Pokémon GO as an Advertising Platform

2.1 Locative Media

As noted in the introductory section, location-based games represent the overlaying of digital information onto physical locations, frequently implemented as mobile apps [5]. In general, this digital projection onto concrete space can be considered locative media, or media where the user’s physical location impacts the presented information. These projections can enhance the imageability [37]—a measure of a user’s mental image—of the city as they recontextualize the space occupied by users [45]. Pokémon GO is one of the more popular location-based games at the time of writing, earning over $1 billion US in 2020 alone [10], and the probe leveraged in this study. A litany of locative apps exists that paved the way for Pokémon GO to emerge. For example, Foursquare [29] is a seminal location-based social network (LBSN) from 2009 that enabled users to ”check in” at physical locations and, therefore, share this information with other befriended users [47].

For our purposes, Foursquare is a progenitor of many concepts that form the heart of modern locative media, particularly territoriality. Foursquare users could check in at locations with the capacity of becoming the ”mayor,” effectively the digital owner, of the place if they had visited it the most in 60 days [31]. In other words, Foursquare leveraged locative technology to create a social network wherein users could claim digital ownership over physical locations [31, 47]. Interestingly, investigating user experience of this platform indicated that check-ins were largely performative, with players presenting an alternate digital self through the mechanisms, as noted by Lindqvist et al. [31] in a study of Foursquare. Papangelis et al. [45] support the notion of a disjunct digital self in a follow-up study through a separate locative media probe. The notion of users’ performative self is crucial, as it indicates that users of locative media mediate their presentation of self when engaging with it [47]. User mediation of the digital self parallels Goffman’s dramaturgical lens of human behavior, wherein the individual has a public and private persona [20]. Returning to locative media, a performative digital self suggests that the norms of the local community impact how app users interact with PoI.

A decade later, Foursquare no longer has the mayor mechanic; however, the performative phenomenon continues in other applications with location-aware mechanics such as Yelp [51], Twitter [11], and Facebook [61]. One such expression of this phenomenon is also present in local businesses that engage in locative social media, as noted in Humphreys et al.’s study of small business owners in New York City and Melbourne [24]. Here, Humphreys et al. highlight that social media platforms enable businesses to control how information about their location is disbursed to potential customers [24]. These results have important implications for locative media’s ability to mediate perceptions of entities and, importantly, the value of locative media in heightening brand awareness through PoI. Mechanistically, this advertising is how the business mediates its presentation on the platform.

2.2 Socialization in Location-based Games

Researchers have extensively studied the nature of socialization in Pokémon GO and its impact on the game. Prior work has shown local communities to exhibit strong communication and social interaction between players of the game [13, 16, 36]. Territoriality claims over space frequently mediate social interactions in this context, manifesting in playful antagonism between players and resulting in the sense of ownership of physical space through the digital self [45, 46, 49]. Equally—and, of course, before the COVID-19 pandemic—contextual dynamics [1] between players often resulted in a great deal of in-person interaction [6] during in-game events such as community days and raiding [48]. Community days are social events in Pokémon GO where pokémon spawn more frequently, encouraging players to go out and play the game (in pre-pandemic contexts) [40]. Raiding is a communal activity wherein multiple players come together to challenge enemies in-game that must be defeated with the help of other players [40].

These community dynamics and player tendencies for territoriality are vital to Niantic’s objective of making PoI a means of advertising. Small and medium businesses have recently been given access to LGA through Niantic’s “sponsored location” program [42]. In the program, a small or medium business—five or fewer storefronts [41]—can register its location in Pokémon GO as an in-game PoI for a nominal fee. This so-called sponsored location allows the business to create and modify its presence in Pokémon GO, sponsor in-game events (disabled at the time of inquiry due to COVID-19), and start in-game promotions. For $1 US a day, the business is given a pokéstop (the lower tier of PoI), and at $2 US, the PoI becomes a gym; both levels provide the business with analytics about their location. Business owners can control their digital presence directly through Niantic’s program, allowing them to brand their location as they see fit in the context of location-based games.

2.3 Advertising in Games

Before exploring advertising in location-based games, it is crucial first to explore extant research conducted within the context of more traditional gaming. Of course, advertising in video games is a phenomenon that has been around for a while. Advergames have existed since 1983, with the arcade version of Tapper [19] and the home console game Kool-Aid Man [34]. Also known as custom branded games [25], advergames are long-form advertisements that integrate a business brand with ludic engagement as either a free promotional game (Chex Quest [8]) or a paid product (Pepsiman [27]). As seen in Lee et al. [30], when coupled with brand interactivity (e.g., consumer interaction with mascots, slogans, and brand images), advergames have positive impacts on brand attitude and higher purchase intentions in users. Recent work by Zhao and Renard [59] also indicates that playfulness (engagement in ludic activity for one’s own sake) in viral promotion advergames correlates positively with intending to share the games with other possible consumers. Advergames, therefore, represent a valuable tool for marketing a brand and improving brand associations for the players [50, 55].

The Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) Game Committee notes two additional forms of advertising in the space of video games: in-game ads and around-game ads [25]. A banner advertisement or pop-up on a website hosting a game or game skinning is considered around game ads by the IAB, as the advertisement doesn’t directly impact the ludic experience [25]. Around-game ads differ significantly from advergames in which the core advertisement is critical to the ludic play experience.

In-game ads represent a middle ground between these two forms of advertising. Static in-game billboards are traditionally the most representative of this flavor of game advertising [25]. Martí-Parreño et al. [33] studied the impact of this variety of advertising in racing games where the researcher could leverage diegetic billboard advertising, finding it had positive outcomes for brand recall and recognition in familiar and unfamiliar brands alike. Notably, however, familiar brands tended to require fewer repetitions in-game than those players who lacked familiarity. Work conducted by Palmas et al. [44] indicates that observers of gameplay featuring static in-game ads have better brand recall than their peers who played the same game. Palmas et al. suggest that the players having worse brand recall is an artifact of low gameplay skill, necessitating more engagement in the gameplay, distracting from the advertising. Furthermore, this work [44] indicates that interactive contact with the advertisement fosters better brand recall, reinforcing work conducted about advergames [30].

A third in-game advertisement model, value-exchange, offers players in-game rewards in exchange for interacting with advertisements [25]. Value-exchange advertisements have seen increasing popularity in the mobile gaming market. It can be considered an expression of prior findings in the study of game advertising (Palmas et al. [44]; Lee et al. [30]). Google best practices claim that this advertising model is surprisingly popular, alleging that 50% of users would be disappointed if value-exchange ads were removed based on an internal Google study [21]. An economic analysis by Guo et al. [22] reinforces the lucrative nature of value-exchange ads, provided reward revenue exceeds the customer’s nuisance cost.

Before including small and medium businesses, the value-exchange model was employed in Pokémon GO. Businesses such as Starbucks and McDonald’s reached deals with Niantic, creating PoI that offered rewards at franchise locations with the appropriate branding in the photo disk (a part of the visual representation of a PoI in-game) and PoI description [52, 54]. These PoI represent the core location in-game for players to acquire the necessary resources. Niantic also offers an advertising model wherein brands can sponsor geolocated gifts for players in-game, which provide resources after, connecting the brand directly to the reward [43].

