How Location-Based Games Incentivize Moving About: A Study in the Context of Nature-Going

Location-based multiplayer games such as Pokémon GO are tied to real-world locations. Past research has demonstrated that, consequently, these games influence where players move. In order to explore what dynamics in these games incentivize travel to specific places or areas, we engaged in interviews with active players. We discovered 11 unique game dynamics, which could be positioned under three overarching themes: (1) the playing field, as determined by the placement of points of interest, the players' habitat and their surroundings; (2) the player communities and real life relationships, which motivated and directed the playing; and (3) coincidental motivational support, which highlighted how location-based games offer multi-layered motivation for players to travel to, and engage with, specific real-world locations. Our study contributes to the fields of gamified human mobility and human-nature interaction by elucidating how playful technologies can influence where and when people move.


INTRODUCTION
Understanding human mobility (i.e., when, where, and how people move) is important for countless elds including, but not limited to, population health, urban planning, tra c forecasting, and infectious disease spread [21].For the same reasons, it is paramount to study new technology trends such as location-based gaming, which impact human mobility patterns and our propensity to move about [10], even if these technologies were still at their infancy.By leveraging such motivational technologies, we may be able to, for example, nudge people to exercise more, reduce their carbon footprint, or mitigate the formation of tra c jams.
While not perhaps a central aim of contemporary multiplayer location-based games (LBGs) [17], being outdoors is an integral part of their design, since moving in the game is only possible through movement in the real world.Moving about is strongly present, for example, in the trailers of these games, where players travel in various environments, including both urban and nature (e.g.Pokémon GO 1 [55] and The Witcher: Monster Slayer 2 [68]).Prior research has emphasised that LBG players often play near their home and as part of their daily activities [10,35], and that at least in the Niantic games (e.g., Ingress Prime [52], Pokémon GO, Pikmin Bloom [53], Harry Potter: Wizards Unite [54]), there are overwhelmingly more points of interest (PoIs) in urban populated areas in comparison to rural areas and nature [27].This, together with early work on LBGs [11], suggests that most play takes place in cities, making the study of LBGs relevant for elds such as urban planning.
Since LBGs e ectively mix the digital game with the real-world environment, making the playing experience dependent on the playing location [41], they have the potential to motivate players' travel to speci c locations [10].However, so far the academic research has mostly focused on the e ects of Pokémon GO on players' exercise and physical activity (see e.g., [5,74]) with only a little emphasis on where players move [8].There is a paucity of knowledge on the mechanisms through which LBGs motivate and direct mobility patterns, particularly regarding movement to speci c kinds of places (such as landmarks) and areas (such as forests and nature).In this work, we selected nature as a study context, since motivating nature-going is one of the proposed outcomes of LBGs [45,63,64,66] but so far little is known regarding the concrete mechanisms through which players are brought to nature.To advance the scienti c understanding of this topic, we formulate the following research question (RQ) that guides this study: RQ: How do location-based games encourage people to move about?-i.e.how and why as propelled by them they visit speci c places such as locations of interest in nature?
Since LBG playing is a complex mix of the physical and the augmented, simply observing game mechanics was insu cient in answering the RQ.Thus, to understand players' lived experiences with the games, we approached the RQ through semi-structured player interviews (N=21).By addressing this RQ, we contribute knowledge to the academic literature on what mechanisms contemporary multiplayer LBGs have for motivating moving about (e.g., [10,35]), and secondarily, on the role that LBGs have in human-nature interaction [64][65][66].

BACKGROUND 2.1 Location-Based Games and Player Movement
There are several gami cation [22,50] approaches for motivating physical activity and healthy lifestyles, especially in the area of exergames [42] and quanti ed self [67].However, contemporary multiplayer LBGs represent a class of gameful technology where the main purpose is entertainment, and the motivational e ects on, e.g., exercise and being outdoors can be seen as collateral consequences of playing [17].
LBGs are viewed as a sub-genre of pervasive games, and central to these games is that the players' real-world location in uences the game world [1,36].Contemporary commercial multiplayer LBGs are in many ways typical multiplayer online games [32], with the exception that the playing eld of LBGs is superimposed on top of the real world [41].In LBGs such as Pokémon GO, Ingress Prime, The Walking Dead: Our World [51], Jurassic World: Alive [46] and Orna [16], the playing eld is determined by in-game virtual points of interest (PoIs).Regarding PoIs, contemporary commercial LBGs can be divided into two main camps: (1) those with unique PoIs; and (2) those with generic PoIs.In the case of generic PoIs, it does not matter where the player plays.Examples of commercial LBGs with generic PoIs include The Witcher: Monster Slayer, Draconius GO [13], and Jurassic World: Alive.By contrast, previous research suggests that games with unique PoIs, such as Pokémon GO, motivate players to switch their travel routes and go to speci c places to play [10,27].Inherent to LBGs is a blurring of boundaries between the game and the real world, where players' everyday activities in uence where they play, and the goals and tasks that players pursue in the game world direct their movement in the real world [1,10,35].This makes LBGs relevant from the perspective of adopting permanent behaviors (e.g.[4]), one of which is mobility and movement.
The empirical research on LBGs so far has observed both commercial LBGs (such as Pokémon GO [55]) and ad hoc games created for research purposes (e.g., [26,58]).Since all video games are a unique combination of art such as graphics, gameplay, and music [76], objectively comparing the ndings between these studies is di cult, although some generalizations have been made [34].Literature reviews on LBGs, including both qualitative [7,74] and quantitative [29,40] comparisons, draw bridges between satellite navigation-based gameplay and engagement in mild exercise.Besides the extensive research on exercise and physical activity [5,34,74], there is also research on LBG players' social connectivity [9,34,61,73], overall health e ects and psychological well-being [30,74], and on the adoption of unwanted behaviors [4].Taken together, the ndings from these studies suggest that LBGs similar to Pokémon GO support an active lifestyle and the formation and maintenance of social connections and increase the amount of mild daily exercise (e.g., [74]).
LBGs have also been studied from the viewpoints of lived experiences [43], territoriality [59], education [48,49], marketing [23] and tourism [78].These studies indicate that LBGs are broadly connected to various aspects of players' everyday lives, and furthermore, that there is, to some degree, a convergence between the game and the rest of players' lives [35].There are also works building the philosophical foundation of LBGs through, e.g., phenomenological approaches [41].These studies demonstrate the intrinsic multidisciplinariety of LBG research and the need to involve rich data and diverse viewpoints for understanding the games and surrounding phenomena.Indeed, recent studies have drawn from qualitative data sources such as player interviews [9,30,35] and ethnographic observations [2,62] as well as quantitative sources such as surveys [23] and online data [34] to better understand LBGs and phenomena related to them.
Taken together, the extant research on LBGs suggests that they are connected to various aspects of players' lives [35] and in order to understand how these games provide incentives to move to speci c locations, we need to employ holistic approaches considering both game-mechanical factors as well as social, real world, and practical factors.Next, we present the context in which we study these phenomena: nature-going.

