Abstract:
The growth of the digital game culture, combined with the ubiquitous nature of digital games has led to an intensified mediation of digital game content in the physical environment. This is strengthened through the lens of Pokémon Go, a pervasive, location-based mobile game that has been deemed as the “Zeitgeist of the moment”.1 It has culminated in streets being filled with a vast number of game players as they travel from one location to the next to capture fictional creatures, collect items and claim virtual territory. Recognising the popularisation and widespread dissemination of Pokémon Go, this thesis heralds a future defined by digital games where everyday spaces become more complex as the individualised practices and values of pervasive, location-based mobile games operate in adherence with the conventions of the physical world. It explicably questions whether the current built environment is able to accommodate this looming future. Pokémon Go as the Zeitgeist implies a reinterpretation of architecture where its rationalities are influenced by the field of digital games. Seeking to formulate a role of architecture for this altered setting, Pokémon Go is used as a tool for identifying the implications of these games in the physical world as well as the possibilities of an architectural response. The methodology applied for development of the design research draws on a range of theory, concepts and precedents pertaining to both the fields of architecture and digital games. Formed by the findings and discussions, Ludo-pocalypse: The Architecture for the Ludic Zeitgeist of Gaming Ubiquity is the proposition of an architecture that responds to the growing presence of digital games.