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Seeing, Moving, Catching, Accumulating: Pokémon GO, and the Legal Subject

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Abstract

This paper argues that the augmented reality gaming application for smart devices, Pokémon GO shows the fate of the legal subject as a neoliberal monster subjugated to the limitations imposed by hypercapitalism. The game, derived from Nintendo’s iconic Pokémon franchise, reveals the legal subject as a frenzied, diminished and impulsive being, allowed to see, move, catch and accumulate but unable to participate in more meaningful self-narration. It is not that the game is lawless, notwithstanding, anxieties in the semiosphere about users trespassing or engaging in criminal behaviour. Rather the game is over structured and highly limited, both within its game-play which is repetitive and impulsive, and in its absence of narrative. Unlike the classic Nintendo Pokémon games which are within the role-playing game genre, Pokémon GO abstracts the seeing, moving, catching and accumulating features of the classic games without the overarching narrative, questing and competition. In this Pokémon GO manifests the transformation of the liberal legal subject of capitalism to the neoliberal subject of a digital orientated hypercapitalism where seeing, moving, catching and accumulating is immediate and impulsive, obliterating the ‘prudent’ subject participating in their own self-narration.

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Notes

  1. In Re Pokémon GO Nuisance Litigation, No 16-cv-04300, 216 WL 6126786 (N.D. Cal. Sept, 23, 2016. On the case see [85]: 345–349.

  2. Professor Oak appeared as a speech bubble when you attempt to ride your bicycle indoors or cast a line where there is no water in the original Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue.

  3. Although not explained in the game, the higher the user’s level, the higher level ‘Combat Power’ (‘CP’) Pokémon you are likely to catch or hatch. The higher the combat power of Pokémon, the better to battle in a Gym.

  4. Dorward et al. have argued that Pokémon Go has the potential to provide for future conservation or nature appreciation augmented reality game. However, in doing so they focus on the possibilities from the game’s architecture rather than anything specific to the game play. Indeed, they acknowledge the significant anti-environmental in-game messages and the anti-social aspects of users in the physical world [21].

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  1. Mills Oakley, Brisbane, Australia

    Annie Shum

  2. Law Futures Centre, Griffith Law School, Cities Research Institute, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia

    Kieran Tranter

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Shum, A., Tranter, K. Seeing, Moving, Catching, Accumulating: Pokémon GO, and the Legal Subject. Int J Semiot Law 30, 477–493 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-017-9519-8

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