research-article

Free access

Harnessing player creativity to broaden the appeal of location based games

Authors:

Andrew WilsonAuthors Info & Claims

BCS '10: Proceedings of the 24th BCS Interaction Specialist Group Conference

Pages 143 - 150

Published: 06 September 2010 Publication History

Abstract

Despite being the subject of considerable research effort location based games in general have failed to attain the popularity and longevity of similar activities such as geo-caching or orienteering. This leads us to the question are the games designed thus far taking too much inspiration in their design from console and pc games leading to games that are too inflexible and failing to support the types of player behaviour that have emerged in geocaching? Using a design inspired by the player engagement evident in geocaching we present the empirical study of the design and user experience from creating the Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) game Free All Monsters. The results highlight that enabling user creativity and accommodating the varied motivations for playing such games can successfully be incorporated into the design and operation of location based game design and in particular provide a fun outdoor family activity.

References

[1]

Bell, M., Chalmers, M., Barkhuus, L., Hall, M., Sherwood, S., Tennent, P., Brown, B., Rowland, D., Benford, S., Capra, M., and Hampshire, A. Interweaving mobile games with everyday life. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Montréal, Québec, Canada, April 22--27, 2006. pp 417--426

Digital Library

[2]

Benford, S., Magerkurth, C., and Ljungstrand, P. Bridging the physical and digital in pervasive gaming. Commun. ACM 48, 3 (Mar. 2005), 54--57.

Digital Library

[3]

Casey, S., Kirman, B., and Rowland, D. 2007. The gopher game: a social, mobile, locative game with user generated content and peer review. In Proceedings of the international Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology, Salzburg, Austria, June 13--15, 2007.

Digital Library

[4]

Chavez, D. J., Schneider, I., and Powell, T. The social-psychology of a technology driven outdoor trend: Geocaching in the USA. Hawaii International Conference on Social Sciences, 2004 June 16--19, Honolulu, pp. 583--594.

[5]

Coulton P. How do we socialise mobile games?, Game Developers Conference, San Francisco, USA, 23rd to 27th March 2009.

[6]

T. Höllerer and S. Feiner. Mobile Augmented Reality. In H. Karimi and A. Hammad, editors, Tele-geoinformatics: Location-Based Computing and Services. Taylor and Francis Books Ltd., London, UK, 2004.

[7]

Jegers, K. Wiberg, M. Pervasive Gaming in the Everyday World, IEEE Pervasive Computing, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 78--85, Jan.-Mar. 2006

Digital Library

[8]

Juul, J. A Casual Revolution: Reinventing Video Games and Their Players. Cambridge: MIT Press 2009.

Digital Library

[9]

Kelly, M. Local Treasures: Geocaching across America, Center for American Places, February 15, 2006.

[10]

Kent, S. L. The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon-The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World. Three Rivers Press, September 2001.

Digital Library

[11]

O'Hara, K. Understanding geocaching practices and motivations. In Proceeding of the Twenty-Sixth Annual SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Florence, Italy, April 05--10, 2008). CHI '08. ACM, New York, NY, 1177--1186.

Digital Library

[12]

O'Hara, K., Grian, H., and Williams, J. 2008. Participation, collaboration and spectatorship in an alternate reality game. In Proceedings of the 20th Australasian Conference on Computer-Human interaction: Designing For Habitus and Habitat (Cairns, Australia, December 08--12, 2008). OZCHI '08, vol. 287.

Digital Library

[13]

Rashid, O., Mullins, I., Coulton, P., and Edwards, R. Extending cyberspace: location based games using cellular phones. Comput. Entertain. 4, 1 (Jan. 2006), 4.

Digital Library

[14]

Rashid, O., Bamford, W., Coulton, P., Edwards, R., and Scheible, J. PAC-LAN: mixed-reality gaming with RFID-enabled mobile phones. Comput. Entertain. 4, 4 Oct. 2006, 4.

Digital Library

[15]

Reitmayr, G. and Schmalstieg, D. Location based applications for mobile augmented reality. In Proceedings of the Fourth Australasian User interface Conference on User interfaces 2003 - Volume 18 (Adelaide, Australia). R. Biddle and B. Thomas, Eds. ACM International Conference Proceeding Series, vol. 36. Australian Computer Society, Darlinghurst, Australia, 65--73.

