Ubiquitous Pleasure: A Study of Location-Aware Gaming

In this paper, we argue that computers are moving towards more ubiquitous integration with more traditional human activities, such as games. As a result, we argue that there will be an emergence of “location-aware” computer games, which merge the virtual reality of computer games with the physical location of the players. We ask the question of whether such games can be considered more pleasurable to players, and what aspects if any make this possible. We then run several user studies to answer this question, comparing a “location-aware” game to a similar computer game and physical-based game. The results gathered from these studies suggest that “location-aware” games can be more pleasurable than traditional games, and that the key aspects which make these games pleasurable are that of player-player interaction and the actual user interface utilized by the game.