Pervasive Games: Theory and Design

Quickly emerging from the fast-paced growth of mobile communications and wireless technologies, pervasive games take gaming away from the computer screen and back to the three-dimensional world. Now games can be designed to be played in public spaces like shopping malls, conferences, museums and other non-traditional game venues. Game designers need to understand how to use the world as a gamespace—and both the challenges and advantages of doing so.

This book shows how to change the face of play—who plays, when and where they play and what that play means to all involved. The authors explore aspects of pervasive games that concern game designers: what makes these games compelling, what makes them possible today and how they are made. For game researchers, it provides a solid theoretical, philosophical and aesthetic understanding of the genre.

Pervasive Games covers everything from theory and design to history and marketing.

designers, so that they can learn how to engage players’ real-time experiences beyond the mobile phone or computer screen.

—Thirteen case studies with illustrative and inspiring examples make the entire pervasive games design space tangible.

—Provides practical design tips, potential pitfalls, design problems from real games, and inspiration from some of the most interesting pervasive game designers in the world, including Matt Adams, Frank Lantz, and others.

Markus Montola (M.Soc.Sc.) is a grant researcher in the University of Tampere Gamelab research group and a doctoral candidate in Literature and the Arts. Before being given a three-year dissertation grant by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, he worked as a project researcher and manager in the Gamelab, since the year 2004. His dissertation work discusses various forms of role-playing and pervasive gaming. He has already edited two books on role-playing with Jaakko Stenros (Playground Worlds, 2008, and Beyond Role and Play, 2004) and works in the board of the upcoming International Journal on Role-Playing. He has published about a dozen book chapters and conference papers on Pervasive Games and is a known expert on the topic of pervasive games. The most significant award given to Markus Montola is the three-year research grant from the Finnish Cultural Foundation: Only 1-2 are given to each broad field annually.Stenros is currently a researcher at the Game Reserch Lab at the University of Tampere. Stenros is one of the key people in the Nordic role-playing movement. He has written extensively on role-playing games, both in and out of academia, has edited two books with Markus Montola on role-playing games and has published numerous papers and reports on pervasive games. Before returning to academia in 2006 Stenros made a career as a trainer and customer support manager in data security company F-Secure. Stenros has the unique combination of skills required to tackle the cultural contexts that pervasive games tap into: Having worked as a journalist and a critic he has an extensive understanding of popular culture; his background in sociology helps ground the observations, and his understanding of the unique Nordic live action role-playing scene has been instrumental in approaching pervasive games.

Stenros is currently a researcher at the Game Research Lab at the University of Tampere, Finland. He has written extensively on role-playing games.

Introduction

Case A: Killer: The Game of Assassination

Chapter 1: Games and Pervasive Games

Case B: The Beast; Chapter 2: Pervasive Game Genres

Case C: Shelby Logan’s Run

Chapter 3: Historical Influences on Pervasive Games

Case D: Botfighters

Chapter 4: Designing Spatial Expansion

Case E: TBD

Chapter 5: Designing Temporal Expansion

Case F: Momentum

Chapter 6: Designing Social Expansion

Case G: Pac-Manhattan

Chapter 7: Pervasive Game Design Strategies

Case H: Epidemic Menace

Chapter 8: Information Technology in Pervasive Games

Case I: Insectopia

Chapter 9: Pervasive Games on Mobile Phones

Case J: Vem Gråter

Chapter 10: The Ethics of Pervasive Games

Case K: REXplorer

Chapter 11: Marketing the Category of Pervasive Games

Case L: Uncle Roy All Around You

Chapter 12: Art and Politics of Pervasive Games

Case M: The Amazing Race

Chapter 13: Pervasive Games in Media Culture

Appendix A: Information Technologies for Appendix B: References