Pervasive Gaming

Check-in Everywhere. Places, People, Narrations, Games

by Gabriele Ferri

with Giovanni Caruso, Riccardo Fassone and Mauro Salvador

OutRun: Exploring Seamful Design in the Development of an Augmented Reality Art Project (ISMAR 2010)

by Garnet Hertz

Co-authored with Jong Weon Lee and Chris Guevara. Conference proceedings, ISMAR 2010, Seoul, South Korea, October 14th 2010.

This paper outlines the development process of an augmented reality video game prototype that combines a classic... more This paper outlines the development process of an augmented reality video game prototype that combines a classic arcade driving game with a real world vehicle. In this project the user, or driver, maneuvers the car-shaped arcade cabinet through actual physical space using a screen as a navigational guide which renders the real world in the style of an 8-bit video game. This case study is presented as a seamful augmented reality (AR) system: a project that exploits inevitable technical limitations of AR. We propose that the concept of seamfulness has important design implications for both AR and electronic media art projects and illustrate this through a description of the OutRun system development process.

Mobile Gaming: An Engineer Puts an Arcade Cabinet on Wheels (Popular Science)

by Garnet Hertz

Popular Science (February 2012). Story by Gregory Mone. Photographs by Jeff Newton. Edited by Doug Cantor.

In the late 1980s, millions of arcade-addicted kids sat in the faux racing seats of Sega's OutRun videogame, grabbed... more In the late 1980s, millions of arcade-addicted kids sat in the faux racing seats of Sega's OutRun videogame, grabbed the rubber-covered wheel of the imitation Ferrari Testarossa, pressed down on the pedals, and imagined they were roaring down the street. Twenty-five years later, one of those kids, Garnet Hertz, has realized that fantasy, modding an 1,100-pound arcade machine to ride on pavement.

The Pedagogical Practice of Locative Experience

by Ann Morrison

Breaking Reality: Exploring Pervasive Cheating in Foursquare

by René Glas

Think Design Play - DiGRA Conference 2011 Proceedings. Utrecht School of the Arts, 14-17 September, Hilversum.

This paper explores the notion of cheating in location-based mobile applications. Using the popular smartphone app... more This paper explores the notion of cheating in location-based mobile applications. Using the popular smartphone app Foursquare as main case study, I address the question if and how devious practices impact the boundaries between play and reality as a negotiated space of interaction. After establishing Foursquare as a prime example of the gamification phenomenon and pervasive gaming, both of which require us to rethink notions of game and play, I will argue that cheating in location-based mobile applications challenges not just the boundaries of play, but also of playful identity.

Using locative games to evaluate hybrid technology

by Ann Morrison

The Rhetoric of Play: Locative Gaming and the Global City

by Dale Leorke

In early discussions of digital networks, many theorists tended to distinguish between the material world of physical... more In early discussions of digital networks, many theorists tended to distinguish between the material world of physical space, and the immaterial realm of cyberspace. But today we are increasingly seeing these two spaces converge as mobile technologies, locative media and digital networks collide with the physical architecture of contemporary cities. Previously separate and disconnected places are being absorbed into the networked space superimposed onto them, creating a ‘hybrid space’ embedded simultaneously in the local and the global. This embeddedness has created the potential for individuals living in these cities to intervene and interact in its public space. This thesis examines one manifestation of these interventions: ‘locative gaming’, or games which are located simultaneously in the physical world, and the virtual space of the game world. These games create their own rules that enable public play, but they must also navigate the rules of the real world, including its laws, social norms, and physical boundaries. As such, I argue these games must create their own ‘rhetoric of play’ to confront the constraints imposed on them from above, and develop a form of play which encourages participation and social relations, while taking into account the unique cultural dimensions of the local places in which they are performed.

Interpretive Cooperation and Procedurality. A Dialogue between Semiotics and Procedural Criticism

by Gabriele Ferri

published in "E|C, special number, computer games between text and practice"