Strand 2 - Mo'Play

Sub-project leader: Assoc. Prof. A. Hammer, Theatre Studies UO

Core researchers: Assoc. Prof. A. Hammer, Prof. S. Clatworthy,1 post-doc (Dr Jan Rune Holmevik)

Network researchers: Prof. T. Kvifte, Prof. C. Haynes

Contexts: Entertainment and gaming linked to location; between individuals in public spaces, within and between social groups and the interaction between entertainment, location and context sensitive information and intelligent physical environments. Participation in mobile gaming includes restricted commercial environments and more open, shared constructions by players. Major developments are underway commercially e.g Sony’s device PSP. Alternatively social network software offers participatory and publicly constituted alternatives to scripted play. Massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPG), Research fields to be included: theatre, virtual worlds, social construction of self, socio-technological interaction, computer games studies, rhetoric and writing, collaborative game design, open source performance.

Questions: What are the dramaturgical and mediational features of commercial mobile games? Do location sensitive, always online, portable gaming terminals change the dramaturgical and mediational features of commercial mobile games? How will such terminals interact with ubiquitous computing in the physical environment to create new forms for hybrid games? How and to what extent are the less pre-scripted qualities of mobile and context-related play realised textually and interpersonally? How can the humanities inform and perform ICTs and vice versa? What can the study of computer games tell us about performance and the obverse? How can performance influence the design of computer games? What kinds of performances emerge in multi-player role-playing games?

Outcomes: Open user driven systems prototype I’m Game. A free MMORPG for educational use. 1 Post-doc in humanistic informatics. 1 edited book. Link to Centre for Game Studies, Copenhagen.

Activity 2.1: Theory and Metaphors of Participatory Development and Performativity. Based on questions of identity as performed or ‘acted’ in ludic environments, theory and metaphors will be developed and where possible extended across the project and in related international projects.

Activity 2.2: Development of a Prototype of a User and Location Driven Game System. Based on the initial results and technology platform from Strand 4, we will develop a mobile, location and user-aware system for participatory and performative gaming.

Activity 2.3: Book (co-authored essays) on performance, computer games, and rhetorical theory.