Bridging The Gap Between Mobile And PC Gaming

from the next-generation-gaming dept

Justin Hall has written up a piece about Mogi, a "second generation" location based game that maps a virtual world on top of real-world Tokyo where the object is to hunt down specific items in the game, which you get by getting to the area where the item is located. Where the game gets much more interesting, though, is that it crosses over the boundary between a computer game and a mobile phone game. Players can also play at home from their PCs, where they have access to more information, and can act as guides for players out "in the field" playing on their phone. As Justin points out, this lets hardcore gamers easily interact with more casual gamers. It's sort of like geo-caching with communications. While the game still seems to have some limitations, it does suggest some of the possibilities that open up once you realize that location-based or mobile gaming isn't just limited to mobile phones. By offering different types of access based on device (and commitment) it creates a much more flexible gaming environment. The article quotes someone saying they don't think it would work in the US, but I'm sure that some company will figure out how to adapt some of these ideas to a US-style audience who are more used to driving around from place to place. It's not hard to picture somehow adding something like this to make a daily commute a little more interesting.