The impact of location-based mobile games on group formation and urban environmental experience

Symposium:

• ISEA2009: 15th International Symposium on Electronic Art
• More presentations from ISEA2009:  

• Entertainment and mobility

• The impact of location-based mobile games on group formation and urban environmental experience

• Dimitris Charitos

Venue(s):

• Waterfront Hall, Belfast, Ireland

• Abstract

  The widespread and constantly increasing use of mobile phones with location detection capabilities presents opportunities for ubiquitous, ‘always on’ applications of ICTs. Such technologies may be employed for communication purposes, leading to the appearance of locative media. Due to their successful combination of physical and digital environmental elements, locative media can offer a unique experience when used for communicative, gaming and entertainment purposes, as demonstrated by a number of relevant implementations. In this paper we describe such an implementation of a location-based mobile game (LBMG) system called LOCUNET and highlight some results and conclusions drawn from a study of its use.

  The LOCUNET project primarily aimed at formulating a comprehensive theoretical framework of locative media use as a communicative practice. This framework synthesises aspects of a number of theories on human behaviour, communication, and play. This paper is a follow-up to previous work that presented the theoretical foundations of this project and the general principles behind its inception. It describes an LBMG activity that took place in Athens, Greece for the purpose of evaluating the theoretical framework of LOCUNET and presents findings that are regarded as particularly relevant and useful to designers of location-based communication and entertainment media.

Category:

• Paper