ABSTRACT
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, game developers of augmented reality (AR) mobile apps have been pushed to evolve and adapt to global lockdowns and user concerns over moving safely through public space. Pokemon GO has been no exception to these changes, evolving game play in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and framing these changes in the context of focusing on user safety and well-being. In light of more recent #BlackLivesMatter calls for action, this chapter examines Pokemon GO’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic to better understand how the pandemic has influenced AR game design, development, and play. Niantic regularly issues updates to Pokemon Go, which typically introduce new features, fix bugs, or announce special events or new Pokemon. When Pokemon GO! was first developed, Niantic used a map from a previous AR game called Ingress, which was built from a combination of crowdsourced data from a Historical Marker Database, and crowdsourced data from early Ingress players.
