Dissertation on Location-based Games

I have now defended my dissertation on location-based games. And it went well. Now it is time for the dissertation to live its own life. I invite you to read it (link to download is in the end of this post), and hope that it will inspire, illuminate the area, perhaps provoke, and lead to fruitful discussions.

Allow me to present its contents briefly: In the dissertation, it is explored which prerequisites are necessary in location-based games to make meaningful the meeting between players and spatiality with an emphasis on physical locations. Throughout the dissertation, it has been shown that LBGs affect players’ perception of and behavior in everyday spaces, as the games reside on the boundaries between the continuums of play and ordinary, authentic and fictional, and as they merge physical and digital media. These are termed the six dimensions of location-based games. location-based games let the player explore the boundaries between these dimensions and the dimensions are related through play. The location-based game acts as a mediator for the meeting between the player and locations through the boundaries between these six dimensions. The motivation of the dissertation is to push the development of and research in location-based games toward actualizing the potential for expanding location-based games’ spatial aspect even further and to contribute with a cohesive framework on location-based games.

This dissertation consists of a review of previous research and existing location-based games, and a theoretical discussion of the elements of location-based games encompassing: 1) Spatiality: space and place, digital space, mediated spaces (physical and digital), locations as play-spaces. 2) Structure: rules, frames, fiction and authenticity, and uncertainty and ambiguity. 3) Interface: Location-aware devices, seams, and objects and players. 4) Player experience: Motivation, mobility, meaning, and finally, a discussion of flow, immersion or incorporation. The combination of these elements is used to conceptualize location-based games.

The theoretical point of departure for the dissertation is Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception and Michael Apter’s theory on motivation (reversal theory). The phenomenology of perception contributes with a framework describing our experiences of being in the world and the creation of meaning. The theory on motivation defines what motivation consists of and how it relates to our actions. This theory has been combined with theories concerning play and play culture, digital media, (digital) games, (optimal) experiences, landscape architecture, everyday practices (related to walking in the city), and the existing theories on location-based games as well as pervasive games.

The methodological approach incorporates design-based research. It combines and aims at improving design, research, and practice concurrently. A design of an location-based game – Visions of Sara – has been created and implemented. It evolved out of the initial observations and participation in three location-based games (DJEEO Education, Land of Possibilities?, and Fruit Farmer), the review of the literature, and relevant theoretical models. After creating Visions of Sara, three more location-based games were played and they are included as part of the empirical data – Ghost Patrol, Spy in the City, and Foursquare. These seven games, interviews, and observations, along with my own experiences both playing and designing are included in the analysis of the relation between locations and location-based game; the ways in which players use them to create meaningful experiences; and of the prerequisites of a meaningful meeting between players and locations.

The dissertation contributes to the field of location-based game research by offering an enhanced understanding of location-based games, and location-based game player experiences, as well as providing an expanded vocabulary describing location-based game elements. In addition, the dissertation provides design knowledge concerning creating location-based games that uses certain emergent opportunities when combining location-aware technologies with game mechanics to make use of the six dimensions of location-based games and to involve the player’s body – i.e. make a meaningful meeting possible.

The practical contribution is my creation of the location-based game Visions of Sara. People continue to play this game in Odense more than two years after its launch, and DJEEO uses it as a showcase, enabling the company to sell similar location-based games.

Please feel free to download, read and distribute the dissertation: Location-based Games: From Screen to Streets

You can also buy (the price only covers printing it) a physical version of the dissertation from the university webshop.

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.

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.

Pervasive Games in Ludic Society

In the paper Pervasive Games in Ludic Society (Stenros et al., 2007) Stenros, Montola and Mäyra show how pervasive games emerge from three different cultural trends:

1. The first, is the increasing blurring of facts and fiction in media culture
2. The second, is the struggle over public space
3. The third, is the rise of ludus in society

The authors recognise that pervasive games are influenced by the idea of pervasive computing. Despite of this they do not consider pervasive games as technology-based. Though technology plays an important role in creating new pervasive games, technology is not at the core of the activity according to Stenros et al. They use Montola’s definition of pervasive games as games that expand spatial, temporal and social boundaries of traditional games(Montola, 2005).

Traditional games are normally played by certain people, at a certain time, and in a set place. Pervasive games break with at least one of these three certainties.

The authors take Huizinga’s understanding of play as the opposite to ordinary as a starting point.

This contradiction is blurring nowadays in media, when we conceive truth and story, fictive and real as related to game and ordinary: This is seen in popular movies as The Game (1997), The Truman Show (1998), The Matrix (1999) and in the marketing for The Blair Witch Project (1999). In all of these pieces fact and fiction are mixed so that it is not clear what is real and fictive, and what is truth and story.

The authors make a point out of explaining how users on the Internet are playing with facts and fabricated reality. They uses identity and gender play as examples, but also ARGs that are based on fake websites and scam baiting which is playing with email spammers in order to see how far the spammer will go. These are examples of how we are using reflectivity, self-awareness and performativity as tools in order to play with meaning, speculation, fabrication and fluid identities. The authors claim that these tools become ubiquitous parts of everyday activities and that they makes the terms “truth” and “real” relative.

The second trend that pervasive games emerge from according to the article is the public and urban space movements. These are movements for reclaiming or questioning the conventions around public space. These are theatre groups; the graffiti movement; people planning events in the public space like creating a small park on a parking lot or athletic individuals that travel through the city in alternative ways such as skaters or people performing Le Parkour.

All of these street movements negotiate or comment upon the accepted use of public space and they do it in a playful way which is in line with another trend and the third that influences pervasive games, namely the rise of ludus in society.

The authors claim that the Western world has turned into a culture of gamers with the rise of digital games. They quote game researcher Jesper Juul’s definition of a classic:

“[...] game is a rule-based system with a variable and quantifiable outcome, where different outcomes are assigned different values, the player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome, the player feels attached to the outcome, and the consequences of the activity are optional and negotiable.”

This definition fits the type of formal play that Roger Caillois dubbed ludus (formal play) as opposed to paidia (free play). Stenros et al claim that the tendency is that we see more and more paidiec activities as ludic. In addition more and more games have an increased amount of paidiec elements, like storytelling in war games or combining dancing and singing with digital games like in Singstar.

What is the denominator of these different examples? Stenros et al are using Michael Apter’s distinction between playful mindset (paratelic) and serious mindset (telic). According to Apter both mindsets can result in pleasure. In order to understand what kind of activities that take place Stenros et al add further two categories: Playful context and serious context. Games are traditionally perceived as activities carried out in a playful mindset and in a playful context. But as we have seen activities carried out in a playful mindset but in an ordinary context are emerging. This situation can be even more complex as a context can be playful to some and serious to others like in Candid camera, in this case the context is fabricated.

When play is taken out of its spatial, temporal and social context: the magic circle has expanded. Play pervades the ordinary world. This is what pervasive games are all about according to the authors:

“Pervasive games have a tendency to play wildly with the different contexts and mindsets, leading into various different activities.”

Pervasive games are in other word encouraging people to interact in both playful and serious contexts.

Relevance:
The link to "Claiming back the streets" is highly relevant to my project. My focus is on pervasive games that pervades real space. Also the distinction between spatial, temporal and social context is interesting.

Keeping in mind that Michael Apter did not write about context but merely the internal mindset of a person. According to Apter the mindset and motivation of a person can not be affected intentionally and directly. Despite of this the context must play a role in the experience.

Reference:
"Pervasive Games in Ludic Society" (Stenros et al., 2007) Stenros, Montola and Mäyra