2.4 Location-based Advertising

Shortly after launching the sponsored location program, and in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Niantic also launched the “Local Business Recovery Initiative” [41], which allowed communities to nominate small businesses for inclusion in the sponsored location program for a year free. Thus, the sponsored location program tethers to the community, establishing community engagement as a vital component of this advertising. Further still, observations show that small businesses already have a high degree of enmeshment in their local communities, particularly in the context of social media [53]. Indeed, small businesses can engage in the community meaningfully to engender brand awareness, sentiment, and purchase [28]. Community engagement may be as simple as responding to posts or making posts on Facebook [61] pages for the business or brand [26, 28]. We can consider these interactions through Goffman’s dramaturgical lens of human behavior (i.e., separation of public and private personas) [20], as entrepreneurs attempt to embody a public persona for their business. While nominally distinct from the individual’s identity, this embodiment of identity represents the business owner attempting to engender customers to accept the business and themselves [28].

Locative media augments LBA of old (e.g., billboards and signage), allowing advertisements to address the consumer directly through direct marketing based on location in real time [4]. For example, billboards, a ubiquitous form of classic LBA, offer direct marketing in static, public locations. Due to their static nature, billboards not only are expensive but also only market to a subsection of the business’s potential customer base. In locative media augmented LBA, a digital billboard can be leveraged to serve the advertisement to potential customers in a geographic region for lower costs [3]. Work conducted by Xu et al. [58] indicates that mobile, multimedia, and LBA leads to more favorable consumer responses than traditional advertising. Further, the distinction arises from a perception of increased value in mobile LBA, as the information is generally more relevant to the consumer. Gebreselassie [18] highlights a caveat to preferences regarding digital advertising; in less developed countries, more traditional non-digital techniques, like billboards, are still the most popular modality.

Following this, a perception of value leads to better advertising outcomes, as noted in Wang and Sun [56]. Mobile LBA with location-aware services has promise and value to businesses in the general case. Despite how long advertising has been incorporated into location-based ludic experiences (e.g., Angry Birds [15, 23] and Ingress [38, 39]), there is a limited investigation of marketing potential in location-based games. Wu and Stillwell [57] conducted a survey (N = 352) of Pokémon GO players, finding that spatial presence positively influenced user attitudes toward and intention to visit sponsored locations. Frith [17] approached the subject matter from the perspective of the businesses themselves, noting that businesses with in-game POI tended to see higher foot traffic. Moreover, the studied businesses engaged with the community through the purchase of in-game items called ”lures” that summoned Pokémon to the POI. In addition to Pokémon, these ”lures” lured players to their location, increasing foot traffic.

While advertising through location-based games such as Pokémon GO is a familiar frontier, there still exists a considerable gap in the literature on this subject, and one we address with this research. This article, therefore, seeks to reduce the knowledge gap of LBA through location-based game impacts, achieved through a set of qualitative interviews with small business owners enrolled in the Niantic sponsored location program. In the following section, we will outline this research’s methodological approach.

4.1 Business Enrichment through Pokémon GO

Three participants began to treat Pokémon GO as an amenity they offered upon joining the sponsored location program. In short, Pokémon GO was a new service they could offer their customers. The perception of Pokémon GO as an amenity was especially apparent for FLGSs, with one store comparing a Pokémon GO gym (B05) to having ”free wifi or having beverages … available in the shop.” In other words, some businesses understood this digital overlay as providing customers with a feature that made frequenting this establishment desirable. LGA transcended mere advertisement; instead, it added value to the entire business model.

Some of the businesses (11/35) aligned with this sentiment were generally more tightly entangled with the Pokémon franchise in that they sold products or ran events that directly interfaced with the brand. Brand integration typically manifests in the sale of the Pokémon TCG and the operation of tournaments in our participants. Businesses that leveraged LGA in this manner near unilaterally (10/11) expected customers to remain at the location for extended periods. The stops/gyms in these instances would serve as an activity to keep the customers rooted to the location between rounds, which could be enhanced by scrupulous owners who augmented nearby stops using in-game lures (as players cannot lure gyms).

For example, one FLGS owner (B05) described having a store phone to facilitate this behavior and further augment the customer experience.

We also have a store phone that has an official [store name] account on it that we can use whenever a guest comes in and says they’re looking to trade … [or] they need to complete [another task in game], … we can facilitate that using that phone.

