1. Introduction.- Part One: Discourses and Ideologies.- 2. A Definition and Brief History of Location-based Games (2001-8).- 3. ‘The City Becomes the Game’s Playground’: Discursive Claims.- Part Two: The App Ecology.- 4. Location-based Gaming’s Second Phase (2008 – present).- 5: Location-based Gaming Apps and the Labour of Play.- Part 3: City-funded Location-based Games.- 6. Urban Policy and Participatory Planning Location-based Games.- 7. Wayfinding and Codemaking in the City of Melbourne.- 8. Conclusion.

Location-based games emerged in the early 2000s following the commercialisation of GPS and artistic experimentation with ‘locative media’ technologies. Location-based games are played in everyday public spaces using GPS and networked, mobile technologies to track their players’ location. This book traces the evolution of location-based gaming, from its emergence as a marginal practice to its recent popularisation through smartphone apps like Pokémon Go and its incorporation into ‘smart city’ strategies. Drawing on this history and an analysis of the scholarly and mainstream literature on location-based games, Leorke unpacks the key claims made about them. These claims position location-based games as alternately enriching or diminishing their players’ engagement with the people and places they encounter through the game. Through rich case studies and interviews with location-based game designers and players, Leorke tests out and challenges these celebratoryand pessimistic discourses. He argues for a more grounded approach to researching location-based games and their impact on public space that reflects the ideologies, lived experiences, and institutional imperatives that circulate around their design and performance. By situating location-based games within broader debates about the role of play and digitisation in public life, Location-Based Gaming offers an original and timely account of location-based gaming and its growing prominence.

“Leorke’s book marks a welcome threshold in the study of location-based games. Building deftly on interviews with artists, designers, players, funders and urbanists, Leorke pays close attention to the ambivalence of gaming as situated practice, extending this to critical analysis of foundational concepts. He offers a nuanced appreciation of the distinctive promises and pleasures of urban location-based gaming without losing sight of its implication in political economy and the contemporary datafication of play. This book deserves to be widely read, and will be of particular interest to those working in media and cultural studies, urban studies, as well as games studies and digital media specialists.” (Scott McQuire, Professor of Media and Communications, Deputy-Director (Research) Melbourne Networked Society Institute, University of Melbourne, Australia)“In this extraordinarily well-written book, Dale Leorke offers a thoughtful and exhaustive analysis of the convergence of technology, space, and games. In Location-Based Gaming, Leorke is able to identify the arguments that have gone unquestioned in the 15 years that location-based games have been actively played. By pinpointing the assumptions in scholarship and the popular imaginary about the seeming transformative power of place-based games, Leorke skillfully and deeply analyzes the consequences of these assumptions. This book will change the way that scholarship on mobile media and games is understood and researched.” ( Jason Farman, Associate Professor and Director, Design Cultures & Creativity, University of Maryland, USA)

First book to combine a theoretical and empirical analysis of location-based games, from their emergence in the early 2000s through to their current commercial and publicly-funded iterations Provides unique insights that contribute to scholarly debates around location-based games and the broader transformation of everyday urban life by digital technologies and platforms Offers a key intervention into the scholarship on location-based and location-aware technologies in public space Provides an up-to-date, critical account of current developments in the field of location-based game design and location-aware devices more generally Analyses implications for policymakers and designers of location-based games, providing recommendations and a framework for their future development

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