OVERVIEW

Over the last few years we have witnessed the smartphone dominating the market, the rapid growth of mobile apps, a surge in mobile augmented reality and location-based apps, and burgeoning mobile communities. While mobile topics continue to provide rich research challenges, people and companies outside academia already use these apps regularly. This is due to the increased availability of affordable devices, applications and technologies that support the creation of mixed reality experiences.

Thus a core theme of our workshop at ICEC 2012 is authoring mixed realities, designing mobile games and creating mobile experiences. We would like to assess how professional designers and developers, as well as academics and end users, are using the technology to connect the digital and the real in a mobile context.


MOTIVATION

Mobile games combine the real and virtual worlds. As outdoor games they continue the tradition of rallies and Geocaching. They use the outside real environment as playground but use computing devices to access a digital world and to enable and organize play activities. Thus they offer unique gaming possibilities.

They enable communication and collaboration between players independent from their positions; they augment the real world by game-specific information and action possibilities; they allow the collection of game process data for analysis and complex feedback; they integrate the game interaction with other web-based services and perform complex game mechanics either on the client- and/or the server-side.

In this workshop we explore the mobile games of tomorrow and their aesthetical, technological and conceptual assumptions. We have already seen the convergence of mobile, social, and map technologies.

We are now witnessing the emergence of mobile game communities, the localization of social networks, a surge of mobile Augmented Reality (AR), social mobile gaming platforms, mobile game creators, and the development of dynamic map technologies. We further notice emerging ecosystems connecting mobile gamers, producers, researchers, and game technologies.


ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Mark Billinghurst, HIT Lab NZ, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
Barbara Grüter, Hochschule Bremen - University of Applied Sciences, Germany
Leif Oppermann, Fraunhofer FIT, St. Augustin, Germany
Holger Mügge, University of Bonn, Germany