The Workshop
A reflective overview of the 2005 Ubicomp workshop on ubiquitous computing games, highlighting how the event brought together researchers, designers, and industry practitioners to explore play, networking, and pervasive media across physical-virtual experiences. The description captures discussions about new design approaches, taxonomies, technologies, evaluation methods, and business models that aimed to propel ubiquitous games beyond niche communities.
The narrative also situates the workshop within the broader cultural and academic moment, noting its connection to work from Dourish and Bell and emphasizing how the event embodied a practical, engineering-minded curiosity about futures shaped by interconnected environments and playful social systems.
Summary
This was the 2005 workshop on ubiquitous computing games held in conjunction with Ubicomp 2005. The workshop explored the intersection of ubiquitous computing and gaming, discussing new designs, technologies, and business models for ubiquitous games. At the time Ubicomp — Ubiquitous Computing — was an area of research and development focused on integrating computing into everyday environments and objects, making technology seamlessly available to users throughout their daily lives. This had unique resonance for me, as it became a way to use my engineering brain to think about futures — a world of connected things, environments, and experiences — in a way that was differently tangible than the typical speculative design approach, which I saw as coming more from the artist's brain. It was also a time around which Paul Dourish and Genevieve Bell's paper “Yesterday's tomorrows: notes on ubiquitous computing's dominant vision” was in circulation (pre-published, but being shared about), which Paul presented at a small informal faculty seminar group I was part of at USC..and that really inspired me to think more directly about what would become design fiction as a practice. The Ubicomp 2005 workshop on ubiquitous computing games was an important moment in this journey, bringing together researchers, designers, and industry practitioners to explore the intersection of play, networking, and pervasive media across physical-virtual experiences.
Written By: Julian Bleecker
Semantic Tags D.C. COLLIERDESIGN FICTIONELIZABETH CHURCHILLERIC PAULOSFRANK LANTZFUTURE THINKINGGAMESLOCATIVE MEDIAPAUL DOURISHPERVASIVE MEDIASTEFAN WALZUBICOMPWORKSHOP
ubicomp-2005Ubiquitous games, loosely defined, are games that take place in a mixture of the real world and the virtual world of the game. These games have attracted the attention of the entertainment industry, the art and technology community, as well as academic researchers. Moreover, these games have become a phenomenon in themselves, having been played by dozens, hundreds and even thousands of players. The theme of this workshop is ubiquitous computing entertainment, playful social networking, and games. Our goals are to provide a productive forum in which international researchers, members of the entertainment industry, game players, game designers, and game publishers can discuss key issues in ubiquitous gaming, present and future uses of ubiquitous computing that create compelling, playful and socially beneficial gaming experiences, and to facilitate an exchange of ideas that will allow ubiquitous games to break out of their current ‘niche’ and into the mainstream.
Topics:
* New ubiquitous game designs
* Mixed traditional and ubiquitous game design
* Studies or reports on the compelling aspects of existing ubiquitous games
* ³Post-mortems² on past ubiquitous game experiences
* Taxonomies of ubiquitous games
* New, existing and emerging technologies supporting ubiquitous gaming platforms
* Mechanisms to evaluate or test ubiquitous games
* Design elements that can be learned or adapted from popular console/PC games for creating compelling ubiquitous games
* Business models that will enable ubiquitous gaming to be successful in the marketplace
* Keywords: Games, Entertainment, Social Networking, Play, Ubiquitous Computing, Pervasive Media, Locative Media
See Also