Experiencing the unfamiliar through mobile gameplay: Pokémon go as augmented tourism

Abstract

While tourism involves encountering the unfamiliar, digital technologies play an increasingly prominent role in mediating these encounters. Augmented reality applications can cause encounters with the unfamiliar to become relational constructs, as difference is mediated through the familiar interface of the digital. Augmented tourism is a concept through which these mediations can be understood. Specifically, augmented reality mobile games bring people and places together through one, integrative, experience of the world. When played in unfamiliar environments, these games provide an interpretive lens that can shape the tourist experience. I draw on an analysis of 22 in‐depth interviews with Singapore‐based players of Pokémon Go to explore how the game enables them to navigate and memorialise unfamiliar environments, and to connect with other people through common experiences of play. Combined, these actions constitute a form of augmented tourism that is defined by playful and interactive, but also homogenising, encounters with people and place.