Transcoding Place Through Digital Media

Over the last ten years, alternate reality games (ARG) have rapidly transformed in response to the adoption of mobile and social technologies. Google’s recent launch of Ingress (2013) and explorations with wearable technologies are all signs that the future of play may be shaped by the very social networks people have helped to create. In tandem with the rise of these technologies is an ever-increasing community of people with 21st century media literacy skills for deconstructing and reconstructing narratives that have the potential to equally influence the flow of mainstream media (Bonsignore et al., 2012). This new form of content creation leverages the mass adoption of mobility for real-time access to information, resources, and tools that has never before been available to technologists, designers and artists who produce these ARGs. Some scholars suggest these new forms, mark a shift in the craft of interaction design with less end-result oriented experiences; and instead, support intrinsic qualities (Isbister, Flanagan & Hash, 2010) such as, the feeling of working collaboratively and the ability to solve complex problems (McGonigal 2012).

The proposed PhD thesis Transcoding Place Through Digital Media, is a multiple case study examining three alternate reality games designed to collaboratively engage people in solving problems associated to climate change. I seek to understand how patterns in open-narrative design can support Designers in the games they make. At this stage of the research, patterns will be generally defined as the analysis of trajectories through geographic and virtual places, game mechanics and fan contributions.

This study is a continuation of my master’s thesis Transcoding Place (2010), and other research projects under the Community Creation of Digital Media for Pervasive Games (2011-2013) funded by SSHRC with principle investigators Dr. Carman Neustaedter and Dr. Ron Wakkary, Simon Fraser University.