# Pok\'emon Go: Impact on Yelp Restaurant Reviews

## TL;DR

This study investigates how the launch of Pokémon Go in 2016 affected Yelp restaurant reviews, revealing a slight decline in review activity for restaurants near PokéStops.

## Contribution

It provides the first empirical analysis of Pokémon Go's impact on online restaurant review behavior near PokéStops.

## Key findings

- Slight decrease in Yelp reviews for restaurants near PokéStops
- Pokémon Go influenced social media activity related to dining
- Impact observed shortly after game's launch

## Abstract

Pok\'emon Go, the popular Augmented Reality based mobile application, launched in July of 2016. The game's meteoric rise in usage since that time has had an impact on not just the mobile gaming industry, but also the physical activity of players, where they travel, where they spend their money, and possibly how they interact with other social media applications. In this paper, we studied the impact of Pok\'emon Go on Yelp reviews. For restaurants near Pok\'eStops, we found a slight drop in the number of online reviews.

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Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/1706.02192