Understanding collocated social interaction between Pokémon GO players

Abstract

Pokemon GO, a location-based mobile game with millions of users, offers an opportunity to study how mobile technology can encourage collocated social interaction between people. Despite being predominantly a single-player game, Pokemon GO has been discussed to induce a variety of social interactions between the players. We conducted a qualitative online survey to gain insight on collocated interactions and encounters that take place around the game, and to understand how they relate to the game design. Our analysis shows that the game design promotes encounters between players, the idle time during the game allows various forms of social interaction to take place, and further, the players gain various benefits from exchanging information with each other. Based on the findings, we present design implications for the design of mobile applications or games aiming to encourage collocated social interaction.