Pokémon Go, go, go, gone?

Pokemon Go™ has generated a lot of public interest. For a couple of weeks, one couldn't watch a news program that didn't first laud the high level of physical activity (PA) of people playing Pokemon Go™, and later the dangers from being distracted by Pokemon Go™ when crossing or walking down the street, or even while driving. There has also been substantial interest in the medical and public health communities about whether this game has triggered new, higher levels of sustainable PA for health benefits. Pokemon™ is a large multifaceted/multimedia franchise for Nintendo, a large multimedia company. Pokemon™ are fictional creatures which humans (considered Pokemon™ trainers) can catch and train. The Pokemon™ franchise includes videogames, card games, movies, television shows, comic books, toys, etc. Pokemon Go™ is the latest manifestation of the franchise. Developers for Nintendo used an augmented reality game (ARG) mechanic (i.e., overlaying animated characters on real world images) to create a “geocaching”1 (i.e. geographic search) game to find Pokemon™ characters in their neighborhoods. Pokemon Go™ capitalizes on the prevalent ownership of smartphones with continuous video imaging capabilities, the broad based appeal of the Pokemon™ characters, and geocaching. Supplementing the real world with computer imagery allows players to become immersed in a videogame,2 thereby increasing their emotional investment as they navigate physical environments to find and capture Pokemon™, and requiring them to be physically active. Games that elicit PA have been called Active Video Games (AVG). While augmented reality3 and ARG have been around at least since the early 90's, there has been minimal interest in using this technology to promote PA. Finding Yoshi 4 was an early ARG that elicited PA by having players search for geocached objects, but was not intended to do so. Many reviews of AVG and mobile apps have appeared in the literature.5,6 Some of these reviews have been highly encouraging,7 while others were very critical.8 Clearly AVG alone can increase levels of PA if played as designed (e.g. by using body movement instead of substituting wrist movements),6 but just having an AVG without further intervention produced no increase in PA.9 Some research has indicated that new AVG generate excitement (and PA) for a generally short period of time (perhaps a week or two), when interest (and PA) wane. AVG characteristics that promote initial and sustained PA are not clearly known. Suggestions have been advanced for cooperative play,10 flexibility in choice of activities,11 short-term goal setting,12 integration of PA with elements of story or narrative,13 rewards,14 and replayability.15 Conceptual models have been advanced to specify the likely relationships among some of these elements.16,17 No such articles have appeared specific to ARG, but the same concepts should apply. So it is clear from the release of Pokemon Go™ and ensuing episode of game play that, despite conventional wisdom, substantial numbers of people (even some couch potatoes?) were willing to be physically active (i.e. substantial walking) for long periods of time (some newspaper stories reported some players were chasing Pokemon™ for hours at a time). What could we possibly learn from this? Well, who were the people who chased Pokemon™ (demographics, psychosocial or social characteristics)? What was their life like before Pokemon Go™ that may have predisposed them to respond so intensely, or at all? What was it about Pokemon Go™ that elicited this response (e.g. why was it fun)? How many and who downloaded Pokemon Go™, but never fully engaged to get the exercise? How central to this phenomena was prior experience with what aspects of the Pokemon™ franchise? What differentiated those who responded more intensely and/or for longer periods of time from those who did not? Were some aspects of the game more played or more effective, or did different aspects (e.g. different characters, different locations) motivate different people? What did parents tell their kids about Pokemon Go™ (rules? permissions? restrictions? co-play?)? Was playing it with friends (cooperators or competitors?) critical to the experience? Based on such research, what might we encourage Nintendo (and other game developers) to do in creating future games so they make more profit (we need to pay attention to the company's motivation) while society benefits from more prevalent and longer PA (a social good)? Can Nintendo engineer a similar ARG (or other AVG?) episode that widely elicits physical activity using another of their many franchises (e.g. Mario)? Games for Health Journal would welcome well-conceived and rigorously designed studies on the effects of Pokemon Go™ on physical activity, or other aspects of health. Since it is unlikely that any current investigators were notified far enough in advance of the release of Pokemon Go™ to generate a prospective study of the impact of the release, such research will either need to exploit existing longitudinal data sets or mix retrospective (e.g. exposure to Pokemon Go™) with concurrent (e.g. level of physical activity) data. Hopefully at some point academic-industrial liaisons or even alliances could be created such that researchers would have adequate forewarning and funding to conduct prospective evaluations of the releases of new ARG or AVG on public health. Such alliances could redound to the benefit of both the academics (e.g. innovative exciting public health relevant research publications) and the company(ies) (e.g. media reports of positive health outcomes to attract more product purchases). Let's hope! Copyright © 2016 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. publishers. All rights reserved, USA and worldwide. (Pokemon Go) Language: en