1. Introduction to pervasive performance
Pervasive Games
pervasive entertainment pervasive play
pervasive experience
Mag. Thomas Wagner
Pervasive Entertainment Fachhochschule Salzburg
Lab Salzburg (PELS) University of Applied Sciences
Multimedia Technologies December | 2010

2. Pervasive Games | Overview
Overview Examples
Big Urban Games
and Pervasive Performances
Determination LARP
Pervasive ARGs
Games Mixed-Reality Games
Salen & Zimmerman Geo-Location Games
Huizinga Urban Adventure Games
Pervasive Games Assassination Games
Markus Montola Extraordinary
Interfaces for Games
Jane McGonigal
Reese Brown
Further Reading

3. Pervasive Games | Determination
Determination

4. Pervasive Games | Determination | Pervasive
Pervasive
pervasive, to pervade sth. (engl.) “This magazine will treat ubiquitous
(durchdringend, durchdringen) computing and pervasive computing
as synonyms – they mean exactly the
Pervasive is often used as synonym same thing and will be used inter-
for ubiquitous, but actually these changeably throughout the magazine.”
terms mean something different S. Mahadev editor of IEEE’s first issue of
Pervasive Computing in 2002
pervasive -> active
ubiquitous -> passive

5. Pervasive Games | Determination | Games
Games Huizinga
play as a free action, outside of the
ordinary life
Salen and Zimmerman
just acting “as if”
„A game is a system in which players has its own timeframe and space
engage in an artificial conflict, defined there is a “secret” community
by rules, that results in a quantifiable
outcome.“ Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals Magic Circle and
Suits, lusoury attitude
Rules: constituative rules, operative
rules, implicit rules

6. Pervasive Games | Determination | Games
Digital games
“wherever there is thechnology
there are games!”
e.g. Tennis for Two, Spacewar!

7. Pervasive Games | Determination | Pervasive Games
Pervasive Games
social
IPerG expansion
„Pervasive game is a game that has one temporal
or more salient features that expand expansion
the contractual magic circle of play
socially, spatially or temporally.“
Pervasive Games: Theory and Design
spatial
expansion

8. Pervasive Games | Determination | Pervasive Games
McGonigal
This might be a game: ubiquitous play and performance
at the turn of the twenty-first century
ubicomp games > colonization
pervasive games > distraction
ubiquitous games > activation

9. Pervasive Games | Determination | Pervasive Games
Brown
(technological view)
Pervasive Games Are Not A Genre! They are a sub-genre.
ubiquitous computing games
pervasive games
big games

10. Pervasive Games | Examples
Examples

11. Pervasive Games | Examples | Big Urban Games
Big Urban Games and
Pervasive Performances
“All Game Play is Performance”
e.g. Radio Ballett, Improv Everywhere,
Flash Mobs, The New Games
Movement, The Big Urban Game,
PacManhatten ...
between intervention and
large-scale public gaming

12. Pervasive Games | Examples | Big Urban Games
Radio Ballet
LIGNA, 2002/03
art projekt, public intervention;
local radio transmission and small/
pocket radios;
Exercise in lingering not according
to the rules.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI3pfa5QNZI&feature=player_embedded

13. Pervasive Games | Examples | Big Urban Games
BUG Big Urban Game
Frank Lantz et.al. , 2003
large scale game project;
web-based voting > vulonteers move
the inflatable game pieces;
race between three teams, each
move a 25-foot high inflatable game
piece through a series of Twin Cities’
checkpoints in the shortest amount
of time
http://www.decisionproblem.com/bug/bug2.html

14. Pervasive Games | Examples | LARP
Life Action Roleplay
(LARP)
“Slip into a role,
but not just on the paper.”
e.g. Medival, Fantasy or Vamipre LARP
Games, Prosopopeia Bardo 1 & 2

