Pokémon Go as a cognitive map: Simplifying and focusing movement in postmodern urban spaces

Abstract

The location-based, augmented reality video game Pokémon Go has been an unprecedented phenomenon in the short history of mobile smartphone applications. In this article, I argue that the remarkable success of Pokémon Go derives from its cognitive mapping qualities within postmodern, hyper-mediated environments. By focusing and filtering the vast information associated with navigating postmodern spaces, Pokémon Go provides individuals with greater clarity by defining the subject’s social identity in relationship to the physical environment. In particular, the game recentres the fragmented subject’s disorienting experiences associated with postmodern cultures immersed in digital information. Via its integration of location-based gaming, rudimentary augmented reality, simple mobile game design and collaborative local community-based game-play, Pokémon Go allows the individual to move about the complex urban environment with great confidence, purpose and clarity – the search for Pokémon frames the player’s objectives and attention (literally via the smartphone screen). Drawing upon the media ecology tradition, the contemporary world-view or media logic of ubiquitous digital media is dominated by quantification, clear game-like rules, and the ‘productive’ collection and management of information.