Pokémon Go as a location-based application necessitates engagement with spaces outside of the digital, which enables physical congregation of the community. Analysis of group content revealed many non-digital forms of community engagement, including the monthly Community Day facilitated by Niantic. This event encourages community play in spaces throughout the city, such as the Botanical Gardens (ZoëTwoDots), where crowds of players gather to catch Featured Pokémon (Pokémon Go Live 2019).
Other non-digital events such as ‘PokéRubbish’ dedicate community efforts to cleaning up debris within neighbourhoods across the city. These events represent the Pokémon Go community’s civic engagement, reinforcing the results of studies (Cole 2000; Katz and Rice 2002; Katz and Aspden 1997) which indicate that Internet users are, despite their affinity for online spaces, more inclined to participate in civil society (Baym 2010, p.134).
Sydney’s Pokémon Go community thus shares ‘space’ (Baym 2010, pp. 110-112) across three dimensions: the ‘semi-physical reality’ (Baym 2010, p. 111) of the game itself; social media platforms; and physical reality. The splay of content which the group produces and shares across these spaces reinforces Leander and McKim’s (2003) constant movement, interaction and change of an online community’s “objects, texts, and bodies” (Walker 2010, p. 28).
The PoGo Project 