By: Jacob Martinez
Throughout the past couple of years, there has been an abundant number of apps that have become location based. Some apps include Snapchat, Tinder, Amusement Park Apps, and Door Dash. However, when we think about applications that are to be location-based games, there are only a few of them that exist. In this week's reading, “The role of a location-based city exploration game in digital placemaking” by Carolyn Pang, we understand the importance of location-based games (LBG) and how it affects the overall community.
The article starts off by explaining the basics of LBG and how it can help increase community awareness and provide information sharing throughout that community that you are a part of. The communities that researchers wanted to focus on were people who were a part of the urban area. The researchers involved in this study wanted to focus on the city and help develop an app that would provide information about the city for people who wanted to learn more about the companies or restaurants that surround them. This type of app helped people explore the city while taking public transportation.
The app that was officially developed was then soon to be named “City Explorer.” With this app, users would take public transportation and earn points when they would travel around the city and visit new spots. Before officially releasing the app, the researchers took in 12 participants that used the applications for a 4-week period. During this type the researchers gathered statistics and learned about how people began to like this type of location-based gaming because of the information they gathered from the community they live in. Carolyn Pang’s stated in this article that their, “results revealed that players valued learning about their personal transit routines and community information at the start and end of their routes based on its geographic importance to them (e.g. at home or work).”
From this one app development, researchers have found a ton of new information. They have learned that people are more involved with their community when they have an attachment to it. To further explain this, people who do become attached, end up sharing more of their experience within the community to show other people who do not necessarily live there, that the city is a wonderful place to be in or visit. Another result that they found was that most people who did use these location-based games found that the information the were most interested in was “time-based information”. To understand time-based information, the article defines it as “before-the-moment’ so one could plan activities based on it or around it.” I definitely understand this more because from my own experience, I learned that whenever I want to do something, I always want to plan it ahead of time and hear other people's experience. Overall, I think that location-based games are necessary as they help provide enough information to people a part of urban communities, that are looking for suggestions. I am excited to see the future of location-based games developments and how a ton of communities share their experience to form a better community.
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