DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory
Brunel University, September, 2009
Volume: 5
ISBN / ISNN: ISSN 2342-9666
While ubiquitous computing has been developing around much speculation and theorization for quite some time, the current uses of mobile and locative technologies are bringing these ideas to fruition. Mobile games - from geocaching to site specific performance games like Blast Theory’s Rider Spoke - are moving the interface away from personal computing toward physical computing that engages the immediate social space. Geocaching, which has its origins in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, is a GPS game that utilizes coordinates on a mobile device in order to track down containers that typically contain a logbook, various items left behind by gamers, and sometimes a “Travel Bug” that is meant to travel from cache to cache (moved by active gamers and tracked by its owner online). Once located, the gamer signs the logbook, re-hides the cache, and describes the find online to the geocaching community. By combining the interfaces of a mobile device, the Internet, and the physical landscape, this mobile game enacts the embodied space of cyberspace in a way that seamlessly blends and coheres. Here, social networking and the gaming community move away from individual space of computer screen to social space of material environment. The result is a reiteration of proximity in an era where the space of cyberspace is not limited by physical location. While social networking online allows people to interact with others around the globe, mobile games like geocaching reassert the significance of proximity and site-specificity.