Investigating Players' Engagement, Immersion, and Experiences in Playing Pokémon Go.

In recent years, Augmented Reality (AR) based mobile games have become popular among players. The Pokémon Go is one of the well-known examples. Although Pokémon Go game has become a global phenomenon, there is a limited study about players' experiences in the gameplay. Especially, little is known about players' engagement and immersion in playing AR-based mobile games in which physical movements in the real world are largely required to play the game. In this study, we conducted a pilot study with eight participants to investigate players' engagement, immersion, and experiences in the Pokémon Go gameplay. We report and discuss the preliminary findings from the study, which can help game designers understand players' experiences in the gameplay so that they can design more creative AR games in the future. Furthermore, the findings are also useful for future studies with larger sample size.