5 - The Geopolitics of Pokémon Go : Navigating Bordering Cities with a Mobile Augmented Reality Game Map
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 November 2020
Summary
Abstract
In this chapter I recount an ethnographic play tour I undertook of the augmented reality mobile game Pokémon Go in the cities of Tijuana and San Diego at the United States and Mexican border, with help from skilled local players. I also conduct a theoretical inquiry into the cartography of augmented reality mobile games informed by post-colonialism and geography. Although technically advanced, I posit that such games implement older, geopolitical approaches to mapmaking when streets on the game map are converted into corridors of play stations. The chapter closes with a discussion of novel and feminist cartographic strategies and cheats I encountered among Mexican players for mitigating the risks and obstacles to playing such mobile games in urban public space.
Keywords: Post-colonialism, geopolitics, urban cartography, augmented reality, mobile games, feminist and intersectional cheats
In the summer of 2016, an augmented reality game inspired crowds of players to emerge from the subway and walk the gridded streets of New York, to venture into the tropical heat of the Botanic Gardens of Singapore, to circulate through tourist landmarks in Warsaw, and to stop their motorbikes alongside parks in Ho Chi Min. Within a period of two weeks, one highly motived player traveled across the entire United States to collect all North American available species of artificial Pokémon life. Ironically, at a time when seventy-five percent of biological animal species on earth are facing extinction, and even as the initial popularity of the game has subsided, Pokémon Go players continue to comb the outdoors, amassing menageries of common pigeon-like Pidgeys and Rattatas, and more rarely capturing highly sought after Dragonairs or holiday-themed Pikachus. Maps created by players show a diverse variety of Pokeman nests distributed around the globe in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe.
North American developer Niantic's in-game mapping implementation is key to experiencing the game. A former Google Maps researcher, John Hancke, now CEO of Niantic, initially developed the augmented reality infrastructure of Pokémon Go, displayed on the player's mobile phone.
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- Transnational PlayPiracy, Urban Art, and Mobile Games, pp. 95 - 128Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2020