Pervasive Games: Theory and Design

Markus Montola (M.Soc.Sc.) is a grant researcher in the University of Tampere Gamelab research group and a doctoral candidate in Literature and the Arts. Before being given a three-year dissertation grant by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, he worked as a project researcher and manager in the Gamelab, since the year 2004. His dissertation work discusses various forms of role-playing and pervasive gaming. He has already edited two books on role-playing with Jaakko Stenros (Playground Worlds, 2008, and Beyond Role and Play, 2004) and works in the board of the upcoming International Journal on Role-Playing. He has published about a dozen book chapters and conference papers on Pervasive Games and is a known expert on the topic of pervasive games.The most significant award given to Markus Montola is the three-year research grant from the Finnish Cultural Foundation: Only 1-2 are given to each broad field annually.
Stenros is currently a researcher at the Game Reserch Lab at the University of Tampere. Stenros is one of the key people in the Nordic role-playing movement. He has written extensively on role-playing games, both in and out of academia, has edited two books with Markus Montola on role-playing games and has published numerous papers and reports on pervasive games. Before returning to academia in 2006 Stenros made a career as a trainer and customer support manager in data security company F-Secure.Stenros has the unique combination of skills required to tackle the cultural contexts that pervasive games tap into: Having worked as a journalist and a critic he has an extensive understanding of popular culture; his background in sociology helps ground the observations, and his understanding of the unique Nordic live action role-playing scene has been instrumental in approaching pervasive games.

Quickly emerging from the fast-paced growth of mobile communications and wireless technologies, pervasive games take gaming away from the computer screen and back to the three-dimensional world. Now games can be designed to be played in public spaces like shopping malls, conferences, museums and other non-traditional game venues. Game designers need to understand how to use the world as a gamespace-and both the challenges and advantages of doing so.

This book shows how to change the face of play-who plays, when and where they play and what that play means to all involved. The authors explore aspects of pervasive games that concern game designers: what makes these games compelling, what makes them possible today and how they are made. For game researchers, it provides a solid theoretical, philosophical and aesthetic understanding of the genre.

Pervasive Games covers everything from theory and design to history and marketing.

Games are no longer confined to card tables and computer screens. Emmy award winning games like "The Fallen Alternate Reality Game" (based on the ABC show) or "The Lost Experience" (based on the CBS hit show)- are pervasive games in that they blur traditional boundaries of game play. This book gives game designers the tools they need to create cutting edge pervasive games.

Introduction
Case A: Killer: The Game of Assassination
Chapter 1: Games and Pervasive Games
Case B: The Beast; Chapter 2: Pervasive Game Genres
Case C: Shelby Logan's Run
Chapter 3: Historical Influences on Pervasive Games
Case D: Botfighters
Chapter 4: Designing Spatial Expansion
Case E: TBD
Chapter 5: Designing Temporal Expansion
Case F: Momentum
Chapter 6: Designing Social Expansion
Case G: Pac-Manhattan
Chapter 7: Pervasive Game Design Strategies
Case H: Epidemic Menace
Chapter 8: Information Technology in Pervasive Games
Case I: Insectopia
Chapter 9: Pervasive Games on Mobile Phones
Case J: Vem Gråter
Chapter 10: The Ethics of Pervasive Games
Case K: REXplorer
Chapter 11: Marketing the Category of Pervasive Games
Case L: Uncle Roy All Around You
Chapter 12: Art and Politics of Pervasive Games
Case M: The Amazing Race
Chapter 13: Pervasive Games in Media Culture
Appendix A: Information Technologies for Appendix B: References