It
is rare for a game to become such a phenomenon that almost 300
scientific papers are published about it in a span of three years.
However, that is the case with the location-based game Pokémon GO. The
game has been praised as a solution to the global inactivity crisis, but
also criticized, for example, for only increasing physical activity in
the short term. In order to gather together the findings of previous
studies, a systematic literature review was conducted. Initially, 277
scientific articles which contained the term “Pokémon GO” in the title
or the abstract were discovered. After categorizing the articles and
removing those which did not focus on the effects Pokémon GO has on
physical activity, 20 empirical studies remained. A majority (60%) of
the studies showed an increase in the number of daily steps taken,
whereas 30% of studies reported only short term improvements which
diminished soon after. The beneficial effects were found to manifest
more strongly on physically inactive individuals and were linked to
playing retention. Furthermore, the results revealed that (1) most data
used in studies is from 2016, after which the game has drastically
changed and (2) longitudinal studies spanning over the course of a year
are missing.