Universe Creation 101

I’m about to hope on a plane to go to Sweden, then Finland, Amsterdam, Paris and many places in the US. It will be a great trip…meeting lots of cross-media researchers who I’ve known through cyberspace for a long time, sharing my research and insights and…having a break. My first engagement is a talk for Nokia Research Labs in Finland. Nokia have asked me to come and speak to them about Alternate Reality Games and Transmedia Entertainment in general. That will be lots of fun. Here is the abstract for that talk:

“Watch Out! Behind You!”: Transmedia Entertainment circa 2007

Transmedia entertainment is about stories and games that are expressed across a variety of media platforms. They surround a person: popping up on the Internet, television, mobile phone, newspaper and beyond. The core drive of such pervasive forms is to create a world that exists beyond the media it is delivered on. Media becomes a gateway rather than the final destination. This talk will explore exemplary examples of transmedia entertainment, including Alternate Reality Games. In particular, this session will outline Alternate Reality Game design and general cross-media interaction design principles. How mobile technologies have been integrated into these worlds and their potential future roles will also be discussed.

And then I’m off to present a keynote lecture at the First International Conference on Cross Media Interaction Design. Here is the abstract for the primer paper I wrote:

Patterns in Cross-Media Interaction Design: It’s Much More Than a URL… 

Content can be repurposed, adapted and stretched across platforms. A story can start in one medium and finish in another. How are audiences moved between platforms, and how can one make this traversal a part of the entertainment experience itself? This paper provides an introduction to multi-platform and multi-format entertainment and then outlines the factors that influence cross-media interaction design. What is to be considered when designing for movement between platforms? How are audiences moved between platforms? What influences the choice of traversal? Critical factors will be listed, as a first step towards developing patterns in cross-media interaction design. This first step is a primer for part two, which will be delivered at a conference.

Here is the primer doc [pdf] if you would like to read about some of the ideas informing my talk. I’m so looking forward to sharing my research into this area.

After that I’m meeting more colleagues in Amsterdam, then off for a holiday in Paris, then over to the US to see family and meet more colleagues, including my wonderful co-bloggers from Writer Response Theory. We have been blogging together (though me not as much in the past few months) for years. This will be the first time we have actually met!

I’ll try and keep you posted on the wonderful things I discover out there. And when I come back, be prepared for some changes around here! I’m finally getting cracking with a few projects that have been on the boil for a while. I’m very excited and can’t wait to share them with you.

A while ago I was invited to join the community at V-Lodge. V-Lodge is created by Sergey Salomakhin and Mikhail Zislis. Here is their description:

Our project for in-game advertising, V-Lodge, works from the following assumptions:

* A new approach to in-game advertising is required, “virtual billboards” arent’ doing any good! This goes for both advertisers and gamers.
* A place for direct business communication between gamedev and advertising worlds is needed to build a civilized market in this area.
* The demand for quality information, for new concepts and ideas for this market, is obvious.

We have created an online meeting place for players in this business that serves simultaneously as a business platform and an informational resource. Currently we are inviting advertisers, game developers, technology providers, and consultants to join our club.

I find the model interesting, but am also impressed by their articles on their Method for in-game advertising and the history of in-game ads. What they call “in-context” advertising is akin to “in-game” and “in-story” approaches that we see in just about every format possible now. The history is mighty interesting too. I asked Sergey if it was OK to blog about their project and this is his response:

We believe that in-game advertising is widely misused, and our hope is to change this situation. We see no need in crippling games and irritating players. Obviously, with wider coverage we will achieve this faster.

I like a good mission.

Check out: http://www.v-lodge.com/

I’ve been watching closely the different methods used to tier…to broadcast events that happen inside of the online virtual world Second Life. One of the biggest problems with holding SL events is that there is a restriction on how many people can attend. Too many and the sim will go down. There are a few techniques that SL developers use to get around this: hold events on land that is located on the cornor of four sims — so you take advantage of allowance of four sims rather than only using one. Another technique is to tier the broadcast of the event. People at other locations within Second Life can listen to the audio feed at a nearby by and so on…just like watching a sports broadcast at the local pub. But another tier is to deliver the experience to people outside of Second Life. This allows people who are residents of SL but who cannot go inworld for some reason, or cannot get to the event location, still particpate in some manner in real time. The Electric Sheep Company created Destroy TV to fit such a purpose. With Destroy TV, the events are streamed and you could even enter text, to participate in the discussion inside the world from outside. But a colleague of mine is part of a new service called the Second Life Cable Network. They just ran a pilot live event a few days ago and I was impressed. Here are the details of “the four hour presentation of six great Australian bands and musicians at The Hoe-Down Under - Texas’ Aussie Music Party produced in association with Austrade, from the production company Cattle Puppy Productions: 

Hovering above Salmon Island, swooping past the interview stage, following hosts Starr Sonic and Gonzo Timtam and standing amongst the dancing audience in the mosh pit, Wiz Nordberg and an assistant videographer filmed the whole 3 hour event for SLCN. Video making or as it is called in Second Life, Machinima, is well established in-world. What makes SLCN so innovative is the ability to take several live video feeds from in-world, mix in high quality audio and pump the resulting finished show to thousands of screens throughout Second Life and to millions of web browsers through www.slcn.tv. And all of this live - yes, as it happened.

