Abstract
Pokémon GO has been increasingly popular since its first release in July 2016. Due to the massive success of this game, a growing body of research has accumulated in recent years investigating the motives for playing Pokémon GO. This chapter provides an overview of empirical studies that aimed to explore a wide range of motives that drive players to use and re-use this popular augmented reality game. Overall, 14 studies have been identified, and 8 main motives were classified based upon this literature: social, physical/outdoor activity, nostalgia, fun/enjoyment, competition/achievement, exploration/curiosity, boredom, and trendiness. In addition, players were motivated to collect all Pokémon species, experience the advantages of AR games, and escape from reality. The associations of these motives with adaptive and maladaptive behaviors are also discussed in this chapter, alongside with the possibilities for future research.
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Notes
- 1.
The numbers in parenthesis refer to the number of empirical studies in which the respective motive was identified as a separate dimension among playing motives.
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Acknowledgements
This work was completed in the ELTE Institutional Excellence Program (783-3/2018/FEKUTSRAT) supported by the Hungarian Ministry of Human Capacities.
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Zsila, Á., Orosz, G. (2019). Motives for Playing Pokémon GO and Their Associations with Problematic and Health Behaviors. In: Geroimenko, V. (eds) Augmented Reality Games I. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15616-9_6
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