Allen Wang

Perspectives on Pokémon Go

I picked Pokémon Go as an initial research topic for the first month of my B.Des. Industrial Design thesis project. I planned and carried out a suite of primary and secondary research methods including semi-structured interviews, ethnographic observation, literature review, and lurking on social media and blogs. This culminated in an online survey of six open-ended questions which received a whopping 1043 responses, many of them passionately written. In my conceptual analysis, I broke down the game into a Barthesian myth (a glorification of completionism: "gotta catch 'em all!") fused with an augmented-reality implementation in the form of an overlaid map. I synthesized the presence of an "Information Age colonialism" through which the US-based developer exerted a dominant perspective on players worldwide through its inadequate and closed curation of PokéStops. Consequently, players felt frustrated and disenfranchised because they could not improve their experiences (make the game “easier”) despite playing a game taking place in their very own backyards.

“On my portfolio website, you can find an in-depth explanation and documentation of my thesis as well as its many satellite projects, alongside work in service design, design research, and a kaleidoscope of conceptual explorations. I'd love to hear from you if you have any questions, comments, or feedback—feel free to shoot me an email or connect on LinkedIn!”