Woi Woi | no shit

9
Definition-ARG:
“An interactive drama played out online and in real-world spaces, taking place over several weeks or months, in which dozens, hundreds, or thousands of players come together online, form collaborative social networks, and work together to solve a mystery or problem that would be absolutely impossible to solve alone.”

10ff
“6 key terms that describe ARGs”:

cross-media
pervasive
persistent
collaborative
constructive
expressive

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17.12.2009

Waern, A et al ~ Appendix A – Technological Enablers of Pervasive Games

category: PhD sources
tags: Empowerment, Evolution, Mobile Phones, Pervasive Games, Technology

Waern, Annika
Montola, Markus
Stenros, Jaakko
2009
Appendix A in Montola, M et al ~ Pervasive Games

Explains the advantages and disadvantages of the following technologies.

Absolute Positioning

GPS
Cell Positioning (mobile phone towers)
WLAN Positioning
Self-Reported Positioning

Proximity Recognition

RFID
Bluetooth
Infrared Communication

Wireless Communication

WLAN
GPRS
Bluetooth
Infrared Communication

Virtual Content

Triggered Content
Augmented Reality
Mobile Augmented Reality

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17.12.2009

Montola, M et al ~ Introduction

category: PhD sources
tags: Culture, Empowerment, Evolution, Pervasive Games, Technology

Montola, Markus
Stenros, Jaakko
Waern, Annika
Introduction in Montola, M et al ~ Pervasive Games

xix
“it was the recent advances in communication technologies – in particular the adoption of the Internet, mobile communication, and positioning technologies – that opened new design spaces for pervasive play.”
“Researchers and companies around the globe come up with new playful ways of using mobile and positioning technologies. Even mainstream conventions of what it is to play a game are shifting. Playfulness is seeping into the ordinary. Everyday life is becoming interlaced with games.”

xx
“The plethora of similar yet not identical labels illustrates not only that pervasive games are part of the zeitgeist, but the difficulty of grasping this new playing field.” Very good!
“As with all game design, pervasive game design is second-order design: The designer does not design play but the structures, rules, and artifacts that help bring it about.” Very important for entarchs!
“Activities that blur the border between ordinary life and game are almost automatically packaged with numerous ethical issues.”

xxi
“[There are] major shifts in how the struggle for public space, the blurring of fact and fiction, and the rise of ludus in society are changing the way we perceive the world.” Societal change!

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17.12.2009

Stewart, S. ~ Foreword

category: PhD sources
tags: ARG, Conceptual, Definition, Pervasive Games

Stewart, Sean
Foreword in Montola, M et al ~ Pervasive Games

xiii
Definition ARG: “[ARGs] are interactive stories in which you, in the audience, are also a crucial character, and your decisions drive the narrative.”

xiv
“In my career as a novelist, at best I have gotten the occasional fan letter. After several of our ARGs, I have been invited to the weddings of people who met and became engaged in the course of the game.”
“The nature of a pervasive game, in all the many varieties discussed in this book, is to make the “magic circle” of a game not a barrier, but a membrane; to let game and life bleed together so that game becomes heavy with the reality of life, and life becomes charged with the meaning of game. As Elan said, “The player’s life should be the game board.” An interviewer, talking to one of the players, asked, “When you are playing one of these games, who are you pretending to be?” To which the player replied, “Basically, you’re playing someone who is exactly the same as you in every way, except they think it’s real.“”

xv
“”Come. Play with us. If you are willing to suspend your disbelief, we will make it worth your while.”"
“To live, this kind of entertainment needs access to your life. Pervasive games, like vampires, can only enter if you let them in.“

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17.12.2009

Montola, M et al ~ Designing Social Expansion

category: PhD sources
tags: Conceptual, Creative Destruction, Definition, Pervasive Games, Transmedia, TV

Montola, Markus
Stenros, Jaakko
Waern, Annika
Chapter 7 in Montola, M et al ~ Pervasive Games

117
“Games that expand the magic circle of play spatially or temporally also have the tendency to expand it socially. When the spatial and temporal boundaries of games are broken, outsiders get involved in the play, whether or not they are aware of it. [...] There are two basic questions to ask: “How is my game going to affect outsiders?” and “How are outsiders going to affect my game?”.”

