Location-Based Games and the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Analysis of Responses from Game Developers and Players

Samuli Laato,Teemu H Laine,A.K.M Najmul Islam

doi:10.3390/mti4020029

Samuli Laato, Teemu H Laine + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/mti4020029

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Abstract

In early 2020, as a countermeasure to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments issued limitations on the movements of their citizens, cancelling social events and advising people to stay home. As location-based games (LBGs) have been found to influence human movement, their role during COVID-19 deserves closer inspection. Under regular circumstances, the very aim of these games is to motivate people to go out, explore and meet other people. However, during COVID-19, people were advised to do the exact opposite. To study how LBG developers and players reacted to the situation, we used the netnography research method utilizing three types of data: (1) COVID-19 related in-game changes made by seven popular LBG developers during March 2020; (2) social media reactions on 20 posts across three popular Pokémon GO subreddits; and (3) the raiding activity (collaborative play) in Pokémon GO in a Finnish municipality during February–May 2020. All observed LBGs made in-game changes due to COVID-19. The social media reactions showed overwhelming appreciation towards these changes, and two central second order themes arose: (1) LBGs have the ability to influence human movement during pandemics; and (2) people should be able to self-regulate their behaviour during COVID-19 independent of LBG influence. Surprisingly, recorded Pokémon GO player activity in Finland was more influenced by offered in-game rewards than the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings have implications on how games and gamification can be used to direct human movement in situations such as COVID-19 where population-level interventions are needed.

Highlights

Location-based games (LBGs) are multimodal mobile applications that enable, and often encourage, users to move around physically; they have been praised for activating physically inactive individuals and providing a fun social outdoor activity [1,2]
Before presenting the measures taken by LBG developers to adjust their games to counter the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to understand the affordances that these games have for influencing player movement and social interaction in the real world
We have presented the results of our exploration on the measures taken by LBG developers as well as social media responses of Pokémon GO players

Summary

Introduction

Location-based games (LBGs) are multimodal mobile applications that enable, and often encourage, users to move around physically; they have been praised for activating physically inactive individuals and providing a fun social outdoor activity [1,2]. The entertainment industry reacted at large to the pandemic by offering various kinds of free services to consumers, increasing their motivation to stay home and avoid contracting and spreading the disease. In this context, it is interesting to study the measures taken by LBG developers, and how their players reacted and responded to the situation. LBGs typically increase physical activity [2,12,13] and reduce sedentary behaviour [17], based on some studies even permanently outside the gaming context [18]. Despite some reports suggesting that playing LBGs might cause players to adopt unwanted behaviours [22,23], empirical studies on the matter have shown these reports to not stand on firm ground [24]

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