Below is a polemic missive, if not the beginnings of a manifesto, from
"Uncle Karlis" against location-based games (like Battlebots
<www.battlebots.com/> and Mogi <www.mogimogi.com>) and in favour of
using the technologies on offer towards more holistic ends --I felt I
had to forward this to this list(s)
Begin forwarded message:
> karlis <[log in to unmask]>
> Locative Gaming: Dawn of the Zombie Cyborgs
>
> I am opposed to furthering locative based gaming (LBG) initiatives
> applying a simple gaming rule-based fantasy upon the fractal, chaotic
> and always relevant possibilities of the real world. Do we wish to
> finally sterilize our lives into a hollywood-esqe perfect movie? The
> reason games required simple rule-based abstractions was their
> necessary simplicity due to the nature of the gaming mediums. But
> now, hopefully, with our fanciful mobile technologies, our lives can
> become the real medium for play. This, if anything, is what I want to
> encourage - not docile automatons engaged in even more somnambulant
> fantasy play during their waking hours, but a re-engaging of our lives
> and our environment with the tools that prior had only been available
> in fantasy games, military environments or university libraries. You
> become your own avatar in a historical fantasy based on the present
> and as vast and complex as the world itself. It is possible that a
> schema for a re-engaging game will be developed, but this game will
> not be about shooting virtual robots or chasing imaginary VR
> bio-zombies. Rather, it requires that the imagination on a personal
> level reconceptualize our lives as the game, fun for the duration of
> play as well as with concrete and meaningfully rewarding "levels" to
> surpass that are more than symbollic victories; that they should
> actually change our lives and our world for the better, physically or
> spiritually.
>
> cheers
> karlis
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