Study Context: Motivating Nature-Going
Past empirical research has provided substantial evidence that spending time in nature contributes to our physical and psychological well-being [19,28,56,57], as do viewing nature landscapes [39] and mindful walks in forests [60].Spending time in nature can be a ful lling experience, and researchers have proposed, e.g., that humans have an innate desire to get to know other living organisms [77].In order to reconnect urban citizens with nature, we see an opportunity to investigate how technologies may help boost people's motivation for going to (and augment their experience of) nature.A promising development in this space is the utilization of gami cation and motivational technologies [22,31], among which video games, and LBGs speci cally, have recently received a lot of attention, not only for their motivational value but also for their ability to in uence players' movement [9,10,30].
Nature is a word with many meanings, and there is no clear consensus on how it should be de ned [38,69].In the context of this study, we de ne nature as a non-arti cial spatial location and environment.Hence, we exclude urban areas, human-made objects, and farmland from the concept of nature.Parks and recreational grounds can be seen as part of nature, as while they are taken care of by humans, their very aim is to provide a green "nature" experience in the midst of cities. Accordingly, when we discuss human-nature interaction, we refer to the interactions humans have with non-arti cial areas and everything in them, including living organisms such as ora and fauna, but also non-living matter such as mountains, rocks, deserts, and bodies of water.Even with this de nition, globally the concept of nature will have great variance.In this work, we primarily focus on nature as perceived by Finnish LBG players.
Today, the majority of the human population lives in urban areas as opposed to nature3 .However, urban areas and other built areas represent only around 1% of the world's land surface 4 .Urbanization keeps on accelerating due to work opportunities and proximity of services, but there are also counter-trends such as remote working opportunities.From an evolutionary perspective, the move to urban living has been very recent, starting only around 10 000 B.C.E.due to the agricultural revolution [24,25], which is a short time period compared to hundreds of thousands to a few million years of hunter-gatherer living in nature [24].At the same time, ecological issues such as climate change evince that a systemic transformation of humans' relationship with nature, including a deep shift in prevalent worldviews and norms, is needed for a sustainable future [72].Recent research suggests that games can raise awareness, nurture emotional connection and promote behavior change regarding environmental issues such as climate change [18].Even digital games without utilitarian purposes hold the potential to in uence players' engagement with these topics [14].Given the immediate and long-term, and individual and societal bene ts of cultivating healthy human-nature relationships, we see a worthwhile opportunity to explore how to encourage people to connect more and in more depth with nature, and here we turn to LBGs which hold the potential to in uence player movement [10] and motivate nature-going [63,64].
However, the research on how LBGs mediate human-forest interactions suggests minimal effects [66], and some studies even pinpoint that LBGs may distract players from meaningful nature experiences [63].This body of work is still small and further evidence is needed to understand the role of contemporary multiplayer LBGs (games currently being played, or fresh in the memory of the participants at the time this research was conducted) in human-forest interactions.All in all, the complexity of LBGs and human-nature interactions call for research approaches that draw inferences from rich qualitative data and provide evidence-based conceptualisations of related phenomena.Such research can also lay the eldwork for further quantitative research on this topic, helping to ground such research into proper context.For this reason, we chose to conduct in-depth player interviews among active and long-time LBG players.The nature context also o ers us a great way to probe how LBGs incentivize movement, addressing our RQ.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
In this study, we followed a grounded methodology approach for qualitative inductive analysis.We chose the approach of Gioia et al. [20], according to whom their method was created to bring scholarly rigor and transparency to inductive analyses and their reporting.The approach relies on open coding of data to extract concepts and a theoretical frame for describing interview data.In a dichotomy of interpretive research orientations, the method is classi ed as naturalist as opposed to hermeneutic [47], meaning that the approach relies on the informants as objective data sources and attempts to minimize some of the inherent subjectivity involved in data interpretation.By contrast, hermeneutic approaches problematize the data sources and the researchers as objective interpreters of the data [47].The procedurally rigorous approach of the Gioia method also mitigates some of the subjectivity (which can come at the cost of being reductionist) that is always present in qualitative analyses and further improves the transparency of the analysis.
Following the Gioia method, we conducted in-depth interviews with active LBG players.When designing the interview guidelines and formulating the RQ, we adhered to the guidelines of Gioia et al. [20], who suggest consulting initial literature and formulating a clear "how" question before starting with any interviews.In our case, the authors were familiar with previous LBG literature and were also (in di erent ways) active players themselves, with experiences of playing in both urban and natural environments.These experiences and knowledge served as the basis for formulating the interview protocol.