In having a store phone, the business makes explicit the active role the business is taking in the Pokémon GO game experience. As a result, this process recontextualizes that space to be one of ludic engagement with Pokémon GO, allowing for stationary play of the location-based games.

Examples of this level of integration were rare; however, many participants (9/35) repeated a familiar refrain: COVID-19 made running events unappealing. While some locations used their new gym or pokéstop to draw players during in-game events (12/35), in-person events were frequently taboo. In addition to the more altruistic rationales questioning the morality of running in-person events, others were more practical. Local ordinances forbade gatherings and carried harsh penalties for locations deemed responsible for localized outbreaks. As one FLGS noted (B12):

There’s no in-store gathering right now [as] we don’t have the staff or the inclination with the delta variant to have 50 people in our location. If we become a super spreader, they shut us down for three months.

Such a shutdown could be the death knell for many of the studied businesses, which operated, in some cases, on thin margins. When a business considered Pokémon GO as an amenity, a strong relationship with the community was essential for perceptions of the program’s success. However, local Pokémon GO culture directly impacted the efficacy of community outreach, as we explain.

4.2 The Influence of Local Culture

Areas with low foot traffic host a number of the surveyed businesses (9/35) where car culture was more common, meaning customers were more likely to arrive by car. Frequently, these businesses described being in more secluded spaces or locations on highways. Car play involves players using cars to move between points of interest, as observed by our participants (despite warnings from the Pokémon GO app). Locations requiring a car to reach them aren’t ideal places to engage in the play of location-based games. However, of the nine participants describing their location as getting more car traffic, six surprisingly reported foot traffic increases. B21 offered player curiosity as one potential explanation for this disconnect:

I know for me and other players, if you see a new gym, you just say, “Oh, let’s just walk by it!” That brings people in, and [they] check you out. I think it’s very helpful [to] business owners.

B10, on the other hand, highlighted the proximity of their location to local play communities:

[Our region] is spread out, it’s not like a city, so [the Gym] made it more centralized … [rather than] going 10 or 15 minutes up the road to the municipal building, or a new town. So me putting the gym there, I think, kind of helped some people that don’t want to drive that far.

This explanation appears to be more tied to rural locations than urban ones in which there’s a greater average distance between POI. However, the most striking rationale for the increase came from B06, who described a local community that practiced ”small business local support … [by being] more engaged in their local areas.” B06, however, also appeared to be more active in reaching out to the location-based game community:

We could see customers who are playing Pokémon GO, we start talking to them, … [then] they bring a friend … from out of town [for] community day. We’ve been known as the place to come [to play Pokémon GO].

B06’s success indicates that business engagement with the location-based game community begets engagement from the community. Moreover, some participants (12/35) wanted to facilitate these engagement conversations by leveraging physical promotions such as window clings. As B11 notes: ”We use that poster, and then people know … even if they’re just playing Pokémon GO if they want to escape the elements [they can] come in and play, that they have a place.”

The three remaining cases appear to be more tied to the behaviors of the local players. These local players, according to B33, were more focused on raiding and considered the sponsored gym as just another stop on routes that are more or less optimized to maximize gains from raiding:

I’m just assuming that the Pokémon GO folks are just the … diehard [ones] that are driving around … to get the benefit of the special raid and then move on [saying,] “I don’t need to go into the game store and buy a Pokémon pack … I’m not into that.”

The disconnect between players using the stop and patronizing the location hints at the local Pokémon GO community having some bearing on the program’s efficacy.

4.3 Operating a Location

Niantic gave participant businesses access to an administrative interface that afforded them basic control over how their location was presented in-game: location photo, description, and analytics. Users were informed of this program in the initial start-up email for setting up their digital location. Despite the tools’ existence and introduction in the startup email, many participants (17/35) reported being utterly unfamiliar with the interface. B16 offers the most common explanation for this knowledge gap: ”I got the initial email about how to set it up, … but I’ve kind of forgotten, and I haven’t been asked about it until now.” B16 suggested reminder emails to business owners when asked for a potential solution.

