IPerG Review

Beware the silly Flash. These guys have a smooth front-end that implicitly promises much more than they currently have inside -- I expect that it's mostly just a framework that will be filled in further as they get more clear about their content, and more content. This actually ties in to our discussion yesterday, of "what's the best way to go about this?" -- do we make a building and fill it, or do we build and add on as we go? Both routes have costs and benefits. One of their good ideas (I think) is the way they break up the content into Work Packages, although WP09 doesn't do a good job of describing its contents; you actually have to open them to see what they are (like birhday presents). Since we're not dealing with a large group, and most of our categories aren't yet finalized, let's name them as we go (Definitions, Theories, Methodologies, Examples, etc.)

http://www.pervasive-gaming.org Summary by John Martin

An attractively-designed Flash site that explains what Pervasive Gaming is, and offers iPerG's (i=? PerG=Pervasive Gaming) vision and mission (to develop infrastructure, tools and methods for pervasive games, in order to: Enable rapid and cost-effective creation and staging of pervasive games; Create good designs; Understand the intended audience; and Understand the societal impact of games).

IPerG sections their content in the form of WorkPackages: The project is structured as a set of core work research work packages and a second set of satellite work packages. A short presentation and a graphical overview can be found in the official slide presentation. The core research work packages are:

• WP 01 - Management
• WP 04 - Business and Organisation
• WP 05 - Design and Evaluation
• WP 06 - Infrastructure
• WP 07 - Tools

In addition to the core work packages, the IPerG project contains a set of showcase work packages in which specific game genres are explored. The showcases are:

• WP 08 - Crossmedia
• WP 09 - Socially Adaptably Games
• WP 10 - MMRO
• WP 11 - LARP
• WP 12 - City as Theatre

WPs 08-12 have info available on them on the main page (when clicking, open in another window or the site will reload whenever you want to go "back"). These are the most interesting parts of the site, where they engaged my imagination -- but their interface for the web seems to not pay attention (I hope) to any sort of good design interface.
I checked out their "Deliverables", and read some of the more interesting-sounding ones (bolded below) and will post my comments on them individually.

• "Guidelines for Socially Adaptable Games", Staffan Björk, Daniel Eriksson, Jussi Holopainen, and Johan Peitz, December 2004. [359KB, DOC]
• "Technical Requirements for Enhanced Reality Live Role Playing", Pär Hansson, Karl-Petter Åkesson, Markus Montola, Staffan Jonsson, and Martin Ericsson, December 2004. [165KB, DOC]
• "Literature Review, Design and Evaluation Methods for Pervasive Games", February 2005. [1099KB, DOC]
• "Design guidelines for crossmedia game production", February 2005. [285KB, PDF]
• "Business and Revenue Models", February 2005 [405KB, DOC]

The IPerG Flyer (http://www.pervasive-gaming.org/documents/IPerG_flyer.pdf) was not found, although the HTML version of it was (http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:chYQgWVUS1gJ:www.pervasive-gaming.org/documents/IPerG_flyer.pdf+%22IPerG_flyer.pdf%22&hl=en&client=safari)
Ditto with the IPerg Presentation (http://www.pervasive-gaming.org/documents/IPerG_presentation.pdf) HTML version here: (http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:b7UsHf10LjYJ:www.pervasive-gaming.org/documents/IPerG_presentation.pdf+IPerG_presentation.pdf&hl=en&client=safari)