Ecological patterns in Pokémon games reflect those observed in the natural world – Journal of Geek Studies

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Ecological patterns in Pokémon games reflect those observed in the natural world

July 19, 2026

14–22 minutes

Ecology, Pokémon, Zoology

Biology, Video Games

Nile P. Stephenson1,2,3, Gabriel B. Stephenson4, Shujie Chang1,2, Britta K. Fiedler5, Yarong Liu1,2,6, Ayaka U. Paul1,2,5, Euan N. Furness4

1Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.

2University Museum of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.

3King’s College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.

4Independent researchers. UK.

5Graduate School of Engineering and Science, University of the Ryukyus, Nishihara, Japan.

6Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, China.

Emails: nps36 (at) cam (dot) ac (dot) uk; gabriel.b.stephenson (at) gmail (dot) com; sc2535 (at) cam (dot) ac (dot) uk; brittakfiedler (at) gmail (dot) com; yl2141 (at) cam (dot) ac (dot) uk; aup24 (at) cam (dot) ac (dot) uk; enf21 (at) cam (dot) ac (dot) uk

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In recent centuries, a combination of push and pull factors has caused increasing urbanisation across the globe (Godfrey & Julien, 2005). More people now live in cities than in rural areas, and a reduced connectivity with nature is thought to contribute to poorer mental health (Mantler & Logan, 2015; Ulrich et al., 1991), an increased complacence in response to climate change (Pitman et al., 2018), and has received attention within science, literature, and culture more broadly as an existential concern (Maune et al., 2026; Rangel et al., 2024). Contemporaneous with human populations’ disconnect from the natural world is the rise of novel habits and hobbies that influence our behaviour, particularly increased interactions with social media and video games (Bavelier et al., 2011; Hruska & Maresova, 2020). Social media has become a tool for assimilating knowledge and is a useful instrument for scientists and non-scientists alike to understand nature (Chowdhury et al., 2024; Stephenson et al., 2025). Similarly, media, such as television and games, has been shown to influence our understanding of the real world in a variety of ways, from contributions towards moral frameworks (Weaver & Lewis, 2012) to expanding our understanding of science and the natural world (Balmford et al., 2002; Barbas et al., 2009).

For the last 30 years, people across the globe have engaged with the fictional world of Pokémon, where players capture and train a diverse array of mysterious creatures inhabiting different environments. One major source of interaction has been via video games, where the player explores a map populated with different Pokémon of a variety of categorical types. The player is encouraged to collect all the Pokémon in a given game, and to do so must survey a variety of environments. Through this game mechanic, Pokémon shares inherent links to the study of zoology and palaeontology; scientists may survey a variety of environments to identify different animals, specimens may be catalogued or added to museum collections, and specimens may be characterised and arranged into phylogenies to understand their relatedness and/or evolutionary histories. In this sense, the role played by the player in Pokémon video games is similar to that of a pioneer naturalist.

Since Pokémon games generate a natural world which the player explores, the player may learn about our natural world through the observation of patterns shared between the virtual and the real. Patterns such as the distribution and abundance of species (McCarthy et al., 2018; Murray et al., 1999), the value of habitat heterogeneity (Tews et al., 2004), and patterns of diversity between urban and rural environments (Knapp et al., 2008) could be intuited via Pokémon, particularly where encounters with natural environments are becoming increasingly limited, provided that these patterns are present in the games. These patterns are relatively consistent in the scientific literature and are prevalent in undergraduate textbooks (Begon et al., 1996), so emulation of these patterns could help enhance the intuitive understanding of fundamental ecological principles.

To investigate whether ecological patterns in Pokémon games emulated those in the natural world, we used data from a popular Pokémon game, HeartGold/SoulSilver, to reconstruct its virtual ecology, and compare it with patterns reported in undergraduate textbooks and scientific literature. Specifically, we: (i) tested if rank-abundance distributions were similar to those in the natural world; (ii) investigated diversity patterns in relation to habitat heterogeneity and size; (iii) investigated if community composition was underpinned by habitat type; and (iv) investigated if diversity was higher in rural than urban areas.

METHODS

Pokémon games each use a variety of mechanics to enable players to encounter Pokémon....