ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the practice of ‘play’ in public and urban environments. Drawing from fieldwork of 2016’s Pokémon Go, Niantic’s subsequent game Ingress, and the beta-testing communities in Sydney Australia, this chapter explores how differential mobilities become encoded in location-based gaming ‘platforms’. As practice becomes formalised within location-based technology, uneven access and movements within urban and public space are encoded and re-purposed as ‘platforms’ to develop future location-based games. This chapter suggests that such practices are problematic and contribute to a contested battle over public space in terms of representation, access, and movement within, across, and through city spaces.