I enjoyed listening to some great Aussie bands, seeing mates dance inworld, listening to the interviews and just being a part of the fun, without being inworld. This was a great implementation of broadcasting as we know it. Now, all they need to do is integrate ways that event and people inside SL can interact in some way with the people out of SL and it will be appropriate to SL.

Check out: http://www.slcn.tv/

One of the events i’ll miss while I’m away is this great one. If you can’t make it, the website is full of los of juicy links too.

Find out how blogging by women and for women builds networks, improves customer reach, monetizes creativity and infuses your business with Web 2.0 goodness!

This event is for small businesses, individuals, researchers, nonprofits, artistic and educational organisations interested in:

- blogging as a business opportunity
- women bloggers
- women in business
- women customers
- social media and networking
- creative communications
- innovation and cooperation
- customer relationships
- opportunities of Web 2.0 and the Long Tail
- usability

And, just to be clear, men are definitely invited. All the speakers are women, and we’ll be talking about women users, readers and bloggers. But everyone is welcome to attend the conference and participate in the sessions.

Check out: http://www.hum.dmu.ac.uk/blogs/nlabwomen/

My mate Tom is the co-editor of this very interesting issue for Refractory. The themes they’re interested in will be right up the alley of many of the readers of this blog.

Refractory: a Journal of Entertainment Media is a refereed, peer-reviewed, e-journal that explores the diverging and intersecting aspects of current and past entertainment media. The journal is published  by the Cinema Studies Program, School of Culture and Communication,  University of Melbourne.

ISSUE THEME: Meta-Materiality: Games, New Media, The Digital

Launching as it did in 2002, The Refractory arrived on the scene just in time for its titular metaphor to get complicated, with the arrival of ‘metamaterials’ – artificial composites with negative refractive indices. When a wave phenomenon such as light travels between media, it changes speed and bends relative to the normal: refraction. But with just the right metamaterial, the positive refraction can be negated.

The wave finds its stride – the straw in the glass looks straight – total refraction. This special issue of The Refractory aims to assess its central metaphor in relationship to games and new media with a focus on the materiality of their aesthetics, assemblages, ecologies, and networks.

Some directions you may wish to consider are:

- Real-world economics, class and power in games
 - Remediation, Adaptation, Cross-media Style and the Media’s Metamateriality
- Protocol, Code, Algorithms – the materiality of Digital Media
 - Re-representation of one medium by another: e.g. Videogame Emulations, Youtube
- Arcades, public space, social mapping and locative media
- Material genres: e.g. Game engines, middleware, blogs,
 - Mobile movements and the ‘ludicity’ of technology
- Controller crises, free movement, and gestural remediation: e.g. Wii Sports
- Who actually makes games? / A history of Tose studios
- Piracy, free gaming, information control, DRM
- New Media art and artistic intervention

Abstract Deadline: April 10th
 (Articles: 3,000 - 7,000 words, refereed)
 (Small Articles: 1,000 - 3,000 words)
 (Reviews: 300 - 500 words)
 Notification of Successes: April 30th
 Submission Deadline: July 1st
 Publication: Mid-Late August

All Enquires and Submissions:
refractorygames@gmail.com

Check it out: http://www.refractory.unimelb.edu.au/

Ian Bogost, Jane McGonigal and Mia Consalvo are back with their great sampling of the latest game research. Game Studies Download 2.0 is available for download now. It is a great idea that is quite popular at the Game Developers Conference it is presented at and generally everywhere online! Indeed, I think it is such a good idea that I’m keen to work on an Alternate Reality Game Studies Download. I’ll reconfigure the research I put together for the IGDA ARG SIG Whitepaper, add some more findings and whamo! Hmmm…I think a Second Life Studies Download would be a good idea too. Any SL colleagues out there keen? I think you should.

On the 26th-28th March, the X|Media|Lab will hold a special lab in Mumbai on ‘Digital Entertianment’.  

The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry’s (FICCI) FRAMES conference is India’s largest entertainment business event with over 1,500 delegates - it’s the ‘who’s who’ of Indian film, television, animation, interactive, and mobile content. X|Media|Lab is an official partner of the FRAMES event and focuses on the theme of “Digital Entertainment”.

