The intelligence of environments 165
onto what they encounter in their surroundings, hence having to keep track of
both at once. In practice, this predicament is solved in strikingly variant ways.
On being presented with a challenge as an individual, some players would start
running toward the first GPS point indicated on their screen without hesitation,
with little regard to whom or what they would encounter, and all on their own,
paying no attention to other players nor to much else of what goes on around
them. Others would start crowding together, discussing the challenge and trying
to solve it cooperatively. A third subgroup of players (who, in the present sample,
is coextensive with those participants identifying themselves as players of online
role-playing games) would not pay much attention to the initial challenge, opting
to spoil for a fight instead. Hence, different players would be found to treat the
gaming environment differently – an observation that might change once an etiquette of gameplay is established for that game. Alternatively, and in analogy to
what can be observed in SL, an emerging gaming community might develop into
a variety of subcultures, with expressly different views and goals.
In terms of interaction with the aspects of the environment that are not included
in the game, it has been observed that a specific kind of oblivious immersion is
typical for the use of console games and online computer games played at home.
However, the behavioural implications of this state of mind are at most marginally
visible in public for console games. Mobile games that do not appear to involve
the environment may be played with a more visible form of oblivious immersion,
or alternatively in a more casual, distracted fashion. In either case, the variable of
place exerts its influence in psychological and emotional ways in the first place,
rather than being directly included as an element of the game (see Hjorth 2011;
Hjorth and Richardson 2011).
10
In our empirical case, it was observed that immersion in the game results in
largely ignoring those aspects of the environment which have not directly been
assigned with a role in the game, or partially integrating them in improvised fashion. This somewhat suspended state of relating to the non-game environment is
likely to result in strange encounters of a specific sort. For example a garbage
truck or delivery vehicle entering the space that was used as the playing field,
and hence as some form of territory, were mostly treated as just another obstacle.
The slightly bemused looks of the non-participant delivery and garbage collection
workers on encountering a crowd of young people transfixed to their handsets
and seemingly erratically moving about the place were largely ignored, in some
respects as if the workers’ and the vehicles’ presence were not much else than
static to the information that the players are immersed in tracking and acting upon.
A mobile online game of the sort described here will perhaps be the most
clear-cut case, or even a paradigm, of a transformed informational environment.
In physical terms, and viewed as an external environment, the university campus
remains the university campus, whereas many informationally relevant variables
are artificially added to this environment and are acted upon as if they were natural
affordances. The purpose of the game lies in tracking the domains of the signals
of the relevant variables, which are the geographical coordinates that are part of
the challenges to be completed and the presence and behaviours of other players.
onto what they encounter in their surroundings, hence having to keep track of
both at once. In practice, this predicament is solved in strikingly variant ways.
On being presented with a challenge as an individual, some players would start
running toward the first GPS point indicated on their screen without hesitation,
with little regard to whom or what they would encounter, and all on their own,
paying no attention to other players nor to much else of what goes on around
them. Others would start crowding together, discussing the challenge and trying
to solve it cooperatively. A third subgroup of players (who, in the present sample,
is coextensive with those participants identifying themselves as players of online
role-playing games) would not pay much attention to the initial challenge, opting
to spoil for a fight instead. Hence, different players would be found to treat the
gaming environment differently – an observation that might change once an etiquette of gameplay is established for that game. Alternatively, and in analogy to
what can be observed in SL, an emerging gaming community might develop into
a variety of subcultures, with expressly different views and goals.
In terms of interaction with the aspects of the environment that are not included
in the game, it has been observed that a specific kind of oblivious immersion is
typical for the use of console games and online computer games played at home.
However, the behavioural implications of this state of mind are at most marginally
visible in public for console games. Mobile games that do not appear to involve
the environment may be played with a more visible form of oblivious immersion,
or alternatively in a more casual, distracted fashion. In either case, the variable of
place exerts its influence in psychological and emotional ways in the first place,
rather than being directly included as an element of the game (see Hjorth 2011;
Hjorth and Richardson 2011).
10
In our empirical case, it was observed that immersion in the game results in
largely ignoring those aspects of the environment which have not directly been
assigned with a role in the game, or partially integrating them in improvised fashion. This somewhat suspended state of relating to the non-game environment is
likely to result in strange encounters of a specific sort. For example a garbage
truck or delivery vehicle entering the space that was used as the playing field,
and hence as some form of territory, were mostly treated as just another obstacle.
The slightly bemused looks of the non-participant delivery and garbage collection
workers on encountering a crowd of young people transfixed to their handsets
and seemingly erratically moving about the place were largely ignored, in some
respects as if the workers’ and the vehicles’ presence were not much else than
static to the information that the players are immersed in tracking and acting upon.
A mobile online game of the sort described here will perhaps be the most
clear-cut case, or even a paradigm, of a transformed informational environment.
In physical terms, and viewed as an external environment, the university campus
remains the university campus, whereas many informationally relevant variables
are artificially added to this environment and are acted upon as if they were natural
affordances. The purpose of the game lies in tracking the domains of the signals
of the relevant variables, which are the geographical coordinates that are part of
the challenges to be completed and the presence and behaviours of other players.