Immersive/Pervasive Gaming

Useful overview of some new developments in collective mobile entertainment including analysis of "The Beast" interactive narrative (not a game) designed to support/hype Speilberg's movie AI and written by Sean Stewart

This Is Not A Game: Immersive Aesthetics and Collective Play

Jane McGonigal, Department of Theater, Dance & Performance Studies, University of California at Berkeley. E-mail: janemcg@uclink4.berkeley.edu.

Abstract
The increasing convergence and mobility of digital network technologies have given rise to new, massively-scaled modes of social interaction where the physical and virtual worlds meet. This paper explores one product of these extreme networks, the emergent genre of immersive entertainment, as a potential tool for harnessing collective action. Through an analysis of the structure and rhetoric of immersive games, I explore how immersive aesthetics can generate a new sence of social agency in game players, and how collaborative play techniques can instruct real-world problem-solving.

Keywords
Massively-multiplayer gaming, virtual reality, collective intelligence, extreme networks.

Full Text
Full text 172KB PDF. Adobe Reader or PDF viewing software required.

Update: Here's an even better description of the design objectives for "the beast".

Posted by sfisher at October 21, 2003 12:20 PM