Locative Media & The City

I'm still a little on the fences on whether or not I'm sold on pervasive gaming as art within the locative media field. Using the examples of projects we read about (Pac Manhattan, Can you See me Now?, and Uncle Roy All Around) there seems to be some essential ingredients missing to the mix.

As we spoke about in class, I feel that there can be more done with this type of thinking to add something to our cultural understanding of our environments. Forwardly looking, games could possibly take the role of becoming educational games, or somehow get people to understand something complex using elements of fun and competitiveness. The original Nintendo Entertainment System had a lot of games that were purely fun and had nothing really substantial to add to our lives on a cultural level aside from entertainment. However, games were launched that had academic goals in mind. Back then and to this day a lot of my understanding of simple math comes from educational games that involve statistics, logic, problem solving, and probability. My current video gaming experiences have been teaching me about the value of teamwork, cooperation, communication, and practice. This understanding comes from the next gen consoles having online connectivity and massive online multiplayer experiences in which all players are equipped with a microphone and controller. This enables people to work together in real time. I have found that the teams that talk with one another more are more apt to win matches than those that do not.

To use this as a model for pervasive gaming might be helpful. In my estimation, a pervasive game should focus on getting people to work together in either a real or virtual space for the benefit of some kind of valuable learning experience. This can be socially gratifying or allow the participants to learn something about their surroundings in a unique way. The closest example would be the TV reality show, The Amazing Race. Although I have only seen it once or twice my understanding is that there are people running around trying to find destinations in places they do not know. Help comes from learning things about the culture and speaking with people to solve answers to clues on where they should be going. Something like this in Buffalo could help people learn things about the historic buildings and allow people to have fun and interact with the cities inhabitants.

The main reason for this post is to try and brainstorm some interesting models that could potentially give more to pervasive gamers than just entertainment and novelty pleasure. Does anyone have any other ideas or objections?

-Chris