International mentors at the Mumbai Lab include:

- world renowned film-maker Shekhar Kapur (Director of “Elizabeth” starring Cate Blanchett)
- Priya Prakash, the head of the BBC’s interactive media player project (iMP)
- Matt Costello, writer of best-selling computer games “DOOM 3” and “Pirates of the Caribbean 3”
- Mark Ollila, Nokia Multimedia’s worldwide Director of Strategy and Technology
- Marcelino Ford-Livene, general manager of consumer strategy for Intel’s Digital Home Group
- Isaac Kerlow, film-maker and Board member of the Media Development Authority and the National Research Foundation in Singapore
- Madhavan, the CEO of India’s largest animation company
- Hong Kong interactive TV pioneer, Robert Chua
- Dale Herigstad, 4-time Emmy Award winner including the very first Interactive Emmy
- Tom Kennedy, Board Member Australian Film Commission

Accreditation at FRAMES is included for all Lab participants as well as participation in all FRAMES VIP events. Project nominations are still open for X|Media|Lab at FRAMES, the most important event of the India entertainment industry calendar, held in India’s “Maximum City” - Bombay.

Media partners include CNBC Asia, Animation ‘XPress, and India Television.com.

Project teams have already been selected from India, the UK, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia. You can still nominate your project idea and team to participate in the Lab at the website: www [dot] xmedialab [dot] com. Existing FRAMES delegates are particularly welcome to apply as there is no additional fee for Lab participation if you are registered for FRAMES.

Check out: www.xmedialab.com

Got this from Angela’s blog. It is a video about a help desk query during medieval times. How would a help desk deal with inquiries about problems using a book? Very, very funny. Would be good for the PART project.

Go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pyjRj3UMRM

Thankyou Colin for the heads up on this great news. “Artefact”, an alternate reality game developed by Mini Studios, Stephen Sewell and Vudu Mobile, has received Strand V funding from the Australian Film Commission. The project is described as follows:

Famed Australian playwright and feature writer Stephen Sewell (Stephen Sewell) and Mini Vudu have teamed up to develop “Artefact”, a thriller sci fi Alternate Reality Game combining the traditional techniques of film story telling with Game Play and national live events.

Merging producer generated and user generated content, time shift delivery through on demand platforms and Kaos(TM) interactivity, “Artefeact” is the future of Telco based media entertainment.

It sounds like it may be an interesting EDU-type ARG too. Congrats Steve Kearney and Leanne Tonkes. I look forward to finding out more about this project.

Check out: http://ministudios.com.au/

Thankyou Sal for the heads up on this great event. The Human-Computer Interaction Design Department at School of Infomatics, Indiana University, are calling for workshop participants. The workshop ‘Transmedial Interactions and Digital Games’ is held in conjunction with the 4th International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology (http://www.ace2007.org/ ) on June 12th in Salzburg, Austria.

[Workshop Aims & Goals]

As virtual worlds and games grow in importance, present limitations in access to them limits their ability to achieve their potential. In persistent online worlds, peer actions and event changes have cumulative effects that are consequential to individuals, whether or not they are available, just as in real life.  But unlike real life, where we have plenty of tools to help us juggle multiple responsibilities, access into virtual worlds today occurs through a single access point; active participation requires a significant stationary commitment. Even the most dedicated users have difficulty keeping up with the dynamic information. To remain active and included, users need better ways to communicate, cooperate, and coordinate. Transmedial access, in which players access to a game and their characters/data is made possible across different devices, offers a promising solution to this problem. It also inaugurates a new category of interaction design: transmedial interaction.

This workshop explores the state of the art of transmedial interaction in games, which today unfortunately is often at most mere afterthought. It provides a participatory environment in which attendees can chart new paths forward, from developing viable business models and understanding the technical infrastructure to developing critical vocabularies and evaluative frameworks.

The workshop is intended for a broad audience, which will collaboratively achieve the following:

* Review current state-of-the-art examples of transmedia interactions in entertainment computing, especially video games

* Survey the technical infrastructure needed for transmedia interactions in digital games (e.g., feedback, adaptivity, etc.)

* Understand how the strength and weakness of different media channels shape player experiences during transmedia interactions

* Construct design guidelines for transmedial interactions and determine the components needed for successful and seamless transmedial interaction design

* Consider evaluation criteria for transmedial interactions
 
[Submission]

We encourage participation from diverse academic disciplines including design, HCI, computer science,, media and game studies, strategic communications, and psychology, as well as industry experts and practitioners, for a total of 15-20 people. Specifically, this workshop will create a synergy among the following target audiences:

* Online and mobile game designers interested in developing appropriate mechanisms to overcome the difficulty of designing for multiple media channels and cross-media experiences

* Interaction designers and researchers interested in human-human and human-machine interactions across devices, including mobile and ubiquitous computing

* Gaming industry pioneers interested in the exploration of novel ways to extend and integrate different media channels capacities to create cross-device and cross-network experiences for their target customers

* Entertainment computing marketers interested in identifying key challenges and solutions in promoting transmedial experiences

Sounds fabulous: http://hcid.informatics.indiana.edu/ace2007/