Data Collection
We designed the interview guide around players' experiences regarding playing in nature and what had motivated them to go there.Since we sought to discover and elucidate the mechanisms that had brought players to speci c areas, we opted for an interview approach (semi-structured interviews [44]) that left room for participants to express views that we had not realised to probe or ask for.Ultimately, we agreed that in the interview guide, we focus on the following two broad themes: Theme 1: When and how have LBGs direct players to forests and nature?and Theme2: How do LBGs alter, enhance, diminish or otherwise in uence player experiences in nature?.The participants were asked semi-structured questions based on these themes, which were followed up by clarifying questions by the rst author conducting the interviews.The core structure of the interviews is displayed in Table 1.Participants were recruited through social media channels.The authors posted a request to be interviewed on three Finnish LBG player WhatsApp channels and two Telegram channels on two occasions: November 2021 and January 2022.All participants were promised a promotional code worth roughly 10 USD for their time.Participation was voluntary and participants were self-selected.Due to movement restrictions for mitigating the spread of the COVID-19 disease, all interviews were held online via Zoom.The interviews were carried out by the rst author, lasted between 30 min and 70 min, and were all recorded and later transcribed.We recruited participants in batches of 3-5 and agreed that once we had a batch where no new relevant information had emerged, we would have reached saturation, which occurred after 21 interviews.The basic demographic information of these participants is given in Table 2. Most of the participants had played LBGs for 5,5 years, which corresponds to the launch of the most popular LBG, Pokémon GO, in the summer of 2016.Despite recruitment taking place in two channels that were not Pokémon GO speci c, all participants had played at least Pokémon GO in addition to any other LBGs they may have played.After Pokémon GO the most popular LBGs among the participants were Ingress Prime, Pikmin Bloom, and the now-discontinued Harry Potter: Wizards Unite.
To understand the participants as LBG players, we refer to the player-centred activity types by Fonseca et al. [15].These include (1) athlete, (2) inventor, (3) detective, (4) explorer, (5) hunter, ( 6) artist, and ( 7) volunteer.Based on the informants' own description of their playing, we sorted the informants into one or more of these categories.For example, if the participant said they play in order to exercise, they were classi ed as an athlete, and if the same participant said they also like to engage with new people or their surroundings, they were in addition classi ed as an explorer [15].There were zero cases where an informant matched with no categories.During the classi cation process, we observed that many of our informants described their playing as goal-oriented or progression-focused.This aligns with Alha et al. 's ndings [3], according to which progression is the overwhelmingly largest reason for players to continue playing LBGs.Due to the prominence of this category by our informants, we added that as the eighth possible category on top of those described by Fonseca et al. [15], and we named this category grinder.The resulting categorisation of the informants is displayed in Table 2 and serves to provide a general overview of the informants as players.

Data Analysis
The data analysis process of the Gioia method consists of three parts.The rst step is an open coding process that seeks to identify the most granular components in the data.This rst-order analysis is very close to the data, and not much author interpretation is done.The second step of the analysis follows when researchers begin to see similarities and di erences between the rst-order themes and start to see potential higher-order categories where several rst-order items may belong to.This process is similar to axial coding in that it seeks to reduce the number of rst-order items into a manageable number.The third step takes place in the theoretical realm, and here the researchers' goal is to connect the data to theory-guided aggregate themes.This step positions the analysis within existing studies and theories.With these three steps, the researchers are able to produce a basic data structure, a frame to describe the data.The nuances of the data can then be positioned around this data structure [20].
In order to accurately interpret the data, researchers need to thoroughly familiarize themselves with the interview context and material.For this reason, we began our analysis with a familiarization step.The authors listened or read through the transcriptions and made notes and remarks in order to obtain a better understanding of the data.For answering the RQ: "How do location-based games encourage people to move about?",we chose to observe the situations in which LBGs motivated or otherwise in uenced the players to go to nature, or away from it, within the data.This served as the basis for the rst step of the analysis and was carried out by the rst author to identify the rst-order concepts.
All authors then continued to group the concepts together to form second-order dimensions according to the Gioia method [20].This process proceeded as follows: the rst and second authors grouped the concepts together independently and sent their work to all the authors for review.They discussed both approaches in relation to the source material.The other authors made comments, and clarifying suggestions to the framework, and the authors also met online to discuss how the rst-order categories should be grouped to best describe the data.During this step the authors also extracted quotes and interesting ideas related to the themes from the data.The third step of the analysis procedure was similar in that the two authors suggested theoretical dimensions, which were then compared to one another and discussed between the authors.After several rounds of iterations, we agreed on the nal data structure.We connected nuances and related phenomena in the data to this basic data structure.

