Walk on the Wild Side: The lived experiences of Pokémon GO players within playful spaces

Location-based, augmented reality games such as Pokémon GO (Niantic 2016-present) integrate real-world locations into the gameplay mechanics, meaning players must travel to real-world locations for play (Leorke 2019). Through the development of a new approach to autoethnography labelled Emergent Multi-Narrative Autoethnography, I seek to explore the playful experiences of Pokémon GO players within these real-world playful spaces, drawing on multiple perspectives of play such as digital play (Marsh et al. 2016), urban play (de Souza e Silva and Hjorth 2009), Japanese seasonal play (Davies 2020) and ambient play (Apperley and Moore 2019). The study is underpinned by affinity space theory (Gee and Hayes 2012), which is used to highlight the ways in which affinity spaces and real-world locations shape and influence the play experiences of Pokémon GO players. Through thick, detailed, and creative descriptions of gameplay events which immerse the reader into the world of Pokémon GO, this study illuminates the play experiences of Pokémon GO players. I conclude that Pokémon GO players view real-world locations as active, playful, social, and dynamic spaces for play. By highlighting the significance of spaces for play for Pokémon GO players, this study makes an original contribution to understanding and conceptualisation of place attachment (Oleksy and Wnuk 2017), place identity (Vella et al. 2019), and consequently the discursive claims of location-based games (Leorke 2019). The findings of this study contribute to understanding of nurturing affinity spaces by addressing the salient dimensions of real-world spaces and ambient play. This has implications for games designers, urban planners and those involved with curriculum design.