4.4 Satisfaction: It’s Not Just Business

Nearly every participant (32/35) indicated that they had been playing the game before joining the sponsor program, which factored into their desire to join it. These participants also frequently expressed explicit dedication to the game. Members of B23’s business “are all addicted to Pokémon GO,” motivating the business to join the program. As noted above, dedication to the game was only one of the driving factors for this business to join the program (see Section 4.2). Existing domain expertise with the franchise and Pokémon GO is the most vital driver.

In some cases, the participant was even a leader in their local Pokémon GO community. The owner of entertainment venue B28 was “a community leader. When [anybody] had questions, [they were] one of the guys they came to.” Before joining the program, their business had already been a PoI in the game, and it was already a minor focal point for play in the community. Joining the program converted their stop to a gym, which allowed for new types of play at the location, particularly raiding: “Many people would come in, hang out, and do the raids at the [business].” B28 expressed overwhelming positivity about the program, focusing on its ability to drive foot traffic and highlighting its appeal for entertainment venues with sustained customer interaction models. However, there needs to be more certainty about the actual income afforded by the program.

Participants (6/35) also reported a sensation that having a managed in-game location made them feel accepted by not only Pokémon GO but also the broader Pokémon franchise. To some, such as B04, joining the program “[gave] some prestige to [their] business.” B31 felt they were accepted and were “joining a big thing” in Pokémon GO. This sensation results in the participants feeling as though Pokémon GO or the Pokémon franchise tacitly approves of their business in accepting them as a location in the game. Businesses that expressed this sentiment were unilaterally satisfied with the program.

Yet, participants who played the game didn’t necessarily express gratification with the program overall. Of the six participants expressing a negative experience, a common refrain was again the ambiguity of the analytics, as summarized by B08:

The biggest thing for us is it’s just hard to tell a tangible result from [the program]. So [if] we could figure out how to do that, I think it would be a more beneficial service.

Similarly, participants were frustrated with the program’s reduced services, particularly the ability to launch events at their location, with B24 highlighting their frustration as being “due to the COVID suspension.”

Similarly, mixed reception to the program (9/35) focused on the gaps in the feature set and was generally optimistic, focusing on the potential over the current features. B03 expressed a tentative optimism that they could use the program to offset slow days: “If I made it so that every week on Saturday,” the business’s slow day, “we could schedule an event to get people into the store, then that might actually turn into income for us.” Other participants cited the pandemic as a mediating factor in their neutrality to the program. These participants expressed fears about running events and engaging in outreach, with some businesses, such as B11, planning events for the future: “Once the pandemic goes away, we might start offering a discount just to see how many people are actually using it.” Neutrality was also a trend among businesses with low integration with their location who were in the program for their gratification. In these cases, because participation centers on personal gameplay, the cost to sponsor the location would be prohibitive, as B16 notes: “It’s more of a personal investment, I would pay more than … the average <business> shop. [Targeted online ads] don’t tend to go over more than ten, fifteen dollars a month.”

5.1 Research Question 1: Business Perceptions

Our participants generally found LGA to have a positive impact on fostering awareness of their respective brands. Although this increase wasn’t unilateral, most businesses studied (26/35) considered the sponsored location program a good shepherd for brand awareness. PoI advertisement acts as a digital billboard to the players, highlighting businesses savvy enough to appeal to them through their ludic experience.

Using a PoI in Pokémon GO for LGA forces players to interact with it no less than two times to receive a reward in the form of in-game resources. An increase in awareness aligns with the findings of Palmas et al. [44], who note that interaction with advertising has a positive effect on brand awareness. These PoI advertisements also leverage the value exchange model of interaction described by the IAB’s Game Committee, Google, and Guo et al. [21, 22, 25]. However, the LGA PoI advertisement is more diegetically linked to the context of the game, in contrast to more traditional models, which require the consumer to watch a video or complete a survey; an LGA PoI expects the player to play the game. This design choice in serving the advertisement reduces the nuisance cost [22] of the value exchange, allowing both Niantic and the business to offer less in terms of rewards while still maintaining player satisfaction. Our participants reinforce this conclusion, generally espousing the program’s value to their customers. More tangibly, this satisfaction can result in favorable perceptions of the business, directly leading to positive business outcomes as suggested by Wang and Sun [56]. In our present research, participants support this view, with 20 of the 35 surveyed businesses describing increased foot traffic.

5.2 Research Question 2: Business Outcomes

Despite being common among participants, businesses do not universally observe increased foot traffic. When considering the distinction between businesses located in locations requiring a car and those where travel on foot is more the norm, a similar distribution of increased foot traffic is apparent. For every business that reported no increase in foot traffic, three businesses observed an increase. As such, conveyance means and physical location are low predictors for the efficacy of LGA for foot traffic increases. Instead, a deeper relationship exists between the local community and the efficacy of LGA. Communal norms centered around interference with local businesses appeared to mediate LGA efficacy most directly. Communities with a culture of engaging with businesses, and vice versa, tended to have positive experiences with program results. When engagement came from the business, it typically occurred through event organization, integrated promotions, or even the time-honored tradition [26, 28] of social media posts. However, these social media posts directly referenced the status of the business as a sponsored location.

In contrast, more insular communities that avoided contact with businesses tended to house businesses with minimal foot traffic changes due to LGA. These communities had a minimal incentive to interact with local businesses, which lacked a social reward for interaction. Low interaction may also be an extension of territoriality, albeit not so much as players declaring ownership [31, 45], but as the tensions between physical and digital ownership. While players can establish a sense of ownership over locations in location-based games, this ownership is ephemeral and contextual when they don’t own the property. In contrast, physical ownership (e.g., of a business or a home) appears more concrete to players and takes precedence over the digital world. The dynamic between digital and physical ownership may make players’ perceptions of space muddled, making entering territories with these unclear dynamics unappealing or awkward.

The tension of ownership, coupled with the attributes of successful businesses, suggests that when leveraging LGA PoI, LGA purchasers (the small businesses) must engage with the local community of the location-based game. The PoI must incentivize in-person interaction, inviting players to interact with the physical world. By interacting with the player, the PoI, or the business itself, we can reduce the ambiguity produced by the overlay of the digital world. Discussions with our participants (12/35) also suggest that ambiguity is reduced when physical artifacts demark the physical site as a space for gameplay.

5.3 Research Question 3: Sponsored Pain Points

Despite the promise of LGA already discussed, participants didn’t find it to be clearly beneficial to their business operations. Nineteen of our participants indicated doubts about the program’s effectiveness as an advertising avenue. The local community and business engagement may influence this sentiment; however, we must recognize the problems experienced by participants with LGA management tools.

While tools for management were available and described in the registration email, participants had a relatively high rate of not recognizing they existed. Paradoxically, those participants needed to access the tool to establish their PoI in the first place. This discrepancy points to two critical managerial implications: (1) consumers using LGA need more frequent notification of feature sets, and (2) the cognitive load of these messages should be deliberately light.

When asked for a solution, the participants unilaterally requested additional emails. Some requested an email, but those familiar with the tool requested additional reminders. Indirectly, however, the participants further indicated a need for easily consumable lessons. As our participants were small and medium-sized businesses, time was a premium some couldn’t afford. For some, the tools weren’t appealing enough to cut into the time the business owner could spend operating their business. Accordingly, short samples of tool usage alongside short instruction or bite-sized lessons may improve the value of the toolset for LGA customers.

To complicate things, many participants had difficulty connecting the analytics contained within the tool to actual business results. The analytics were abstract and more focused on the location-based game aspects of the PoI instead of the business aspects; they expressed no clear linkage between players and business usage. The LGA variation studied didn’t integrate with point-of-sale terminals or encourage players to log they had visited the business. Worse still, due to COVID-19, Niantic increased the interaction range for PoI, so players could interact with the stop and not necessarily interact with the physical location [12]. In response to this uncertainty, future work needs to explore incentivization for physical interaction further. Despite the observed flaws with the tools, participants who leveraged the tools were more satisfied with their experiences surrounding LGA. Those participants who had enough time to learn to leverage the tools and analytics may have bought into the LGA more than their peers; perhaps they already had pre-existing confidence in LGA, resulting in them dedicating more time to the endeavor.

5.4 Design Implications

The key value of our findings, however, is that they elucidate some critical design implications for both LGA and location-based games. LGA represents a business-directed mechanism for generating PoI. While there is a monetary motivation in the case of LGA, developers could extend these lessons to non-LGA contexts. Furthermore, our explorations of user interactions with PoI provide lessons on properly managing people–place relationships in location-based game contexts.

6.1 Limitations

This work is limited to businesses with English-speaking owners, preventing interviews with non-English-speaking participants in the sponsored location program. However, researchers must check if our findings on LGA are translatable to non-English locales. Additionally, while a partnership with Niantic aided our recruitment efforts, interviews were opt-in, potentially biasing our results toward extremes in user experience. Furthermore, the participants were recipients of aid in advertising, which may bias the present results toward the positive.

The present research highlights a temporally specific snapshot of the studied businesses participating in a limited program. As such, exact replication of our findings is unlikely in future research. However, this work represents an essential initial step in assessing the role advertising plays in location-based games. Location-based games such as Pokémon GO are not static things. As the publisher changes mechanics and designed affordances, and the community reacts to these and external changes, we expect that expressions of the present themes may change. Future work should consider the differences in the designed affordances of the LGA studied relative to those described in the present work.

Finally, this work focuses on LGA in Pokémon GO. While the design of Pokémon GO exhibits similarity to other popular location-based games, such as Ingress [39], affordances have been generated to be interpreted through the processes of social contexts [45]. The mechanics and designs of the location-based game mediate the precise expression of LGA. However, different location-based game mechanics and designs have resulted in similar expressions of player behavior, albeit with different emphases [13]. As such, the nature of Pokémon GO may have amplified certain factors in the LGA while suppressing others. In continuing the current literature trend, this analysis focuses on the lived experiences of business owners who participated in LGA rather than the specific relationships in Pokémon GO. As such, this study resembles other studies in the field of location-based games (e.g., methodological framework, interpretive lens, etc.; see Section 3 for more details), building on the existing body of work [13, 45, 46, 48]. This work continues the larger discourse on the attributes of location-based games and their impact on the world. Accordingly, this work must not be interpreted in a vacuum but alongside other location-based game discourses.

6.2 The Future of LGA Research

Research targeting players who encounter LGA in real life is necessary to understand the impacts of the advertising modality on consumers. Researchers should carefully consider the impact of LGA on brand awareness, purchase intention, and sentiment. In the context of this research, we only have business owners’ perspectives on their consumers’ responses. While the owner’s perspective is valuable in comprehending initial perceptions of advertising value, a greater focus on consumers is necessary for future work. Additionally, future work should verify the proposed alterations to LGA made in this work through real-world testing. Altered interfaces and pricing models need evaluation to determine optimal outcomes for the location-based game producer and the LGA purchaser. Future work should also explore our research questions in broader location-based game contexts as the genre expands. Finally, researchers must understand the impacts of LGA on location-based games, considering the following questions: Does LGA impact well-being? How does it affect play rates? Does LGA PoI affect game balance meaningfully? These questions represent a broader scope of research questions and explorations far beyond the context of this work.