Player Experiences in Location Aware Games – Methodological Issues
Co-edited by Barbara Grüter, Rod McCall, Lynne Baillie and Anne-Kathrin Braun
« Location awareness is a feature of an increasing part of digital games, which introduce them to everyday life. Such games often come under various names including but not limited to: mobile, pervasive, ubiquitous or augmented reality. However what makes all of them location aware is that the player physically navigates within a game world which blends the real world and virtual elements. This combination significantly changes what players, designers and developers have until now understood about digital games. Furthermore as GPS-enabled phones have become more widely available the number of start-ups developing games within this area has also increased. This has all given rise to the need for researchers to not only focus on prototypes and demonstrate the technology but also to aim for a comprehensive understanding of player experiences in location aware games.
This special issue of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing will focus on the methodological issues in studying player experiences of location aware games. All instances of the iterative research cycle are included from modeling to studying, to understanding the underlying assumptions and remodeling and studying again. »
