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Familial Locative Play: Looking to the Future

Michael Saker (City, University of London, UK)
Leighton Evans (Swansea University, Wales)

Intergenerational Locative Play

ISBN: 978-1-83909-140-7, eISBN: 978-1-83909-139-1

Publication date: 8 February 2021

Abstract

This chapter reiterates the conclusions drawn on Pokémon Go in the context of intergenerational play. We begin by reflecting on the exigency of this book, before summarising our key findings under the following headings: (1) spatial activity and cognisance, (2) familial rhythms and digital labour, (3) playful bonding and ‘non-confrontational spaces’, (4) personal development and cursory connections, (5) familial challenges and concerns, (6) surveillance and the game beneath the game. Importantly, these findings are discussed in a manner that extends beyond the specificity of Pokémon Go. That is to say, our findings are used to establish how the next generation of locative games differs from the previous generations. Here, we pay particular attention to the various ways this current generation is predicated on a more dynamic digital architecture than earlier locative games and location-based social networks (LBSNs). Accordingly, this section is critical in terms of both surveying the area as it stands and positioning the current project in the canon of both locative media and intergenerational play. Moving forward, we reflect on how the experience of playing Pokémon Go has changed to accommodate the social restrictions put in place to help combat the COVID-19 global pandemic (Byford, 2020a, 2020b; Orland, 2020; Takahashi, 2020). In particular, this section highlights the adaptability of current hybrid reality games (HRGs) such as Pokémon Go in the wider field of locative games. Finally, this section looks to the future by deliberating how Pokémon Go might continue to develop in a COVID-19 world and what these developments might suggest about our approach to environments that increasingly feel at odds with the notion of play.

Citation

Saker, M. and Evans, L. (2021), "Familial Locative Play: Looking to the Future", Intergenerational Locative Play, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 143-154. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83909-139-120211019

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021 Michael Saker and Leighton Evans. Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited