UX Research | Understanding Social Interactions in Location-based Games as Hybrid Spaces

The overlaying of physical spaces with digital information produces hybrid spaces. These spaces can affect how people experience social interactions. Location-based games (LBGs) with social components are a good case. Yet, the impact LBGs have on sociability remains under-researched. In April 2020, the new in-person/remote raiding format in the LBG Pokémon GO provided a lens to explore people’s social interactions, including coordination and collaboration in hybrid spaces. We interviewed 41 players who play in-person/remote raiding in Pokémon GO to examine how players coordinate and collaborate for raids and the factors influencing people’s social interactions in such a hybrid space. The results chiefly indicate that: third-party applications support players’ raiding coordination, but players encounter the interoperability issue; collaborations around social interactions are beyond the scope of raiding in the spontaneously organized external social media groups. Overall, this work sheds light on the social interactions in LBGs as hybrid spaces.