Location-based Mobile Games Research Articles

A Review of Mobile Location-based Games for Learning across Physical and Virtual Spaces

A Review of Mobile Location-based Games for Learning across Physical and Virtual Spaces

The hybrid ontology of mobile gaming

This article examines the hybrid ontologies that typify networked and mobile location-based games, exploring some of the phenomenological, embodied or somatic aspects of the practices and perceptions of ‘mixed reality’ game-play. In particular, it focuses on the potential cultural and corporeal effects of mobile gaming since the introduction of the iPhone and subsequent touchscreens, and the specific technosomatic arrangements such devices demand in everyday life. Mobile media and game-play in both urban and domestic places evoke particular kinds of embodiment, indicative of emergent habitual and quotidian behaviours, gesturings, positionings and choreographies of the body, at times partially determined by the culture of the user, at others by the technical specificities and demands of the interface. Location-based mobile games and applications also modify our experience and perception of ‘being online’, and effectively disassemble the actual/virtual dichotomy of internet ‘being’ into a complex and dynamic range of modalities of presence. Finally, this article suggests that the kind of ontological and ‘containment’ metaphors we use to describe the space of screen-based game-play — in particular, the magic circle, and tropologies of the screen as a fixed window or frame — are ill-suited as descriptors for the complex layering of material and virtual contexts specific to mobile location-based and mixed reality gaming.

Pervasive Computer Games and Processes of Spatialization: Informational Territories and Mobile Technologies

Pervasive computer games (PCGs) combine digital mobile technologies and location-based systems by creating an interface between electronic and physical spaces for playing. PCG is a general name for mobile games such as hybrid reality games (HRGs), location-based mobile games (LBMGs), and urban games. Our goal here is to show how these games, along with new digital mobile technologies, have the potential to produce “spatialization,” i.e., to socially produce the space in which they are embedded. I suggest that spatialization is achieved through the use of technology such as sensors and digital mobile networks (smartphones, PDAs, global positioning systems [GPSs], and augmented reality [AR] devices; radio frequency identification [RFID] tags and global system for mobile communications/general packet radio service [GSM/GPRS]; Wi-Fi and Bluetooth). The goal of this article is to examine the forms of spatialization created by the use of location-based services and location-based technologies.

Post—Mass Media Functions, Locative Media, and Informational Territories: New Ways of Thinking About Territory, Place, and Mobility in Contemporary Society

The basic underlying idea of this article can be put as follows: informational mobile technologies have enabled new means of communication and sociability based on what I call “post-mass media functions” and “informational territories.” What is at stake here is to question some visions about the relationship between informational and network technologies and place, territory, community, and mobility. I’ll argue here that new mobile technologies, under the label of “locative media,” are creating new “territorialization” (control, surveillance, tracking), convergences between physical and informational mobilities, new meanings of space, place, and location, and against the idea of anomie and isolation, new forms of sociability. To elucidate this hypothesis I will briefly examine social and communication practices with “locative media” projects in for main areas: “electronic urban annotations,” “mapping and geo-localization,” “location-based mobile games,” and “flash and smart mobs.” These projects put in evidence new understanding of territory, place, temporality, maps, mobility, and community.

위치기반(LBS) 모바일게임의 활성화방안 -국내게임과 해외게임의 사례연구를 중심으로-

다양한 모바일 콘텐츠들 중에 모바일 게임은 이동통신사 서비스 중 킬러 콘텐츠 역할을 하고 있다. 또한 위치기반(LBS) 서비스는 급속도로 성장하고 있는 추세이며 차세대 킬러콘텐츠로 주목 받고 있다. 전문가 들은 향후 모바일 게임에 위치기반 기술이 결합된 형태의 LBS모바일 게임이 활성화될 것으로 기대하고 있다. 그러나 현재로써는 여러 가지 제약 조건으로 인해 활성화되지 못하고 있다. 따라서 본 연구에서는 아직 활성화 되지못한 LBS 모바일게임의 활성화를 위한 문제점과 고려사항들에 대하여 2개의 LBS게임 의 사례를 비교 분석하여 개선점을 제시하고자 했다. 첫째는, 사용자에게 장기간의 네트워크 게임사용에 따른 요금 부담을 줄여주기 위해 새롭고 다양한 요금제가 필요 하다는 것이다. 둘째는, 개인정보호의 노출에 대한 우려를 없앨 수 있는 정보 보호 정책이 필요하다. 마지막으로 네트워크속도와 위치 정보 등에 관한 주변 인프라의 확충이다. 이 연구의 결과를 토대로 향후, 사용자가 개인정보가 보호된 상태로 편리하게 원하는 정보만을 받을 수 있는 데이터 수신에 관한 인터페이스 디자인에 관한 연구가 되어져야 한다. Mobile game is a killer content among the various mobile contents provided by Telecommunication companies. Recently, Location Based Service (LBS) market is growing rapidly and LBS will be a killer content in the near future. As a consequence, mobile game combined with LBS will be a dominant trend of mobile content. However, there exist some limitations on the revitalization of the mobile service market. In this paper, analysis of the restrictions on the mobile service market is performed and then methods for the revitalization of the mobile service market are proposed various billing system is required to reduce network fee for users, a new policy to protect privacy has to be offered, and the infrastructure for high network performance should be developed. The result of this research will provide key role to find a new and more innovative approach to enhance the interaction design of the future Location Based Mobile Games.

Hybrid Reality and Location-Based Gaming: Redefining Mobility and Game Spaces in Urban Environments

Hybrid reality games and location-based mobile games use urban spaces as the game scenario and are played with the aid of mobile technologies equipped with location awareness and Internet connection. This article conceptualizes hybrid reality and location-based mobile games within the area of game studies via their three main characteristics: mobility, sociability, and spatiality. In addition, the article proposes a theoretical framework for studying these games focusing on the possible implications of transforming urban spaces in playful environments. Last, one location-based mobile game, BOTFIGHTERS, and one hybrid reality game, CAN YOU SEE ME NOW? are used as examples of how these games (a) create a new logic of game space, (b) transform the relationship between serious life and playful spaces, and (c) transform the perception of urban spaces and patterns of mobility through the city.

Alien Revolt (2005-2007): A Case Study of the First Location-Based Mobile Game in Brazil

Location-aware technology and Internet connectivity embedded in mobile phones allow users to navigate physical spaces and be connected to other users, bringing many activities formerly performed online to physical hybrid spaces. Among such activities are location-based mobile games (LBMGs), which use urban spaces as the game scenario. This article is a case study of Alien Revolt (2005-2007), the first Brazilian LBMG, released in 2005 by the company Mind Corporation and the operator Oi in Rio de Janeiro. The game uses Java-enabled cell phones equipped with location awareness to transform the city into a battlefield. Following much of the Swedish game Botfighters' (2001-2005) idea, the first LBMG, Alien Revolt's goal involves virtually shooting other players within a specific radius in the city space. Alien Revolt exemplifies how cell phones strengthen users' connections to physical space, because they are used as collective communication devices, rather than personal private technologies. Moreover, when used for location-based activities, the cell phone plays the role of a location aware technology, rather than a mobile telephone used for two-way voice communication.