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SFU Experts Comment on How PokéMon Go Augments Reality of Players
Tuesday, July 19, 2016Company Profile | Follow Company
Experts comment on immersive experience, draw parallels to geocaching and warn of game addiction
Vancouver, BC, July 19, 2016--(T-Net)--Pokémon Go, an augmented reality game played on mobile devices, encourages players to explore and traverse their surroundings in an attempt to catch virtual creatures. The game was released in Canada on Sunday, July 17 though savvy mobile users accessed the game weeks earlier via the US release.
Since the game launched, Pokémon Go players have demonstrated highly distracted behaviour that has led to accidents and injury.
“Pokémon Go is pervasive and takes users out into the physical world,” says SFU School of Interactive Art and Technology (SIAT) professor Carman Neustaedter. “By interacting with real-world locations, it feels like you're much more immersed in the game itself.”
Neustaedter, who researches human-computer interaction and mobile technology design at SFU, draws similarities between Pokémon Go and geocaching, where people use GPS coordinates to find hidden caches.
“We found in our research that people get a sense that they can do more and that they have additional power because there's a blurring of the line between what's real life and what's the game,” he says.
Bernhard Riecke, an SFU SIAT professor who specializes in immersive virtual environments, says that augmented reality technology found in the game and other devices can be challenging both mentally and socially.
“People playing Pokemon Go or wearing Google Glass may be present physically but mentally they're completely somewhere else in a completely different environment,” he says. “It's the opposite of mindfully wandering through the woods because there's always part of their attention that's bound to the game.”
Riecke says that the game has an addictive potential noting that video game addiction is proposed as an potential new disorder in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
“Research on information overload and decision fatigue shows that keeping people in a state of indecision makes them more susceptible to suggestion,” he says.
Both Neustaedter and Riecke say that combining augmented reality on mobile devices with a successful franchise like Pokémon has brought augmented reality technology to a wider audience.
“There's this nostalgia for adults and excitement for kids getting into Pokémon,” says Neustaedter. “In some ways it's a generational connector—my kids are getting into it and it's something that was around when I was younger.”
Carman Neustaedter can discuss:
Bernhard Riecke can speak to:
Contact:
Carman Neustaedter, Professor and Director of Connections Lab, School of Interactive Art and Technology, 604.754.1191,carman@sfu.ca
Bernard Riecke, Professor and Director of iSpace Lab, School of Interactive Art and Technology, 604.652.9744, ber1@sfu.ca
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