Sessions at SXSW Interactive 2011 about Games on Sunday 13th March

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80% of the world population has access to mobile vs. only 23% with access to the Internet! Social interaction has revolutionized (online) digital media as it has opened new demographics and provides for a more compelling and relevant experience for users in addition to opening new tangents for search, recommendations, etc.

The transformative power of social context was especially pronounced in gaming (cf. Zynga ["Farmville"] et al. who have grown into large businesses very quickly).

The mobile landscape is significantly more complex than the Internet (dozens of platforms, hundreds of distribution channels, hundreds of jurisdictions), and the medium has indeed very different underlying dynamics (screen size and general form factor, input methods, mobility, use cases, etc). It is therefore vital to gain deep understanding about the underlying dynamics of both the medium as well as the users' approach in using that medium.

It is essential to avoid a "Galapagos effect" where certain models only work on limited platforms (e.g. iPhone) or in specific territories (e.g. Japan). Only a fraction of the world's 5bn (!) mobile subscriptions are on iPhones or are in Japan, and one needs to look to tackle the fragmentation dilemma in order to unlock the enormous potential the largest medium in the world has to offer.

This session will show the rationales that need to be applied to understand the medium and will outline paths to successfully address it.

LEVEL: Intermediate

Back in 2003, photographer Robbie Cooper photographed dozens of portraits of online gameplayers alongside their avatars for a book called ALTER EGO. The book is an incredible illustration of the ways that digital platforms have transformed fixed physical characteristics into a virtual wardrobe that can be donned or dismissed with a few clicks of a button.

This phenomenon might be trivial if online identity were all "just a game"—but the truth is, the line between online and offline identity has increasingly blurred. Writing about a study he conducted exploring gender identity among MMO participants, researcher Lukas Blinka wrote in the journal Cyberpsychology in 2008 that “the data...shows that younger players tend to identify with — i.e. not to distinguish from — their avatars, and the younger the respondents were, the stronger the phenomenon."

What are the implications for traditional aspects of identity in a context where they can be so freely and fluidly altered? What does the ability to hide or disguise identity mean in particular for the experience of race — and racism — online? This panel will debate whether digital platforms can enhance racial engagement and understanding, or simply encourage conscienceless and consequence-free acts of hatred and abuse — and explore how online identity is forcing us to confront new ways of thinking about race, ethnicity and gender.

LEVEL: Intermediate

This case study presentation will examine Ubisoft’s concept of “companion gaming,” which entails being able to play a game on one platform and have it relate to another game on a different platform, all within the same brand. Effectiveness of existing projects will be examined, including statistics on performance and adoption. Lessons learned and some suggested best practices will round out the session.

LEVEL: Intermediate

The pictures are better on radio, they say, and the same is also true in interactive experiences: games, for example, are possible using sound that are more realistic and immersive than the most complex 3D polygon-fests. But we're not talking soundtrack: we're talking fundamental questions of user interface, augmented reality and game design in audio. We're focusing on the development of Papa Sangre, a game in sound without graphics, and the world's first real-time generative audio-only virtual world. On an iPhone.

Papa Sangre was commissioned by 4IP as a game in which blind people might be able to kick the ass of sighted people. Its development has been an adventure, pushing the capacity of the iPhone to the limit. It’s been an extraordinary challenge to imagine the design of a game and world where your existence is entirely through sound and where technological constraints become a mother of invention. You walk with your thumbs through a binaural sound environment, where you hear both the monster snoring to your left and the crunch of chicken bones and squeaky toys underfoot that may wake it up and bring death upon you. It’s a fundamentally different experience of gameplay, continually present-tense, totally immersive and therefore visceral – it feels like it’s you out there. The panel will discuss the process, the constraints, the vision and the philosophy behind a radical new genre of game and what this generally reveals for good game and experience design.

LEVEL: Advanced