%0 Generic %1 graellsgarrido2016effect %A Graells-Garrido, Eduardo %A Ferres, Leo %A Bravo, Loreto %D 2016 %K diss geo inthesis patterns pokemon spatial %T The Effect of Pokémon Go on The Pulse of the City: A Natural Experiment %U http://arxiv.org/abs/1610.08098 %X Pokémon Go has received unprecedented media coverage for a location-based game that uses augmented reality techniques. The game has been commonly associated with greater access to public spaces, increasing the number of people out on the streets, and generally improving health, social, and security indices. However, the true impact of Pokémon Go on people's mobility patterns in a city is still largely unknown. In this paper we perform a natural experiment using data from mobile networks to evaluate the effect of Pokémon Go on the pulse of a big city: Santiago of Chile. We found a significant effect of Pokémon Go on the floating population of Santiago: up to 13.8\% more people being outside at certain times, even if they do not seem to go out of their usual way. These effects at specific times were found by performing several regressions using count models over snapshots of the cell phone network. The effect is significant after controlling for land use, daily patterns, and points of interest in the city. Particularly, we found that, in business days, there is more people on the street at commuting times, meaning that people did not change their daily routines but slightly adapted them to play the game. Conversely, on Saturday and Sunday night, people indeed went out to play to places nearby their homes. Even if the statistical effects of the game do not reflect the massive reach portrayed by the media, it still allowed the streets to become a new place for people to spend time in. This is important, because results like these are expected to inform long-term infrastructure investments by city officials, jointly with public policies aimed at, for example, stimulating pedestrian traffic or suggesting alternative routes. Our work supports the notion that location-based games like Pokémon Go have benefits for the life in the city.

@misc{graellsgarrido2016effect, abstract = {Pok\'emon Go has received unprecedented media coverage for a location-based game that uses augmented reality techniques. The game has been commonly associated with greater access to public spaces, increasing the number of people out on the streets, and generally improving health, social, and security indices. However, the true impact of Pok\'emon Go on people's mobility patterns in a city is still largely unknown. In this paper we perform a natural experiment using data from mobile networks to evaluate the effect of Pok\'emon Go on the pulse of a big city: Santiago of Chile. We found a significant effect of Pok\'emon Go on the floating population of Santiago: up to 13.8\% more people being outside at certain times, even if they do not seem to go out of their usual way. These effects at specific times were found by performing several regressions using count models over snapshots of the cell phone network. The effect is significant after controlling for land use, daily patterns, and points of interest in the city. Particularly, we found that, in business days, there is more people on the street at commuting times, meaning that people did not change their daily routines but slightly adapted them to play the game. Conversely, on Saturday and Sunday night, people indeed went out to play to places nearby their homes. Even if the statistical effects of the game do not reflect the massive reach portrayed by the media, it still allowed the streets to become a new place for people to spend time in. This is important, because results like these are expected to inform long-term infrastructure investments by city officials, jointly with public policies aimed at, for example, stimulating pedestrian traffic or suggesting alternative routes. Our work supports the notion that location-based games like Pok\'emon Go have benefits for the life in the city.}, added-at = {2017-02-01T10:26:03.000+0100}, author = {Graells-Garrido, Eduardo and Ferres, Leo and Bravo, Loreto}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/28203c4a7fe56de103c6eb678216e3bd1/becker}, interhash = {38369c69c112d15f646f02eb696a93c4}, intrahash = {8203c4a7fe56de103c6eb678216e3bd1}, keywords = {diss geo inthesis patterns pokemon spatial}, note = {cite arxiv:1610.08098Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures. Pre-print under review}, timestamp = {2017-02-01T10:26:03.000+0100}, title = {The Effect of Pok\'emon Go on The Pulse of the City: A Natural Experiment}, url = {http://arxiv.org/abs/1610.08098}, year = 2016 }