How Location-based Gaming Affects Players' Nature and Forest Experiences

Abstract

In our digitized modernity, there are an increasing number of discourses related to the benefits of returning to nature for well-being, health, lived daily experiences and promoting ecological sustainability. Concurrently, location-based games (LBGs), such as Pokémon GO, have become a prominent game-technological trend, which influences players' movement out and about in nature. Therefore, LBGs could potentially provide a fruitful development to re-establish some of the human-nature relationships lost in urbanization and industrialization. The aim of this study, therefore, is to explore how contemporary LBGs affect peoples’ relationship with nature. We conducted a qualitative study through semi-structured interviews among LBG players. We focused on two complementary seeding points of departure, (1) what aspects of the games affect how players interact with nature and/or are enticed to move in nature, and (2) how LBGs affect the experience in and of nature. The findings detail the multifaceted and bi-directional relationship of how LBGs affect players' perceptions of nature, but simultaneously, nature changes and shapes players' movement and experiences, potentially resulting in increased well-being and more sustainable gaming praxis.