Augmented reality (AR) games such as location-based games add virtual content on top of the real world. We investigate why playing these games feels meaningful to players by focusing on the dimensions of imagination and sociality. We theorise a structural model that we test with data collected from a global sample of players of the popular AR game Pokémon GO (N = 515). Our findings show that nostalgic feelings about Pokémon increased imagining AR content in the real world. Surprisingly, using imagination in this way was a much stronger predictor of affection towards the fictional pokémon creatures than nostalgia. The affection towards the fictional creatures, in turn, increased the meaningfulness of playing. Regarding the social factors, community identification and social self-efficacy increased players' sense of meaningfulness of playing. As our study's main design implications, we highlight the importance of socially shared narratives and harnessing the players' imagination to support a sense of meaningfulness of playing.

增强现实（AR）游戏（例如基于位置的游戏）将虚拟内容添加到现实世界的顶部。我们通过关注想象力和社交性维度来研究玩这些游戏为何对玩家有意义。我们对结构模型进行理论化，然后使用从流行的AR游戏《神奇宝贝GO》（N = 515）的全球样本中收集的数据进行测试。我们的发现表明，对神奇宝贝的怀旧情绪增加了对现实世界中AR内容的想象。令人惊讶的是，与怀旧相比，以这种方式使用想象力比虚构的神奇宝贝对爱情的预测要强得多。对虚构生物的喜爱反过来又增加了游戏的意义。关于社会因素，社区认同和社会自我效能感增强了玩家对比赛意义的意识。