FINDINGS
The results of the rst-order analysis are displayed in Table 3. Altogether 11 concepts emerged.The list depicts the interviewed experts' accounts and therefore entails the lived experiences of 21 active LBG players in Finland.In addition to enumerating the instances when LBGs have directed or nudged players to go to nature, we discuss the circumstances and related motivational mechanisms under which players were prompted to visit nature locations.None of the 11 game dynamics is inherently linked to nature, but rather, they present motivational mechanisms for incentivizing movement to any speci c locations, not only nature.
Following the identi cation of the rst-order concepts, we proceeded with the analysis as described in the previous section.We summarize these ndings in Figure 1.The 11 rst-order concepts of LBG game situations which directed players to nature were grouped into six secondorder dimensions, which were related to three aggregate dimensions that represent areas of focus when designing LBGs that motivate players to play in nature.Some of the game dynamics could in many circumstances motivate movement away from nature instead of towards it, and in the following, we describe the various nuances and circumstances involved in how LBGs incentivize travel to nature areas.

Exploring to Find Rewards
The participants discussed various methods for discovering PoIs.The most often mentioned approach was exploration, which was implicitly present in all the responses, and also explicitly in a few.Exploration could occur by physically moving about, but also in other ways.For example, P11, P12, and P19 mentioned that they use technical tools such as the Ingress Intel Map, Ingress Intel Total Conversion (IITC) scripts, and the Ingress mission tool to discover new areas with potential candidates.P12 stated that they also regularly talk with other players to nd new PoIs.As they did so, players could also share experiences about the locations in which the PoIs were situated.
The static PoIs in, e.g., Pokémon GO and Ingress are largely located in urban areas, meaning that for many forms of exploratory playing in these games it makes more sense to play in a city as opposed to nature.One exception as noted by P17 was capturing pokémon.The reason is that in nature trails marked to OpenStreetMaps (which is used as a base for Pokémon GO), there are a lot of pokémon creature spawns, which in some cases makes playing in nature feasible even when aiming to catch as many pokémon as possible.This is illustrated by the following quote: The depletion of resources (i.e.players having captured areas) served as a big motivation for those participants who played Orna, but also Ingress and Pokémon GO players, for going further away from major cities.In Orna, new playing areas (PoIs) are created when a player goes to a geographical area where no other player had gone before.For this reason, urban areas quickly became populated with PoIs, which motivated players to go play away from cities. P21 explained that this motivates travel by car, but acknowledged that after all major roads have been populated in addition to cities, there may be a new wave of exploration of remote nature locations.Simultaneously, this reveals a negative aspect of unique PoIs from the perspective of motivating nature-going.Since PoIs determine where players play and the majority of PoIs are in urban areas, in many instances, LBGs speci cally motivate urban play as opposed to nature play.Thus, only the most active players who deplete urban resources (PoIs) are directed to explore for more content in nature.The following quotes explain aspects of this tension between urban and rural play: "In geocaching it's quite clear, once you've collected all the caches near your home you have to move to places where there are new ones.I think it's the same with the gyms [in Pokémon GO]" (P1) "I can see myself going to play in forests with Pikmin (...) you can play it anywhere, not just the city." (P5) According to some accounts, the current PoI placement may even be an obstacle for some LBG players to enjoy nature as illustrated by the following quote: "When the game launched I straight away went to forests to play since I thought the game was supposed to be played there.(...) I was excited about every single new pokémon I found.(...) I visited the city maybe a week after, and there were hundreds of pokémon there, like it made no sense to play in nature." (P10) These quotes o er prima facie a contradiction.While PoI placement can, in theory, bring players to nature.Currently the urban-heavy PoI placement in games such as Pokémon GO and Ingress Prime does the opposite in many cases.There are two avenues we can investigate to balance the situation.The rst is to change the PoI criteria to allow for more playable locations in nature, and the second is to create and emphasise content that is speci cally and only available in nature.
In addition to these more explicit themes connected to the theme of exploration, there were more minor and more implicit components of exploration present in the playing habits of the informants.For example, in Pokémon GO players could not tell beforehand who was controlling a gym, or which pokémon would spawn near them.Even when players were navigating to known locations, they were simultaneously exploring their immediate surroundings to nd pokémon to capture.This highlights how the di erent forms of play (e.g.navigating to known locations and exploration) occur hand-in-hand in games such as Pokémon GO.Finally, in addition to exploration within-game, players could explore real-world places while playing.This behavior too, occurred simultaneously with advancing players' goals in-game.These examples highlight how playing LBGs is a multi-faceted endeavour for active players, which combines elements of the real world and the augmented, enabling players to get acquainted with the real world as well as the game.