Digital Library

[16]

Salen, K and Zimmerman, E. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals, The MIT Press, October 2003. Ding, W. and Marchionini, G. 1997 A Study on Video Browsing Strategies. Technical Report. University of Maryland at College Park.

Digital Library

[17]

Terms derived from Wikipedia definitions

Cited By

Millard DPacker HJordan JHewitt SMalinov YRogers N(2024)The Ethics of Mixed Reality GamesGames: Research and Practice10.1145/36758062:3(1-26)Online publication date: 30-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3675806
Coulton PJacobs RBurnett DGradinar AWatkins MHowarth CLugmayr A(2014)Designing data driven persuasive games to address wicked problems such as climate changeProceedings of the 18th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Media Business, Management, Content & Services10.1145/2676467.2676487(185-191)Online publication date: 4-Nov-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2676467.2676487
Lochrie MPucihar KGradinar ACoulton PMayrhofer RChen LSteinbauer MKotsis GKhalil I(2013)Designing Seamless Mobile Augmented Reality Location Based Game InterfacesProceedings of International Conference on Advances in Mobile Computing & Multimedia10.1145/2536853.2536914(412-415)Online publication date: 2-Dec-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2536853.2536914
Show More Cited By

Recommendations

Why do people play location-based augmented reality games: A study on Pokémon GO
Abstract
Pokémon GO brought the location-based augmented reality games into the mainstream. To understand why people play these games, we created an online survey (n = 2612) with open questions about the reasons to start, continue, and quit ...
Highlights
- The Pokémon franchise and fandom were the most common reasons to adopt Pokémon GO.
The interplay between immersion and appeal in video games

A 2í 2 study on immersion and appeal of video games is presented.Immersion and appeal are found to be highly related.Immersion is found to be unaffected by playing experience.Appeal is found to be affected both by game played and playing experience. ...
Understanding Players' Experiences in Location-based Augmented Reality Mobile Games: A Case of Pokémon Go
CHI PLAY '17 Extended Abstracts: Extended Abstracts Publication of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play

In recent years, location-based Augmented Reality (AR) mobile games have been widely played by many players, and the Pokémon Go game is a success story, which has become a global phenomenon. As this game has attracted millions of players in the world, it ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image Guide Proceedings

BCS '10: Proceedings of the 24th BCS Interaction Specialist Group Conference

September 2010

502 pages

ISBN:9781780171302

Conference Chairs:
Tom McEwan
IIDI, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh, UK
,
Lachlan M. McKinnon
SCMS, University of Greenwich, London

Publisher

BCS Learning & Development Ltd.

Swindon, United Kingdom

Publication History

Published: 06 September 2010

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

5
Total Citations
View Citations
221
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)44
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)22

Reflects downloads up to 10 Nov 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Millard DPacker HJordan JHewitt SMalinov YRogers N(2024)The Ethics of Mixed Reality GamesGames: Research and Practice10.1145/36758062:3(1-26)Online publication date: 30-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3675806
Coulton PJacobs RBurnett DGradinar AWatkins MHowarth CLugmayr A(2014)Designing data driven persuasive games to address wicked problems such as climate changeProceedings of the 18th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Media Business, Management, Content & Services10.1145/2676467.2676487(185-191)Online publication date: 4-Nov-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2676467.2676487
Lochrie MPucihar KGradinar ACoulton PMayrhofer RChen LSteinbauer MKotsis GKhalil I(2013)Designing Seamless Mobile Augmented Reality Location Based Game InterfacesProceedings of International Conference on Advances in Mobile Computing & Multimedia10.1145/2536853.2536914(412-415)Online publication date: 2-Dec-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2536853.2536914
Lund KCoulton PWilson ARomão TCorreia NInami MDias EChambel TKato HPrada RTerada T(2011)Participation inequality in mobile location gamesProceedings of the 8th International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology10.1145/2071423.2071457(1-8)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2071423.2071457
Lund KCoulton PWilson ABylund MJuhlin OFernaeus Y(2011)Free All Monsters!Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services10.1145/2037373.2037482(675-678)Online publication date: 30-Aug-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2037373.2037482

View Options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Get Access

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents