The hunt for Mr. X: Bringing a board game to the street Niklaus Moor Swisscom Innovations Ubicomp Conference Tokyo, September 2005

The hunt for Mr. X Niklaus Moor, Ubicomp Conference, Tokyo, September Bringing the board game to the street Experiences Conclusions and the future

The hunt for Mr. X Niklaus Moor, Ubicomp Conference, Tokyo, September „Scotland Yard“ is a popular board game in Europe, where players have to catch Mr. X  Game was rated “Game of the year“ in 1983  Although quite old, still popular today  The game is a well known brand

The hunt for Mr. X Niklaus Moor, Ubicomp Conference, Tokyo, September „Mr. X“ moves hidden through the streets of London  He has to show his location every 4th turn  The detectives know which kind of transportation he uses  With this information they have to figure out his position and surround him  When the detectives catch him, they win, if Mr. X escapes he wins

The hunt for Mr. X Niklaus Moor, Ubicomp Conference, Tokyo, September Bringing the game to the street: transformation into a live action game  4 groups with 4 players hunt Mr. X and Mr. Y in the old city of Berne.  Hunting by MMS: Every ten minutes, Mr. X sends a picture of his current location.  The detectives have to identify the position by the pictures and find Mr. X.  They catch Mr. X by taking a picture of him.

The hunt for Mr. X Niklaus Moor, Ubicomp Conference, Tokyo, September For the game we used telco and internet technology  All players had cell phones with camera and GPRS connectivity, MMS enabled  The pictures have been sent by MMS to a photo weblog page  The cell phones where enabled for group chatting (text based) Cell phonenotebook

The hunt for Mr. X Niklaus Moor, Ubicomp Conference, Tokyo, September The detective in the back office monitors and coordinates by web and cell phone  All MMS pictures are posted on the web  The backoffice gets all the information and coordinates the hunt  The group communicates by cell phones

The hunt for Mr. X Niklaus Moor, Ubicomp Conference, Tokyo, September Bringing the board game to the street Experiences Conclusions and the future

The hunt for Mr. X Niklaus Moor, Ubicomp Conference, Tokyo, September The players were highly involved in the game and had fun  Success from the game experience perspective: The players gave very good ratings about the gameplay and thrill.  The players liked the mix of guessing (location riddle) and physical hunt.  One player was so highly engaged, that he took off his shoes “to be faster”.

The hunt for Mr. X Niklaus Moor, Ubicomp Conference, Tokyo, September The extreme usage of the MMS gateway showed limitations in the system  The overall infrastructure worked, the game completed as planned.  The MMS gateway couldn't handle any more the amount of MMS for the organisator’s mobile phone (a copy of every sent MMS was sent to his phone, which caused traffic jam). 24 hours later the organizer still got MMS from the game.

The hunt for Mr. X Niklaus Moor, Ubicomp Conference, Tokyo, September The Photo-Blog gave a live overview of the hunt and the positions of players

The hunt for Mr. X Niklaus Moor, Ubicomp Conference, Tokyo, September The game didn‘t enhance the usage of MMS permanently  One goal of the game for Swisscom was to explore if the usage of MMS can be enhanced by introducing users into a technology in a playful matter.  The amount of sent MMS went up very high during the game, but fell down on the prior level after the game.  We saw that the low usage of MMS was not a cause of usability or usage complexity (players had no problems to send them), but just the use case was not obvious.

The hunt for Mr. X Niklaus Moor, Ubicomp Conference, Tokyo, September Bringing the board game to the street Experiences Conclusions and the future

The hunt for Mr. X Niklaus Moor, Ubicomp Conference, Tokyo, September Live action games bring players to a higher level of involvement  The “live” experience an the taking place in the real world increase excitement and involvement.  Known formats like the hunt make it easy for the players to get into the game.  Importance of the story: Embedding the game into a story raises suspense.

The hunt for Mr. X Niklaus Moor, Ubicomp Conference, Tokyo, September Live action games need a big amount of coordination and organization  To keep such a game alive, you have to give the players the tools to organize it themselves.  Organized by the telco is expensive.  Other forms of help for ubiquitous games are welcome.

The hunt for Mr. X Niklaus Moor, Ubicomp Conference, Tokyo, September The merge of the real and virtual world in games: Boarders are vanishing Virtual and real world coming together:  In the online game „SIMS“ you can go to „Pizza Hut“, and order a real delivery pizza  Virtual game objects are traded on eBay for real money  Space for advertisement is sold in Computer Games (next to racing laps etc.) The Sims

The hunt for Mr. X Niklaus Moor, Ubicomp Conference, Tokyo, September We got the infrastructure, now please deliver good games!  What can be the role of a telco in the field of ubiquitous gaming? –Bit pipe provider only –Connector (Provide access between different forms of channels, like giving a mobile interface to join MMORPGs) –Partner of game companies –Game designer  What telco infrastructure is necessary for new and thrilling forms of ubiquitous gaming  What kind of new games do you see in the future, where telcos can bring a benefit

The hunt for Mr. X Niklaus Moor, Ubicomp Conference, Tokyo, September Backup

The hunt for Mr. X Niklaus Moor, Ubicomp Conference, Tokyo, September Connector: In “Hattrick” the gamer can connect to the free web game with his mobile phone  Free web based soccer game  Players manage their football team  Weekly matches between the teams, divided by countries, all over the world  Buy and sell players by ingame stock exchange  In some countries (eg. Finland) gamers can check ongoing status of game by the mobile phone, and trade players.  Big revenue through highly addictive feature. 