Navigating to Known Locations
A key decision players make when playing LBGs is deciding where to go.Here the role of the playing eld, which is generated by in-game virtual PoIs, and which is in uenced by everything in the physical world, is highlighted.There are signi cant di erences between LBGs in how the PoIs are used in the game and what their purpose is.This, consequently, directs players' movement.According to the informants, games where the PoIs have no unique characteristics do not motivate travel to speci c places such as nature.This was explained by P1 as follows: "The inns, cafes and what have you [in Harry Potter: Wizards Unite] are more of just the same.At least I see no reason to go to a distant inn when I can just go to one near me." (P1) Thus, unsurprisingly, the players navigating to known speci c locations in nature were all playing games where the PoIs were unique in one way or another.The uniqueness of PoIs was leveraged in these games so that players got rewards from traveling to a speci c place, be it the acquisition of a new gym in Pokémon GO, the discovery of a new area in Orna, or the capture of a unique portal in Ingress.Quotes illustrating these two activities are given below: "I've visited some areas because of gyms, like in [area a] we went to walk around the lake, spend some time and get the gyms." (P6) "I think you still get the unique hack when you create a portal, but for the captures you need to go there again." (P14) "I try to select areas for (...) nature walks where I have un nished gyms.My partner asked if we could go to [location a], but I insisted we go to [location b] because I have un nished gyms there." (P20) In addition to di erences between PoI placement in the LBGs, the game mechanics of the LBGs were also hugely important in how they in uenced players' movement to speci c locations.For example, P3, P12, and P19 were all collecting golden gym badges, a unique mechanic in Pokémon GO, where deploying, controlling, battling, raiding, and feeding berries at a speci c gym allows players to accumulate points at that speci c location.When players reach the critical amount of points, they receive a golden badge for that location.This motivated these players to nd gyms in remote areas with less competition and served as a major motivator for nature-going.The players shared various stories of their gym travels in nature such as the following: "[There] was a river of ice and it streamed under a fence, and we slid along the frozen river and reached an area where there were two gyms.It was really not possible to have gotten there if the river hadn't been frozen." (P8) However, not all active Pokémon GO players participated in gym battles.For example, P4 and P10 said they rarely interact with gyms.P20 was a unique case in that they actively controlled a set of gyms near their house but rarely ever left their home territory.In addition to gyms, Pokémon GO players shared stories of navigating to speci c pokémon.The following quote illustrates this: "Someone spotted on a map a wild Tyranitar [a super rare pokémon].It was at a birdwatch tower behind a golf course.Everyone ran to get it.When I nally got there and got to throw it, it just left after the rst throw.I thought that was it.But when I got home, I noticed that I had caught it." (P9) There were fewer of these kinds of experiences from Ingress and Orna players, but both games also provided motivation to go to speci c places in forests.For Ingress players, there is a medal for visiting unique PoIs, which serves as a motivator to go to speci c places.For example, P14 mentioned that they try to visit forest areas near their location whenever there are a couple or more new PoIs available for capturing.For Orna players, the players were encouraged to go to areas they had not visited before, which oftentimes were forest areas.

Expanding the Play Area for Everyone
The key activity in this theme was submitting new PoI candidates for the Niantic system for appraisal (through crowdsourcing) in the hopes that they would get accepted and become part of the game map.Only a few participants (P1, P3, P14, P19, P21) mentioned this activity when asked about when LBGs have directed them to nature.However, those that did mention that it was a major motivator for them to go to forests and other nature areas.For example, P14 described the following: "There was the system that you had 14 submissions every two weeks, so I had a rhythm that every two weeks I did some sort of a nature or culture trip and tried to discover new targets that were not yet in the game.I used to do this for quite a lengthy time period." (P14) Regarding the motivators for engaging with this activity, the participants mentioned the following: (1) a medal in Ingress that keeps count of accepted portals; (2) the thought of creating something permanent for all players to enjoy; (3) an altruistic desire to help other players and expand their virtual playground; and (4) creating new (hidden) gyms in Pokémon GO for the submitting player and their ingroup to capture.The processes of nding places for potential submissions as described by the participants were similar to the discovery of new portals and gyms, and the participants used the same tools (Ingress mission tool, IITC plugins for checking S2 cell boundaries) here as well.Some participants also did some background work to identify potential remote locations for new PoI submissions.Two interview participants explained how they prepare for going to submit PoIs as follows: "I check online for information on cultural locations in forests, trying to nd interesting locations where I could nd some interesting element that could make it worthy of submitting [as a PoI].I do quite a bit of background work especially if I drive a bit further away." (P14) "The mission tool shows when there are singular [remote] portals -I do some searching on those sometimes to see if you can t another in the same [S2 library cell level 14] cell" (P19) Once the submitted PoIs were accepted and became a part of the game, some players went there in secrecy and only shared the location with their inner circle at rst, and perhaps only later revealed it to the larger player community.For example, P12 explained that they let their friends complete the PoI rst before sharing the location with anyone else.P21 said they prefer remote locations since they know that their opponents will have a more di cult time getting there.This highlights that even though the act of expanding the play area for everyone has clearly altruistic components (going through trouble to make playing more fun for everyone and doing free work for Niantic), players sometimes also had more individualistic or in-group bene ting motivators as well.The PoI submission activity also directed how players viewed the surrounding nature since players had to constantly look at nature through the lens of which places or objects would be suitable as a PoI candidate.Both P3 and P14 said that while this may sound sad, without LBGs, they would not be in forests at all.