15. Pervasive Games | Examples | LARP
Prosopopeia Bardo 2
„Momentum“
IPerG (SICS, The Interactive
Institue, University of Tampere,
Company P) 2006
a pervasive long-time larp staged in Sweden
in 2006. 30 participants took on characters as
dead revolutionaries re-entering our world,
this time to save their own from oblivion. The
larp used a host of technology installations,
mobile equipment, and an advanced system
for game mastering to enable the game to be
ongoing around the clock for 34 days.of time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B8XFRrhack&feature=player_embedded

16. Pervasive Games | Examples | ARGs
Alternate Reality Games
(ARGs)
“When reality und fiction overlap!”
e.g. The Beast, I love bees,
Majestic, Secrets of Copenhagen,
Perplex City, ...

17. Pervasive Games | Examples | ARGs
I love bees
42entertainment, 2004
Based on the Halo fiction, ilovebees
was an original radio drama that
was deconstructed and delivered to
consumers over an unlikely broadcast
medium: ringing payphones. ilovebees
was a giant multi-player, multi-platform
story, immersing players in the world of
Halo2 in the four months leading up to
the title’s record shattering launch.
http://www.ilovebees.com/
http://www.42entertainment.com/bees.html

18. Pervasive Games | Examples | Mixed-Reality Games
Mixed-Reality Games
“Improve Reality!”
e.g. AR Quake, Epidemic Menace,
DEMOR, ...
... in a very different form ...
artvertiser, wikitude, layar or WARA
(http://selectparks.net/~julian/theartvertiser/, Julian Oliver @ selectparks)

19. Pervasive Games | Examples | Mixed-Reality Games
AR Quake
Wearable Computer Lab,
University of South Australia,
2002-06
ARQuake is an Augmented Reality
(AR) version of the popular Quake
game. Augmented reality is the
overlaying of computer generated
information onto the real world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNYfkxqiB6g&feature=player_embedded

20. Pervasive Games | Examples | Mixed-Reality Games
DEMOR
Students of the Hoogeschool
voor de Kunsten Utrecht, 2006
egoshooter for the blind;
defined public space;
3D sound environment;
location-based, pointing/aiming
and shooting

21. Pervasive Games | Examples | Urban Adventure Games
Urban Adventure
Games
“Interactive city guide or
exceptional storytelling?”
e.g. ReXplorer, Faust, Uncle Roy all
around You, Rider Spoke

22. Pervasive Games | Examples | Adventure Games
ReXplorer
Media Computing Group –
RWTH Aachen, ETH Zürich –
Dept. of Architecture, 2006
location-based mobile game;
defined public space;
audio for storytelling
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuefBtnQGWg

23. Pervasive Games | Examples | Adventure Games
Uncle Roy all
Around You
Blast Theory, 2003
location-based mobile game with
street palyer and online player, who
collaborate in their search for uncle
roy; defined public space;
audio for storytelling
http://vimeo.com/7182676

24. Pervasive Games | Examples | Geo-Location Games
Geo-Location Games
“Play everywhere!”
e.g. GeoCaching, Mogi Mogi,
Insectopia, ...
question about absolute or
relative positioning

25. Pervasive Games | Examples | Assassination Games
Assassination/Action
Games
“Shot, shot ... your dead?”
e.g. Killer: The Game of
Assassination, Paintball,
BotFighter, ...

26. Pervasive Games | Examples | Extraordinary Interfaces
Extraordinary
Interfaces for Games
“new ideas, new interfaces for
exceptional gameplay”
e.g. Brainball, PainStation, Barcode
Battler/Warrior, Nexus duo-device,
WARA, Abgestürzt! ...

27. Pervasive Games | Further Reading
Further Reading
Pervasive Games, Theory and Design
Experiences on the Boundary Between Life and Play
M. Montola, J. Stenros, A. Waern
(FH Bibliothek)
Rules of Play, Game Design Fundamentals
K. Salen, E. Zimmerman
(+ The Game Design Reader)
Space Time Play, Computer Games,
Architecture and Urbanism: The next Level
F. v. Borries, S. P. Walz and M. Böttger