okay so last week we talked about
alternate reality games games that claim
to be part of our real world this week
we're going to talk about the other Arg
s augmented reality games so what is
augmented reality well it's really just
any digital augmentation of the physical
world occurring in real time so for
example you know when you're watching
hockey on TV and sometimes they
digitally highlight the puck so you can
see it better during a live broadcast
that's an example of reality augmented
and hockey fans may argue about whether
it's the best use of augmentation but it
serves as a good example of it it's a
digital overlay on the real world
occurring in real time another good
example would be terminator vision but
yeah that probably wasn't the best use
of the technology either
okay so how is this used in games well
we could cite as an early in primitive
example the old eye of judgment card
game where the PlayStation 3 would use
the I toy to read paper playing cards on
a mat and to display the characters or
spells they represented as fully
animated 3d models on screen but the
real rise in what's been called
augmented reality games has come with a
dramatic increase in gps-enabled
smartphone use many of the augmented
reality games you see today are simply
an overlay for Google Maps that lets you
play a basic kingdom building game or a
collection game on a map made from your
real streets the problem with this is
that creating a map from your real
streets generally doesn't add anything
to these games in fact in general it
tends to be like having a terrible
random map generator whose parameters
aren't built at all around the rules of
the game the other type of augmented
reality games that you often see today
are games that take advantage of the
built-in cameras that are common to many
smartphones these games let you play a
standard game on a background that is
well whatever your camera happens to be
seeing if any of you remember Star Wars
arcade Falcon gunner that was a fairly
good example of these type of
experiences the problem is that these
games don't tend to use real-world
locations or interactions in any
interesting way in general once the
novelty of the fact that you're doing
quests with street names you know or
fighting off TIE fighters attacking your
front porch has worn off you're left
with a game that would simply be better
if it wasn't trying to incorporate
reality now using the real world in an
engaging way is no easy task the first
thing most people leap to is to create
an incredible adventure in their city
and these could be amazing imagine
having to fight off aliens as you write
up the Space Needle or training your
skills at the Sydney Opera hole or if
you're willing to be just a little
sacrilegious imagine how amazing it
would be to battle your way up the
Corcovado mountain only to emerge at the
end and have the final encounter happen
at the crease tone it'd be a great way
to see the world get outdoors or just
get more familiar with your town but the
problem is it doesn't scale it's
prohibitively expensive to do something
like this because you'd have to create
custom content for everywhere you
launched even in the largest cities that
just isn't really viable but there are
other ways to incorporate the real world
that don't have you building a unique
adventure for every park or monument
although man that would be cool if
somebody found the funds to do it
someday there's a lot of real-world data
we can draw on that's more ubiquitous
for example Google Maps has plenty of
tags already in it imagine a quest to
retrieve an ancient tome that required
you to go to the library or what about
monsters that only spawn in parks that
sort of thing is completely achievable
and makes the real world a more exciting
place but there's thousands more things
we can do you want to use the camera how
about using it as a UPC scanner what if
you had a quest to go scan a copy of
love with SIA to increase your chemical
lore or the idols of the King to unlock
Arthurian adventures the heck you could
even be able to scan band-aids or health
foods once a day to gain health and
that's just the tip of the iceberg
all this stuff can feel pretty clunky
and unnatural when you're constantly
having to pull out your phone to do it
it has the strange immersion braking
effect of making you very conscious of
doing a game activity sometimes you're
in the game sometimes you're not in the
game but that may all change soon with
affordable wearable technology we'll see
how the Google glasses turn out but with
a continuous overlay to the real world
one that you have on all the time it
radically changes the experience and
merges your real world with your game
world imagine if you're walking along
and an alert popped up that there was a
quest or a rare monster in your vicinity
then imagine if you could follow your
Google Maps arrow displayed on your
headset as it directs you where you're
supposed to go imagine if you were in a
bookstore and it told you that a tome of
power was laying around nearby and then
gave you the name of the book to search
out eventually you might even go one
step further and project monsters or
even whole alternate worlds onto your
visual field but in my opinion that's
not something you want to do most of the
time because that's too distracting it
takes us too much out of the real world
it might work okay for some games but in
my opinion augmentation is better used
when it simply becomes a constant
companion to existence allowing us ways
to enhance our real experiences and
quietly becoming a part of them and as
many of you may have noticed at this
point this technology can be used for
unimaginable good there's a reason why
examples have involved libraries and
healthy food it's because when you
integrate play into life you can use
play as a portal to expose us to all
sorts of wonderful things and when you
combine this with the collaborative
problem solving that alternate reality
games engender because these two types
of games will become one when wearable
technology becomes ubiquitous there's no
limit to what you might achieve but
as usual there's a serious danger that
comes with that to the line between
exposure and subtle indoctrination is a
fine one and even for things I think to
be good I wouldn't ever want to fool
someone into doing them after all
Volition's perhaps our most ennobling
aspect I mean a good act without
volition is merely happy coincidence a
tool this powerful is rife with
potential for abuse I've heard a lot of
talk about the declining efficacy of
traditional advertising and the most
dystopian part of me sees a future where
rather than product placement we do
people placement as a yet more insidious
form of marketing think about it this
way imagine if you were playing a spy a
game and you had a quest where you had
to ask for documents from a barista at
Starbucks because they were undercover
and were secretly your contact a lot of
us would probably buy a coffee while
we're there or what about an RPG where
certain monsters only spawn in the
middle of Walmart this might not even
seem like advertising to the standard
player and yet I guarantee you the
effect of actually getting bodies into a
store is something advertisers now can
only dream of there's a ton of awesome
potential for this stuff and it's up to
us to make sure this form evolves to
match that potential rather than turning
into a torpid pit of invisible marketing
ploys be conscious and cognizant try to
be aware when your real world self is
being manipulated by your game self
rather than the other way around and
don't play on those terms because if we
can do that if we can keep augmented
reality from veering that direction we
have a tool of inestimable power games
can get us to work together they can get
us to work harder they can expose us to
new material and encourage us to learn
they can help us get over our fear of
new things and bring us to stunning
realizations about ourselves when you
bring that to the real world and make
that a part of our everyday lives
there's no limit to the good it can do
or the joy it can bring but you know
with great power and all that see you
next week