  The widespread popularity of Pok\'emon GO presents the first opportunity to
observe the geographic effects of location-based gaming at scale. This paper
reports the results of a mixed methods study of the geography of Pok\'emon GO
that includes a five-country field survey of 375 Pok\'emon GO players and a
large scale geostatistical analysis of game elements. Focusing on the key
geographic themes of places and movement, we find that the design of Pok\'emon
GO reinforces existing geographically-linked biases (e.g. the game advantages
urban areas and neighborhoods with smaller minority populations), that
Pok\'emon GO may have instigated a relatively rare large-scale shift in global
human mobility patterns, and that Pok\'emon GO has geographically-linked safety
risks, but not those typically emphasized by the media. Our results point to
geographic design implications for future systems in this space such as a means
through which the geographic biases present in Pok\'emon GO may be
counteracted.
