Player
communities in the location-based games Pokémon GO and Ingress differ
from most online multiplayer game communities in two major ways: (1)
Interaction between players occurs mostly face-to-face and (2) teams are
static, for example, currently in Pokémon GO, changing teams is
possible only once a year. In addition, much of the interaction between
teams is non-verbal and occurs in the game world. The current study
investigates how these characteristics affect the forming of player
communities and friendships, and how the team of Pokémon Go and Ingress
players can be used to predict the usage and attitudes towards a
slang-word “jym” i.e. gym. Five Pokémon GO chats (242852 messages) from
South-Western Finland were analyzed. In addition, a questionnaire
(N=178) was sent to players in the case community, asking about their
opinions and attitudes towards the word “jym”. The results highlight the
importance of the team in location-based games for the forming of
friendships and raise an issue that the lack of verbal communication and
cooperative opportunities can lead to negative attitudes and prejudice
towards players on the opposing team. The study shows the influence of
exclusive team chats on players’ attitudes and draws parallels to the
polarization of opinions due to personalized search results and social
media. Game mechanics which encourage players from different teams to
cooperate with one another are proposed as a solution for the
polarization.