Playing Ingress

My first experience with an augmented reality game, or ARG, was with the game/mobile app Ingress. The game was not something I was used to, as the interface and the nature of gameplay was less straight forward to me than a game you would play on a console. (And, ultimately, the interactivity and effort you have to put into the game in order to play it is what caused me to dislike it.) However, the game did give me a greater sense of locality. I live in Wrigleyville, so walking around my neighborhood playing the game made me more aware of my surroundings. As Chess notes in her analysis of the game, it forces players to notice things and places you may not have otherwise (Chess 3). By seeking out portals and constantly looking around me, I was forced to recognize the uniqueness and special monuments of my locality that I have become numb to living here for almost a year.

Also, playing Ingress opened my eyes to the historical significance of most places in my neighborhood (it is Wrigleyville, after all). In ARG games like Ingress, "players are forced to visit, revisit, and reconsider the value of that space that they may not have noticed before playing the game. Ingress renders small histories as visible, just as it renders flat data as invisible" (Chess 9). With every portal I came across and/or hacked, I stopped to look at it, taking note of where it was and how long it had been there if visible, like seeing a "est. 1975" blurb under the name of whatever sporting place it may have been. I began to appreciate the history that surrounds me everyday, all thanks to a game that turns geolocation on its head.

Further, playing the game made me feel part of something. I became aware of myself as part of not only the Wrigleyville community itself, but also part of the community of Wrigleyville Ingress players. Chess discusses this in her writing as regionalism. The game made me realize that in my small little region of the city of Chicago, there is a group of dedicated players that have worked to establish portals -- as well as steal them away from their opposing faction. As Chess notes, "the game itself could not function without the individual and community-based actions within a region" (Chess 8). In Ingress, the importance of the local is emphasized; local and regional landmarks -- that are portals decided upon by the inhabitants of the region/locality -- are the sites where gameplay occur. The game encourages you to meet up with other players in real life (at one of the landmarks in the region, most likely) to plot strategy and form bonds. Ingress, like ARGs generally, add layers onto our immediate reality to bring deeper meaning to what has always been right in front of our faces.