Visiting Locations Selected by the Player Community
Participants often brought up that they had gone to nature such as forests due to social agreements with their local playing community or friends.The most often mentioned reason related to the creation of big triangles in Ingress Prime, which required players to go "clear" blocking portals or capture key portals in the midst of woods.While the portal locations are essentially determined by the game provider, the selection of a speci c portal "in the woods" amongst a multitude of options is made by the player community.Sometimes these operations end up directing players to the middle of forests, but not always as explained by Participant 14: "There are a few of these operations every year (...) of course sometimes you have to go in the middle of nowhere, and it involves a lot of walking in a forest, but then again it may be that you are just sitting in your car in a parking lot of a local church and that's that." (P14) Other discussed examples of socially motivated nature-visiting in LBGs included lure modules and in-person raids in Pokémon GO, both of which are social in-game activities connected to PoIs.However, even those participants who mentioned these admitted that more often than not, these activities directed them to cities, not forests as follows: "I want at least three stops when I stay at one place for lures, (...) there are no places like that outside cities. " (P8) "I don't raid in forests since there are not enough people there." (P16) In fact, the moments when players participated in raids or lures occurred coincidentally as part of their playing, as illustrated by these quotes: "I may raid the gyms [in the forest] if there are raids there too." (P6) "When I arrive [to an area with gyms] I check if there are raids and time my visit so that I deploy to the gyms on time.I complete the raids there too if they t my schedule." (P12) These examples bring attention to the importance of multi-layered motivation and how the basic LBG can enhance the experience while in forests even in situations where it is not the primary reason to go there.Forest PoIs were also appreciated by some players (e.g.P8, P16) due to them being located away from crowded or sensitive places.The participants gave examples of peaceful experiences while playing, seeing beautiful scenery, and experiencing feelings of calmness and peace.Furthermore, for example, P6 explained that in forests her playing approach changes, and she is more focused on the surrounding environment and less on her phone.P21 shared an example of an awkward encounter he had at a children's playground, where a parent had been watching him play and started asking questions about it.He explained that such experiences also contribute to his willingness to play in nature, as follows: "In forests, you never get the awkward social encounters with other people who wonder what are you doing here on this playground" (P21) These concepts also relate to that of social safety and security.In particular, women can experience feelings of fear, objecti cation or vulnerability while spending time outdoors [75], which while playing LBGs, may hinder their enjoyment of both the game and nature.
In addition, the multiplayer and social elements of LBGs had various indirect e ects on players' forest-going.Players discussed, for example, how they may share car rides with other players to travel to distant locations (P18) and how other players' actions in uence where they go (e.g.related to who controls gyms in Pokémon GO or where links are drawn in Ingress Prime) (P21).For most participants, members of the playing community had become their real-world friends, and many also reported to regularly play with their spouses or children.For all these reasons the social dynamics play an essential role (sometimes positive, sometimes negative) in how LBGs motivate nature-going.

Rewarding Movement
Moving around is a central way to interact with the game world in most multiplayer LBGs.The interviewed players reported having moved through various means such as walking, running, car, bus, boat, and train.Most LBGs who reward players for traveling a certain distance have also implemented a speed cap that mitigates opportunities for accumulating rewards via car travel.The in-game activities in which players participated in directed how they traveled.For example, a few participants brought up how PoIs located near bodies of water had motivated them to travel by boat or canoe.Others mentioned they have an electric bike that they use to move around.The following quotes illustrate these activities: "[I go to nature] mostly because of the gyms [in Pokémon GO].I have a boat so I use that (...) but now I no longer collect the golden badges so I don't do that so often anymore." (P3) "I either walk, cycle or then use my electricity powered mountain bike.But during winter it's just easiest to walk." (P20) Movement was also mentioned in the players' comments about memorable nature experiences.In particular, the informants shared experiences where they had been physically exhausted while playing, or where they had to have gone through a great deal of time and trouble to get to a speci c playing location.These experiences are illustrated by the following quotes: "Especially if the terrain changes a lot in a nature trail it's great.Near [location a] there was an extremely hard nature trail.It was maybe not even 5km on that trail, but I was sweating heavily.(...) The landscapes were beautiful, but the experience as a terrain was the biggest experience of that." (P3) "Trips to [island area a] have been quite memorable, I've used public water transport (...) we've gone to island gyms by canoe with [a fellow player]" (P19)

Providing an Incentive to Go Outside
Several participants noted that they have an existing motivation to go to nature that stems from outside LBGs, but that the games can enhance it.Examples included players who were (1) dog owners who have to go out to walk their dog daily, (2) nature-goers who habitually visit nature trails and forest areas, and (3) those going out into nature for exercise.For all these groups of players, the game provides something extra to do while in nature, be it location-related or non-location-related activities.The following quotes illustrate the views of these players: "I would visit forests regardless of the game.I've been a part of the scouts.(...) If I know there is a gym where I am, then I'm going to take it.(...) I've gone to [nature area] speci cally to get the gyms and relax." (P6) "I have a dog so I need to go out with it 3-4 times a day anyways.The game gives me something little extra for those moments." (P13) "I always went out for a walk, but now I do more, of course, with the game.If the game would disappear, I don't think I'd go outside as often." (P20) Since LBGs are played while moving in the real world, they are played during mundane daily activities such as commuting or shopping.For example, several LBGs provide rewards for walking, even if the player is not actively playing (e.g., Pikmin Bloom, Pokémon GO), and some LBGS o er external tools such as wearables (e.g., Pokémon GO Plus, Poké Ball Plus, Gotcha) to play LBGs automatically so that the players do not have to look at the phone's screen.In these cases, LBGs provide motivation to move, and can in this way boost nature-going by activating players.This is related to the concept of the LBGs blending with the players' real life, as the games motivate movement but still leave room for players to enjoy real-world activities.The following quote illustrates this: "I always play when I walk somewhere (...) when I go buy groceries I go through a small forest patch, and there I play in nature, of course." (P7) A few participants also mentioned that when they go play in nature and forests, they aim to speci cally avoid getting digital input and wish to relax instead.Nevertheless, the players could bring their devices with them and even play LBGs, just not with the same intensity as they otherwise would.For example, participant 6 explained her standing on forest-going as follows: "Forests are a place to get rid of smart devices and all the stress." (P6) Overall, the interview data suggest that the aspects of motivating going outside o er a slight boost to nature-going, and while not perhaps substantial on its own, they partially contribute to the multi-layered motivational mechanisms that LBGs have for boosting movement and nature-going.Taken together, the interviews suggest that LBGs could substantially increase nature-going for some players, in particular, those engaging with territorial control mechanics or creating new PoIs.The process of transforming into a nature-goer due to LBG plying is well present in the following quote by P3: "I could never imagine I would become a nature-goer before Pokémon GO.I have nothing, zero previous background of nature.This has made me appreciate the forest more." (P3)

