College Students' Attraction to the Mobile Augmented Reality Game Pokémon Go

College Students' Attraction to the Mobile Augmented Reality Game Pokémon Go

Julie A. Delello, Rochell R. McWhorter, William Goette
Copyright: © 2018 |Pages: 19
DOI: 10.4018/IJGCMS.2018070101
OnDemand:
(Individual Articles)
Available
$37.50
Current Special Offers
No Current Special Offers
TOTAL SAVINGS: $37.50

Abstract

Recent headlines show instances of the popular augmented reality game Pokémon Go. Higher educators are watching students engage with schools in their community as they search for elusive Pokémon characters on mobile devices. But, technology is not without risk (i.e. privacy, physical harm) that must be considered. This article reports results of a mixed-methods study, in which 452 college students revealed their motivations for using the mobile augmented reality game Pokémon Go. The authors examined student survey data to find whether race, gender, or age influenced who played the game. In addition, the authors' findings included student perceptions as to Pokémon Go's risks and benefits, learning, and student recommendations for improving the game. Furthermore, based on their findings, the authors discuss how augmented reality games can be useful for learning, building community and social capital.
Article Preview
Top

Mobile Ar Games

Over the last decade, game design has made significant advances in terms of AR initiatives. For example, AR recently made numerous headlines due to the launch of the popular game, PGo (Smith, 2016), based on the popular Pokémon card game. Clark and Clark (2016) noted that the PGo is the first mobile AR (MAR) game to combine virtual, spatial, social, and physical elements into one. Also, Nintendo’s PGo is a free AR game launched as an application for mobile devices like Android and iOS smartphones. PGo was the third most downloaded application in 2016 (Eadicicco, 2016). ComScore (2017) reported 20 million daily visitors to the application PGo by end of July 2016 and 60% of the users were millennials (18-34). And, over 60% of individuals who downloaded PGo were daily users (Schwartz, 2016). In fact, PGo surpassed every online game in daily usage its first month of play (Tabacchi, Caci, Cardaci & Perticone, 2017).

Complete Article List

Search this Journal:
Reset
Volume 16: 1 Issue (2024)
Volume 15: 1 Issue (2023)
Volume 14: 4 Issues (2022): 2 Released, 2 Forthcoming
Volume 13: 4 Issues (2021)
Volume 12: 4 Issues (2020)
Volume 11: 4 Issues (2019)
Volume 10: 4 Issues (2018)
Volume 9: 4 Issues (2017)
Volume 8: 4 Issues (2016)
Volume 7: 4 Issues (2015)
Volume 6: 4 Issues (2014)
Volume 5: 4 Issues (2013)
Volume 4: 4 Issues (2012)
Volume 3: 4 Issues (2011)
Volume 2: 4 Issues (2010)
Volume 1: 4 Issues (2009)
View Complete Journal Contents Listing