From Audience to Users in Computer Gaming

In 2006 Erik Kristiansen from Performance Design on Roskilde University wrote a paper on MMORPG’s and pervasive games in relation to the role of the players. Kristiansen arguments that computer games are mass media, though they are different from other mass media in one respect: In computer games the audience are not just reacting but actually interacting with the media.

Kristiansen states that the player’s engagement in the game even goes beyond interaction, as the player is creating a game performance. Kristiansen make a distinction between three different types of games:

1. Reactive games: These games are in a way passive as the game play is in control of the computer, the player is not.
2. Action games: The player can act and have full control of the game though the player is bound to use the state of the game as basis for choosing the actions.
3. Creative games: The player has full control over the game and is even creating game play by combining game elements which alters the game.

Games are more and more offering creative possibilities to the players so that the players can play on the third level. According to Kristiansen pervasive games are mass media in a new way as they can embrace many people at one time, and at the same time they take computer gaming to the streets. Also they make it possible to promote collective intelligence in solving the games and therefore they offer creative games to the public.

Media is thought as a part of our everyday life whereas play takes place in a separate space, Kristiansen writes, and at the same time play is a core activity of everyday life. In other words media is the everyday site for play. The boundary between play and seriousness is also less distinct than earlier according to Kristiansen. This makes it even more relevant to talk about pervasive games.

Relevance:
I find it quite interesting to discuss if player freedom is actually adding to the game experience. I am not quite sure that self configurable games are better games. This is not What Kristiansen is saying, but the theme is here.

Reference
KRISTIANSEN Erik. (2006) From Audience to Users in Computer Gaming. The MMORPGs and pervasive games as mass media. In Publics, audiences and users: Theoretical and methodological challenges in a multidisciplinary field of research, A NordForsk doctoral course, Hotel Niels Juel, Køge, Denmark.

Augmented Reality on the Android - AR going towards mainstream

Just found wonderful news on the world wild web: An augmented reality kit is available for the Android. You can download it from github.

This means that even more applications using augmented reality will be out there soon for even more users!

Looking forward to see what is coming!

Follow the developers on twitter: http://twitter.com/androidarkit

Do-it-yourself pervasive game

If none of the movies running are worth seeing, if you know every video game on your shelves by heart OR if you simply feel like getting outdoors and like creating an interesting game - then what about building your own game, even one that lets you use the physical environment as a playground. Yes, you can built your own pervasive game.

There are various options if you have the right mobile phone with a decent GPS unit built in.

These platforms all allow you to make your own pervasive game:

* You can download a kit with LocoMatrix
* Orbster also has a pervasive game engine
* Finally you can try out your game creating skills through the services offered at Cipher Cities

Get some inspiration playing some of the games already there - some of them are beta, others have been played a great deal. This is a nice opportunity for creative minds and academic bodies to get a hands on experience creating games that use location aware technology. And hey it might even be fun!

If anybody got a great game to recommend please write a comment!

The High Line Park (New York) - a gem

In 1980 the last train loaded with a load of frozen turkeys rolled down the High Line in Manhattan. High Line is freight train lines, which for reasons of security was raised above the ground. Or it was The High Line, because after the frozen turkeys have long since been thawed, deep fried and digested, nothing has been transported on the tracks, that have existed since the 1930s.

A demolition has been planned ever since, but prevented the train enthusiasts, as in 2002, was the city's support for pooling resources, building plans and transform the track into a public park.

The old railway High Line has not only been preserved, but opened in June 2009 as a recreation area where pedestrians can stroll along, over and under the old track from the former railway. "The High Line" park has preserved traces from the previous use, providing a unique sense of history and atmosphere! Along the paths wild grass and flowers are planted, giving a sensation of being in a park, just that it is several meters above the ground. Along the track you can find loungers, which can be moved along the track still remaining - as a reminder of what was and giving a function to what is. Along the way, we also find a station where the platform is converted into a café and meeting place. From the High Line, you can also enjoy the view over the Hudson River on one side and Manhattan on the other.





I can highly recommend the "park"! It is a gem - a beautiful example of how cultural history is preserved for and serving the people.

I 'blog' about this - though it has nothing to do with pervasive games - because it has everything to with opening our eyes to how space can be used differently, in a more playful way.

Park(ing) Day DC 2009

Just came back from a day of Park(ing)!



http://www.nbcwashington.com/around-town/events/Artsy-Activists-Create-a-One-Day-Park-on-14th-Street-59760177.html

Pervasive games on speed - who's the rabbit?

Pervasive games - digital game that uses the physical world as a playground - is often a game-play, reminiscent of a treasure hunt combined with orienteering and adventure games. It does certainly not have to be this way. In Germany you will find this new adventure and award winning game:



The game is strategical, uses the possibilities of technology to give a classic game of tag entirely new dimensions. There are ethical or at least security issues associated with the game as I could imagine that when players become engrossed, they would tend to forget about safety in traffic and being considerate of non-players who come in their way. But these are speculations, the fact is that the game offers interesting opportunities for more action packed pervasive gaming.

The game was developed by Fast Food Challenge and you can download the game from their website, where you can also see if your mobile can run the game.

This game will undoubtedly make you break a sweat! Who would lake to join me? Man overboard!

The spaces we inhabit

Art is not about decorating world, but to take responsibility and move the world, says architect Olafur Elisson.

Eliasson has created many works around the world. In one of them - Green River - where he poured green paint in a river in Los Angeles, Stockholm, Moss (Norway), Bremen and Tokyo to give the inhabitants of the town a sense of space, its dimensions and what time and motion means for space. In that way the inhabitants can experience how their body is a part of the given space and that there is a consequence of their presence. According to Eliasson, this give people a sense of the materiality of space and thereby the knowledge that they can actually change space. It makes space available to the public.


If you go to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (with I highly recommend!) You can experience
The Matter of Time , which is a work by Richard Serra. It consists of huge rusty iron plates, which stands on the floor and form corridors that the audience can explore and get lost in. Some of the corridors are shaped like ellipses, some are parallel. The great thing about the installation, is that while walking through it you can fell how the surroundings affect your body. You may actually find that you begin to tilt to one side, with the walls - or that you get the feeling of being crushed when the walls lean inward and closes at the top.

Richard Serra describes his work like this:

"The sculptures are not objects that its separately in the space, actually quite the opposite is true, they engender a spatial continuity with the environment In which they exist."

Serra and Eliasson alike are working with something I am very interested in, namely: How do we experience the spaces we inhabit, how do we influence on space and vice versa; and what does this mean for design of art installations (landscape) architecture, and games (pervasive games) that are set in physical space? The spaces we engage in is created and shaped by the way we use it, and it affects us even more than we sometimes realize.