123
Definiton pronoia: “a “sneaking feeling one has that others are conspiring behind your back to help you.”"
See also BB or quotes, not sure where.

128
“Socially expanded games engage in a dialogue with people and society outside the magic circle.”
“Prototyping and evaluating games with social expansion are challenging.”

129
“As laboratory experiments and even beta testing can be impossible, the game designer must be constantly aware of the political climate and cultural context of the work. The designer should stay on top of her work at all times, which often requires a lot of work and runtime game mastering.”

129 note 4
“The majority of the Swedish population completely rejected the experience of Sanningen om Marika. In an online survey carried out by Aftonbladet newspaper, a vast majority voted that they did not understand the production, and the undertone of the comments was also that they did not care to understand it.”

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17.12.2009

Montola, M et al ~ Designing Spatial Expansion

category: PhD sources
tags: Conceptual, Pervasive Games

Montola, Markus
Stenros, Jaakko
Waern, Annika
Chapter 7 in Montola, M et al ~ Pervasive Games

82
Classic games are often made to fill boring moments, pervasive games are different: they are an activity you consciously choose.

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08.12.2009

Stenros, J et al ~ Pervasive Game Genres

category: PhD sources
tags: ARG, Pervasive Games

Stenros, Jaakko
Montola, Markus

Chapter 2 in Montola, M et al ~ Pervasive Games

31ff
Established PG genres (31):

Treasure Hunts (32)
Assassination Games (34)
Pervasive Larps (35)
Alternate Reality Games (37)

Emergins PG genres (40):

Smart Street Sports (40)
Playful Public Performances (41)
Urban Adventure Games (42)
Reality Games (44)

35f
“Pervasive larp is a style of pervasive gaming that utilizes live-action role-playing techniques. The central requirement is physical acting with character-based make-believe and pretend play: Role-playing requires the players to pretend and perform being someone else. [...] Live-action role playing (larp, sometimes also called theater style) involves physically acting out as a character in an environment that has been propped to look like the diegetic setting.”

37f
Definition ARG:
“Alternate Reality Games take the substance of everyday life and weave it into narratives that layer additional meaning, depth, and interaction upon the real world. The contents of these narratives constantly intersect with actuality, but play fast and loose with fact, sometimes departing entirely from the actual or grossly warping it – yet remain inescapably interwoven. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, everyone in the country can access these narratives through every available medium – at home, in the office, on the phones; in words, in images, in sound. Modern society contains many managed narratives relating to everything from celebrity marriages to brands to political parties, which are constantly disseminated through all media for our perusal, but ARGs turn these into interactive games. Generally, the enabling condition to is technology, with the internet and modern cheap communication making such interactivity affordable for the game developers. It’s the kind of thing that societies have been doing for thousands of years, but more so. Much more so.” Martin, A et al ~ Introduction to ARG

39
There are 3 business models for ARGs:

Game as advertisement
Player-created community efforts
Cash prizes

44
Are reality games best-suited to combine with film? Or is trying to make it be real the wrong approach?

45
Is “Pervasive Paidia” perhaps what I’m really interested in?
Ludus = formal play
Paidia = informal play
“Paidia, informal play, has always explored strange playgrounds, surprising times, and unbounded social relations. Pervasive paidia is not a genre of pervasive games – as these activities are not games – but they exist in a close relationship with pervasive games.”

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08.12.2009

Stenros, J et al ~ Historical Influences on Pervasive Games

category: PhD sources
tags: History, Pervasive Games

Stenros, Jaakko
Montola, Markus

Chapter 3 in Montola, M et al ~ Pervasive Games

53ff
Roots of PG:

Play in Public Space (54): Campus Culture (55)
Play in Everyday Life (56)
Roots in Literature and Arts (58): Performing Arts (59), Ludic Literature (61)
Gamer Cultures (62): Role-Playing Games (64), Persistent Virtual Worlds (65)
The Migration of Influences (66)

64
“Although their influence is felt most clearly in pervasive larps, role-playing games have influenced pervasive games in general. The structure of role-playing games, a complete fictional world set up and administrated by game masters and populated by characters played by players, is today common in many games.”

68
“It is as if pervasive games are part of a larger cultural shift, questioning the concepts such as “real” and “fiction.”"

68f
Their explanation why and how cultural and technological factors influence each other. This is why this interaction is one of the bases of their research.

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