to before. As the following extracts about Pokémon Go demonstrates.

Going to new locations never been before on a weekly basis to get gyms and pokestops

(Tallulah, 18-24, female, Pokémon GO)

Our downtown area I really never visited a lot, and it’s where or best spawns are, but I go at least once a week now.

(Carly, 35-44, female, Pokémon GO)

Explore more of my local area regularly. Makes me want to cycle to places (work etc.) instead of drive so I can catch a few Pokémon, spin stops etc.

(Uriel, 25-34, male, Pokémon GO)

In these examples, the gamic mechanics of Pokémon Go does not simply push participants to move through their surroundings following longer and oftentimes more convoluted routes, but can also push some participants to inhabit new places that they have not been to before. Both Paul and Samantha implicitly touch on a similar spatial tendency relating to Foursquare.

I remember there was one specific day, where it went mental. We went on a massive walk around the city, checking in at the parks as we walked through them, we would specifically go to places, extra shops, just to check-in. That was a particularly slow day that allowed us to do that, but it was a good laugh. (Paul, 24, male, Foursquare)

There was one day when we went to town, we went shopping, and literally every shop we went into we checked-in. We checked-into West Quay, we checked-into every shop, then we went for food, we went for lunch, and then we went to a bar, checked-in there. It was just constant. Trying to get the points. (Samantha, 22, female, Foursquare)

However, just as the likelihood of frequenting new environments is an inherent feature of the gamic mechanics of Foursquare, so too can this facet of LBSN usage mean that a change in circumstances surrounding daily mobilities can push participants to reassess the value this activity confers upon their quotidian ambulation. Regarding the use of Foursquare, Samantha, a then 24-year-old “serious user” of this LBSN, found that her desire to check-in gradually lessened after she had graduated from university, and was thus less able to spend days exploring her surroundings to obtain locative points. As she explains

I’m not a student anymore so I don’t go to as many different places, and I’m not going to check-in to work every single day or something like that. When I first started using it there was a lot of competition in our group of friends; who could get the most points, trying to get each other’s mayorships and things like that, so that’s what made us use it a lot more.

(Samantha, 22, female, Foursquare)

In a similar vein, Henry, a then 37-year-old “casual user” of Foursquare, also found his proclivity to “play the game” waned over time.

Well at the beginning, it is because it’s a game. You get the points and the badges. So, in the beginning I was quite hooked on the game, so I wanted to be the first one of my friends to get the most points, so I was checking in everywhere that I went. I got over that. It was only really the first few months I used it like that. Now I really only check-in to places that are interesting or exciting, or if something exciting is happening like, for example, when I’m going on holiday I’ll check-in at the airport and say I’m going to Spain tomorrow, and if I’m on holiday and I’m in a really nice restaurant or a good place then I’ll check-in to those places, but I wouldn’t just check-in to Starbucks, today, without you here.

(Henry, 37, male, Foursquare)

In the context of both projects, then, and as one might assume, the temporality of play associated with both Foursquare and Pokémon Go differed. In many ways, this variance is symptomatic of the different affordances related to LBSNs and HRGs. Whereas the former might incorporate gamic elements, much like Foursquare did, these elements are not usually as pronounced as they are with HRGs, nor are they as subject to change. Consequently, over time players become used to the digital space that encompasses their physical setting. Once the initial novelty of locative play has worn off, players are seemingly less motivated to continue playing the game. This is what we found with our research on Foursquare (Evans and Saker 2017). In contrast, Pokémon Go is markedly different. First, the gamic elements of this HRG outwardly extend beyond the initial novelty of locative play. Second, the game itself is frequently updated with new Pokémon to catch, as well all new events. And it is this second difference that we suggest is noteworthy in the context of “hybrid space” (de Souza e Silva 2006) and the canon of locative media. While early forms of locative media were predicated on this intermingling of the physical and the digital, the latter often displayed a temporality that was more enduring and less mobile. In contrast, emerging HRGs like Pokémon Go utilise a different kind of digital space, one that is more fluid, dynamic and subject to change. And it is precisely this difference that enables players to continually produce new revealings of place. It is, therefore, our contention that in the context of more recent HRGs, space is no longer simply “hybrid”, it is also markedly dynamic, and it is through this dynamism that the relationship between the physical and the digital is able to develop and offer players more rewarding experiences.

8 Joy Through Play

Finally, our research on both Foursquare and Pokémon GO found that participants experienced an explicit sense of joy through locative media that extended beyond the immediate pleasure of symbolically reworking physical space, and being rewarded for check-ins or capturing Pokémon. As Sarah, a then 35-year-old “super user of Foursquare” who suffered with myalgic encephalopathy (M.E) explains.

I am the typical fan girl of foursquare. We’re getting married next year and its even part of the wedding. We’re going to give out little mayor pin badges. We’ve just got little business cards that we got printed off that says ‘you’re the mayor of our hearts’ with a little mayor pin badge. Nina, she’s like the community manager and she deals with all of the Super Users and stuff - this is top secret by the way - she’s going to create an event just for the wedding. So rather than just being able to check-in at the venue I’m going to be able to check-in at my own wedding. It’s possible, as well, that I might be the first person to unlock the ‘wedding’ badge that they’re working on, so it’s all very exciting. (Sarah, 35, female, Foursquare)

More importantly here, for Sarah the use of Foursquare signified something meaningful about how she was coping with her illness. As she continues.