Key Findings and Design Recommendations
Regarding the RQ: How do contemporary commercial location-based games bring players to speci c places such as nature locations?, we discovered 11 game dynamics in contemporary multiplayer LBGs, which have directed players to nature.These could be connected to six broader categories and further to three overarching thematic areas.Our ndings demonstrated that there are individual di erences in how, and to what extent, players engage with these dynamics, and that popular LBGs provide players with multi-layered reasons for moving to speci c areas.In addition to where players move, we found evidence that LBGs can in uence when players move, for example through temporally linked in-game events and the actions of other players.
In terms of generalizability, there are two avenues worth discussing.First, how our ndings translate to other areas besides forests and nature, and second, how our ndings translate to other technology contexts besides LBGs.Regarding the rst avenue, we note four ways in which nature generally di ers from the rest of the playing eld in LBGs.(1) Game content.Nature areas typically have less PoIs [6,27] and consequently, playable content.This highlights the importance of PoI placement for player mobility in LBGs, supporting prior work in LBGs and human movement [10].
(2) People.In nature areas there are fewer encounters with strangers.Our data showed a few instances in which social playing directed players to nature (e.g., Ingress eld operations) but arguably cities have orders of magnitude more such encounters, as exempli ed by, e.g., research on raiding in Pokémon GO [9].(3) Morphology.Nature changes seasonally (e.g., frozen rivers) whereas urban environments can change more randomly (e.g., construction work).On a daily basis, nature changes less, whereas cities have their pulse (e.g., 9-5 commuter tra c).All these can a ect movement patterns.(4) Aesthetics: Finally, nature areas look di erent and are often (but not always) characterized by greenery and associated with relaxation [69].For these reasons, nature has its own intrinsic value for players, and as also exempli ed in our data, players might go to nature for multiple reasons many of which are not game-related, but even here the game remains one motivational dimension for consideration.
Regarding the second dimension of generalizability, our empirical study focuses on more than a single application, as we interviewed participants concerning currently popular multiplayer LBGs.However, it is worth discussing whether the identi ed mechanisms and game dynamics could be applied to other digital products.In the eld of gami cation, researchers draw inspiration from games to design and develop better information systems [22,50].From this vantage point, we can deductively reason recommendations for creating LBGs that motivate players to go to speci c areas.We ground these recommendations on the aggregate dimensions of our data structure and present them in Table 4.
These recommendations can be useful for game and gami cation designers looking to motivate and/or in uence human movement.Thus, this research connects to the existing design recommendations presented for LBGs [30] as well as the gami cation literature.Furthermore, they can help developers better tie LBGs to the real world, more e ectively harnessing the most amazing realworld locations to be a part of the playing experience.This can subsequently help LBG developers create more enjoyable experiences for players.

Theoretical and Practical Implications
We provide implications for two main areas of research: (gami ed) human mobility and humannature interaction.Next, we describe these implications.
Our ndings elucidate 11 game dynamics through which LBGs have directed players to speci c areas, in our study context, nature.Looking at these mechanisms, none of them relate to "only" nature, but to movement to speci c locations in general.The previous research on how LBGs in uence human mobility patterns have employed quantitative data (e.g.[10]) to investigate how signi cant an impact LBGs have on mobility patterns, but so far the extant literature has yet to explore what are the concrete mechanisms in uencing the change in movement.Thus, our research contributes to this area and provides an overview of the location-motivational elements of LBGs.Experiences of safety/security can reduce players' outdoor enjoyment.Emphasis should be placed on social circumstances in the playing areas to a ord a safe environment for enjoying the game and the real world surroundings.5. Consider the needs and demands of the player community.
For example, many community gathering activities (e.g., lures in Pokémon GO or item farms in Ingress) require a high PoI density, which rarely is available in nature locations.LBG designers could implement social activities that in-game are optimal to arrange in nature.6. Make use of cooperative and competitive elements.
In games such as Ingress Prime players were motivated to work with their team against an opposing team and were prepared to travel long distances to the middle of nature for cooperative goals.Coincidental motivational support 7. Reward players for simply moving.While this does not explicitly direct players to nature, it serves as a motivator for players to go out, and may coincidentally boost time spent in nature.8. Provide multilayered motivation for players to leave their houses.
The activating e ect of LBGs can be an important nudge towards a more active lifestyle that also includes nature-going among other bene cial behaviors.
Looking at the situation from a broader vantage point, our ndings relate to the overall research area of gami cation [22,50], where we contribute speci cally to the research area of how games and gami cation can direct human mobility patterns.While the list of discovered mechanisms (see Fig. 1) may not be exhaustive, the ndings may be of interest to all parties dealing with human mobility patterns (e.g., urban design, tra c forecasting, population health [21]) and also LBG designers [30].In our data, we also noted individual di erences based on player types [15].For example, in Pokémon GO, those who actively seek to control gyms and live in an area where there are multiple gyms in forests nearby may go to nature more often than those living in urban areas and are only interested in catching pokémon.This connects to the ndings from previous studies which have found that the players' living area and daily activities signi cantly in uence their playing experience [10,27].
This work also contributes to the literature on player-nature interaction [64,66] in LBGs.While earlier studies suggest that LBGs may hinder and distract players from meaningful nature experiences [63], our ndings imply that LBGs are able to motivate players to nature when they otherwise would not have gone there to begin with.Furthermore, the participants in our data expressed that they sometimes reduce their playing intensity, or switch to automatic playing options (e.g.only use the game as a step counter or use wearable auto-play devices) when they wish to focus more on nature.Hence, while some LBGs may steal players' attention away from nature, and even diminish some of the restorative e ects of nature [56], LBGs maintain the potential to be positive forces for connecting players with nature.Furthermore, there are di erences between LBGs, with some prompting players to focus on their surroundings more than others.For this reason, it is critical to do granular-level analyses on the game mechanics of LBGs when bringing our ndings into practice.
Finally, while the interviews we conducted were focused on how LBGs direct players to speci c areas, we also noticed several ways within our ndings in which these games discourage movement.For example, participants mentioned the lack of PoIs in nature locations, something previous work has also expressed [27,37], which meant that many players were incentivized to speci cally play in cities as opposed to nature.Recent studies have proposed solutions to PoI placement issues such as having more lenient PoI criteria in rural areas in comparison to urban areas [71] and placing two identical sets of PoIs in two separate locations [70].Such approaches could improve PoI coverage in remote areas, but our ndings also highlight the importance of game mechanics in how players perceive PoIs.When remote PoIs in nature carry a unique special meaning, players may feel motivated to travel to them, even if there are fewer than in cities.

