Pokémon GO: Fostering Community in Location-Based Augmented Reality

While most modern video games are played from the comfort of one's own home, Pokémon GO (2016) is a game that requires people to leave their homes and interact with other people in the real world. Pokémon GO contains community-building mechanics that reward players for interacting with each other and catching Pokémon. Due to this, players use third-party applications to organize meetups, particularly through Campfire, which is an app owned by the same company who created the game, Niantic. Uses and Gratifications Theory can be applied to understand why players choose to play Pokémon GO and what needs the game fulfills. The community-building mechanics combined with player motivations can be useful in understanding why this game is still so successful, and how social needs are fulfilled by meeting up in person that other games cannot provide. Through an ethnographic study of the San Luis Obispo, California Pokémon GO Community, including several months of immersion within the community and interviews with ten of the more dedicated players, it was determined that players are motivated by the intersection of personal goals and social interaction, mainly by collaborative efforts to complete these goals.