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GPS-based game

Many location-based video games are video games that run on a mobile phone, using its GPS capability.

Version
v1 · 2026-09-28 · History
Domain-specific #
9731
Domain group
Professional & Organizational Practice
Origin domain
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
Subdomains
Location Based Games, Pervasive Games, Mobile Gaming → Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

Core Idea

GPS-based game is treated here as the recurring naturalsciencesengineeringhealth identity summarized by this source-grounded definition: Many location-based video games are video games that run on a mobile phone, using its GPS capability. A location-based game (also called location-enabled game, geolocation-based game, or simply geo game) is a type of game in which the gameplay evolves and progresses via a player's real world location. Location-based games must provide some mechanism to allow the player to report their location, usually with GPS.

Scope of Application

  • Technology. Some location-based games that are video games have used embedded mobile technologies such as near field communication, Bluetooth and UWB.

  • Technology. Such video games have also commonly used augmented reality to create an immersive experience.

  • Technology. Early location-based video games typically used SMS as a medium and located players using cellular network's control plane locating requiring no additional capabilities from the user's device.

  • Legality. A theory advanced in lawsuits brought against Niantic is that their placement of game elements in places that will lead to trespass or an exceptionally large flux of visitors can constitute.

  • Documented setting. Various mobile devices can be used to play location-based games.

Clarity

A clear use of GPS-based game names the carrier, the operative relation, and the conditions under which the source treats the identity as present. The minimal definition is Many location-based video games are video games that run on a mobile phone, using its GPS capability.

Manages Complexity

GPS-based game compresses multiple naturalsciencesengineeringhealth details into a stable diagnostic relation. The source shows both the central mechanism—the nature of location-based gaming may mean that certain real-world locations will be visited by higher-than-normal numbers of people who are playing the game, which generally has been received favorably by nearby attractions or local businesses.—and the practical consequence—a theory advanced in lawsuits brought against Niantic is that their placement.

Abstract Reasoning

  1. Type the carrier. Identify the naturalsciencesengineeringhealth entities to which the claim applies.
  2. State the relation. Use the source-grounded identity: Many location-based video games are video games that run on a mobile phone, using its GPS capability.
  3. Check operation and conditions. Under American law, these situations are unlikely to be seen as a violation of real property rights by courts without an expansion of those rights to include augmented reality (similarly to how English common law came to recognise air rights).
  4. Demand recognition evidence.

Knowledge Transfer

Within the home domain. Knowledge about GPS-based game transfers literally when a new case preserves the same carrier type, relation, and recognition test. Some location-based games that are video games have used embedded mobile technologies such as near field communication, Bluetooth and UWB. Such video games have also commonly used augmented reality to create an immersive experience. Beyond the home domain. No canonical parent is asserted for GPS-based game. An outside case receives the specialist name only when the same typed roles and rejection conditions can be filled literally; otherwise the comparison remains an analogy pending later graph densification.

Relationships to Other Abstractions

Local relationship map for GPS-based gameParents appear above the current abstraction, mutual partners to the right, and children below. Node labels state whether each abstraction is prime or domain-specific; colors identify relation types.GPS-based gameDOMAINDomain-specific abstraction: Game — is a kind ofGameDOMAIN

Current abstraction GPS-based game Domain-specific

Parents (1) — more general patterns this builds on

  • GPS-based game is a kind of Game Domain-specific

    A GPS-based game uses location as part of its playable state and rules.

Hierarchy path (1) — routes to 1 parentless root

Neighborhood in Abstraction Space

GPS-based game sits in a sparse region of the domain-specific corpus (61st percentile for distinctiveness): few abstractions share its structure, so a faithful description tends to retrieve it precisely.

Family — Legal Rights & Land-Use Regulation (12 abstractions)

Nearest neighbors

Computed from structural-signature embeddings · 2026-10-08