Gaming

Slide 1: Cell Phone Games (Mobile Games, Wireless Gaming) Casual Games Massive Multiplayer Games Alternate Reality Games Community Games

Slide 2: History of Cell Phone Gaming • 1997 - Snake (Nokia 6110) • 2001 - Color screens (Nokia) • 2003 - Nokia N-Gage/N-Gage QD

Slide 3: Casual Games “A game intended for people for whom gaming is not a primary area of interest.” •Low barriers to entry •Short play time Characteristics of casual games •Inexpensive •Forgiving •Replayable Steve Meretzky, senior designer of Blue Fang GDC’s 2008 Casual Games Summit

Slide 4: Pervasive Games Massive Multiplayer Games Alternate Reality Community Games Games

Slide 5: MMOGs Massive Multiplayer Online Games Characteristics • supports hundreds of players • persistant world • players create content • players are ‘prosumers’ • emergent content

Slide 7: Vollee

Slide 8: Alternate Reality Games( (ARGs What if reality were different? What if you suddenly discovered not just different customs but different rules, different rewards, wholly different aspirations – a reality in which everyday occurences were not exactly what you thought, in which certain ..…activities suddenly took on a rich and newly meaningful sense of possibility

Slide 9: Alternate Reality Gamestake the substance of everyday life and weave it into narratives that layer additional meaning, depth, and interaction upon the real world. The contents of these narratives constantly intersect with actuality, but play fast and loose with fact, sometimes departing entirely from the actual or grossly warping it - yet remain inescapably interwoven.Twenty-four hours a day,seven days a week , everyone in the country canaccess these narratives through every available medium – at home, in the office,on the phones; in words, in images, in sound. Modern society contains many managed narratives relating to everything from celebrity marriages to brands to political parties, which are constantly disseminated through all media for our perusal, but ARGs.turn these into interactive games Adam Martin, Tom Chatfield Alternate Reality Games White Paper - 2006 IGDA ARG SIG

Slide 11: Pervasive street adventure Join the rebel fight against Global Nation Tactical battles where brainpower matters Build the best robot for your career Multiplayer and singleplayer missions with real and virtual enemies Strong community features 3-4 months episodes with storyline PC (web) community J2ME client

Slide 12: Differences between ARGs and MMOGs ARGs MMOGs • Loose boundaries • Clear boundaries • Play yourself • Play through an • TINAG avatar • Online just one • Gameworld / Reality aspect. • ONLINE-custom • Puppetmaster client • Cell phone is a game • AI object • Cell phone is an interface

Slide 13: Examples I Love Bees

Slide 14: Community Games The Go Game • Community within the game • Community through the game • Community around the game Storyscape

Slide 15: Issues, Implications, Questions Space • Redefining the boundaries (public<-> private <-> shared) • Being ‘here’ and ‘there’ • Huizinga’s “Magic Circle” Identity • Game entity , myself, agent, pawn • Member (ARGs, community game) • Spectator,viewer,player,co-creator

Slide 16: Work / Leisure • interweaving work and play • redefining work and play • Jane McGonigal – Hacking Happiness Social Context • less or more social ? • new modes of behaviour Education • facilitating new ways of learning “hybrid educational gamescapes” – Siobhan Thomas

Slide 17: Jacqueline Basil-Shachar May 2008 jacqbasil@gmail.com