Limitations and Future Work
As all empirical research, our study has limitations that deserve elaboration.First, our participants were self-selected and had knowledge of contemporary multiplayer LBGs, but not all of them.The participants were also active LBG players, meaning that the data may have been skewed toward the opinions of more active players.This calls for research in other contexts besides the currently most popular games.Second, there are trade-o s in qualitative analysis approaches.Mainly, in the Gioia approach, the informants are treated as knowledgeable agents, meaning their viewpoints were not actively challenged, and the approach has been criticized for being reductionist [47].Accordingly, we encourage future research to employ other research methods, both quantitative and qualitative, for investigating these issues.Third, additional participant pools may be considered, with an emphasis on more diversity in terms of playing activity and geographical location.In this study, we primarily interviewed active Finnish players, and while the playing backgrounds, experiences, and playstyles of the participants were diverse, new viewpoints and unique experiences may be obtained through an alternative sampling approach.Recent studies have also noted the impact of the national cultural environment on players' lived experiences [33].For example, in a recent study looking at Pokémon GO playing experiences in Nairobi (n=13) and Rio de Janeiro (n=14), it was discovered that players in those cities need to, for example, stay alert for phone theft [12], something that was not mentioned as part of the interviewed players' lived experiences in Finland.
Our ndings also highlight other avenues for future research.First, the ndings of this study and the presented design recommendations o er a basis for future experimental work on this topic.Future research could also quantitatively explore to what degree the 11 incentive mechanisms presented in Fig. 1 are relevant for players in their daily lives.Second, the interview ndings suggest that players' activity types [15] are related to players' playing patterns.Analyses attempting to elucidate the connections between playstyles and mobility could improve the understanding of how location-based technologies in uence moving about in general.Third, we encourage future research on how LBGs alter, enhance or diminish players' experience of the real-world places they visit.The analysis in this study was primarily focused on the mechanisms that take players to nature, which leaves room for continuation analysis on how LBGs change players' experiences and perceptions while in nature, and further, while out and about altogether.This is important as, for example, past work has demonstrated that while LBGs promote mild exercise, the time spent exercising while playing is less e ective than exercise without the game [8].Fourth and nally, on July 21, 2023, Pokémon GO was updated with a new mechanic called Routes, which are player-created paths that other players walk.At the time of writing this, there are Routes that take players to nature as well as otherwise direct where players move.We encourage future research to explore this new mechanic among others to understand how new innovations in LBG design in uences players' movement in the physical world as well as their behavior.

CONCLUSIONS
In this work, we conducted 21 player interviews with active Finnish players to identify the mechanisms through which contemporary LBGs motivate players to go to speci c locations, in our case, nature.We discovered 11 di erent game dynamics, which were ultimately related to (1) the playing eld, as determined by geographically distributed digital PoIs and real-world terrain, objects, and buildings; (2) the player community and how it motivates or demotivates geographic behavior; and (3) coincidental motivational support, consisting of additional incentives to go out and explore the world and nature.Our ndings indicate that in addition to gami cation elements and game mechanics, stakeholders should focus on these three dimensions when exploring the e ects of LBGs on players' mobility patterns.With this work, we contribute to the research on gami ed human mobility, and show that while contemporary multiplayer LBGs appear urban-focused, with adjustments in game design, they can increasingly start bringing players to nature.

Fig. 1 .
Fig. 1. Results of the identification of situations where LBGs directed players to nature, and how they are related to second order categories and aggregate dimensions.

Table 2 .
Interviewed players (N=21).The years of LBG experience is the participants' self-reported measure of the years they have played the games actively.The most o en reported playtime in years was 5.5, which corresponds with the global launch of the most popular contemporary LBG, Pokémon GO.

Table 3 .
The first-order concepts of when players have gone to nature because of LBGs as coded from the interview data.How Location-Based Games Incentivize Moving About: A Study in the Context of Nature-Going LBGs were able to also provide a general incentive for players to just leave their house and see what happens.Proc.ACM Hum.-Comput.Interact., Vol. 7, No. CHI PLAY, Article 398.Publication date: November 2023.

Table 4 .
Design recommendations for creating LBGs that prompt players to spend time in nature