Consumption on the Orient Express: Commodification and gamification of urban mobility in Tokyo Metro campaigns

Abstract

The commodification and gamification of urban mobility is a trending urban phenomenon in Japan. Since its privatization in 2004, Tokyo Metro, one of Tokyo’s major public transportation providers, has conducted various business campaigns to package mobility as a desirable commodity. This article looks into that ways in which Tokyo Metro’s campaigns reinforce urban spectacles and reduce urban experiences into consumptions. The advances in technologies and the emergence of social media also facilitate consumer behaviours in the campaigns. Such campaigns transform the interrelations between railway mobility and mass consumption from ‘moving for consuming’ to ‘moving is consuming’. In the near future, the commodification, gamification and diversification of railway mobility will become the norm in urban Japan as human activities become increasingly dependent upon mass public transportation. This is an inexorable outcome of the mixture of financial needs, a highly mature consumer culture, dependence on railway systems, aggregating commodification of urban spaces and the incessant quest for novel types of consumption.