I’m registered disabled with M.E. and I’m mainly housebound. I liked the look of Foursquare, and started using it as a sort of incentive to get out; like a pedometer makes you want to walk more steps, using Foursquare made me want to break my boundaries a bit; try and go out a bit more than what I did. So, Foursquare was just an incentive to get out and get mayorships, and to tell friends and family that I’m out, rather than having to ring them and say I’m at such and such a place today, they can instantly see, when I published my check-ins, where I was and that I was getting out. (Sarah, 35, female, Foursquare)

Interestingly, we found that Pokémon Go served a comparable function for participants who also suffered with disability.

I am disabled and would normally spend the day asleep on the settee

(Yasmine, 35-44, female, Pokémon GO)

I’m a disabled mobility scooter user - the desire to get a pokestop every day means I push myself to get out every day when I may not have before.

(Yalanda, 25-34, female, Pokémon GO)

I get a great deal more exercise and have gotten to know my own neighborhood better. My back doesn’t hurt anymore due to the increased activity.

(Mickey, 35-44, genderfluid, Pokémon GO)

For these participants, then, Pokémon Go did not simply produce different revealings of spatiality (Evans and Saker 2017; Saker and Evans 2016a, b), but also different identity based revealings through the mediation of space and place through locative media (Saker 2017). For other participants, however, the pleasure of Pokémon Go simply revolved around a reduction in sedentary behavior.

Before playing the game, I was literally sitting on my couch all day (on days off work), watching videos/TV. I wear a FitBit, and would be lucky to get 1,000 steps on days off work because I just sat all day. The game has gotten me off the couch on days off, and I’m now taking as many or more steps as work days -- 15,000+.

(Zara, 25-34, female, Lansing, MI)

I walk around more in the day outside of work. I use Facebook more frequently for the POGO pages etc. and I’ve met some great people playing it. Even my other half plays it as much as me - what more can a man ask for?!

(Boris, 18-24, male, Pokémon GO)

Boris indicates that everyday play has had several benefits: increased mobility, more social networking, meeting new people and socialising with his partner. While these benefits (and those described by other participants) can be considered independent of the intrinsic mobility of the game play of Pokémon Go, we argue that this mobility is intrinsic to these benefits. For participants that integrate the game into their everyday practices of mobility, they may experience benefits that go beyond the accomplishments and achievements of levelling up or capturing new Pokémon.

9 Conclusion

The research presented within this chapter has revolved around two prime examples of locative media: the early location-based social networking sites (LBSN), Foursquare, and the more recent hybrid reality game (HRG), Pokémon Go. From the offset, it has been our intention to provide a historical and critical overview of the different ways in which people have utilised these applications to enhance and personalised their experience of the urban, paying attention to how the spatial impact of more recent forms of locative media can be contextualised through recourse to earlier locative applications. More specifically, we have sought to demonstrate how the spatial impact of earlier LBSNs can be used to interpret the spatial impact of more recent HRGs, like Pokémon Go.

First, the findings of these projects demonstrate that the use of both Foursquare and Pokémon Go led to participants moving through their environment using modified routes. This was particularly the case for Pokémon Go participants, with many participants discussing purposefully taking longer routes between A and B to increase the likelihood of coming across new and previously undiscovered Pokémon. More generally, participants also suggested that a by-product of using this HRG was they spent considerably more time walking than they would outside of the locative experience. Second, the use of both Foursquare and Pokémon Go led to participants frequenting new places and environments that they would not usually happen upon were it not for the gamic mechanics of these locative media. Consequently, some participants mentioned gaining a better understanding of their surroundings that extended beyond their usual pathways. Interestingly, for participants who used Foursquare the propensity of this LBSN to push them to experience new places was relatively short lived. For the most part, this tendency gradually dissipated as the novelty of locative play waned. In contrast, however, for the participants using Pokémon Go, the desire to continue playing and thus explore new environments was notably more enduring. It is our assertion here that this is both symptomatic of Pokémon Go being a HRG, as well as better understanding of what constitutes an enduring locative experience and the need for hybrid space to be more dynamic. Third, for some participants the use of both Foursquare and Pokémon Go extended beyond the immediate pleasure of symbolically reworking their physical surrounding. This was particularly the case for disabled participants. In either case, both Foursquare and Pokémon Go served as motivating forces that pushed participants to be more physically active than they usual would be. In other words, the playfulness of these applications seeped into areas of their “ordinary live” beyond the immediate pleasure of locative play.

In sum, our findings readily demonstrate that locative media—be it early LBSNs or more recent HRGs—do not simply enable users to more easily navigate their physical surroundings, or more playfully engage with space and place—although these are, of course, factors. More importantly, these locative media enable users to personalise their experience of the urban via the digital inscription of place, as detailed above. Through a confluence of both digital and physical space, then, our participants were able to symbolically reshape their surroundings in a manner that resonated with their personal needs. For some, this meant embarking on new routes to discover rare Pokémon; for others, this meant inscribing their locality as an indicator of an identity abstracted from illness. In either case, these practices revolved around forging a bespoke locative experience. Accordingly, more time should be spent contextualising emerging locative media through recourse to earlier locative applications, as this not only underlines the applicability of existing theoretical frameworks, it also adds contours to extant understandings of locative play.