Here are my personal notes from the panel:

Julian Bleecker: USC Interactive Media Division and The Near Future Laboratory
Aaron Meyers USC Interactive Media
Kevin Slavin Mnging Dir, Area/Code
Dennis Crowley Prod Mgr, Dodgeball/Google

Aaron Meyers: Mobzombies: You run in the real world to avoid zombies. The machine has an accelerometer. You drop time sensitive bombs to blow up the zombies. Working on a mobile version that could work on a phone. Right now it works on the Sony Viao UMPC. Hoping to release the kit as open source so people can use it to create games.

Kevin Slavin: Area/Code There is a very human instinct to lie radically about where we are and the places where we go. Places need stories to make them seem real. Most places are real and most stories are not. Some places aren’t real either. As we spend more time in the virtual places, it’s crazy to think that stories of the virtual places won’t leak out.

Geocaching: Conquest, Superstar game in Tokyo,

There’s always something on the left made out of stuff and there is always stuff on the right that is made out of ether.

Games with computers in them not the other way around. Use the computer to change the condition in the real world.

Games were always social until recently. Now they are starting to move back.

Conqwest: They Live He finds sunglasses that allows him to see the world as it is.

The idea of having a lens on the world. Semicode optical bar code. The lens of your camera can decipher that. We can create public secrets.

There was some sort of emotional connection.

There are problems with big cities because of the urban canyons.

plunder.

Urban Golf in Chicago.

The idea of outdoor media that DOESN’T interact with your phone is going to be weird.

Webkins: Stuffed animals that have unique codes that unlock the world online.

Live TV is a place where a lot of people hanging out at once. Sopranos A&E connection. The browser is reacting to television. The way that people organize their photos affects the game.

Games re-enchant something that is familiar.

GDC 2007: Ambient blue tooth data. Tooth fairy. How do we bring ambient data to life?

We have always used stories to navigate.

Julian Bleecker: That was great Kevin. It was really inspirational. It was so inspirational that we don’t need Dennis.

Dodgeball location based service and it puts it on a map. You get information about your friends and it encourages rendevous behavior.

He worked with Kevin on ConQwest and PacManhattan.

We try to take the experience of checkins and turn it into a game.

By introducing the competitive elements, it increased checkins.

I have a weird competitive thing in me.

NHL ’94 remembered the stats and it started a competitive streak in him.

Pedometer Wars!

How can you make real life like a video game. Pedometer wars encouraged interaction.

Nike+ is another way to give you an extra step of motivation.

You can map your runs with the Nike+.

GPS and Snowboarding. GPS information. Like RC Pro-AM. Waiting for better GPS mobile phones to make the game perfect.

Taking traditional 8-bit metaphors and putting them on the real world.

Once someone comes out with a device that is like the Nike+, Garmin and the cell phone, I will be able to create this game for my friends.

Kevin Slavin: Are A&E happy for the ROI? YES. The game gave the world a new reason to watch the Sopranos.

There are two things that are typical in ARG that are different than this. ARGs focus on puzzle solving. We aren’t thinking about puzzle solving. We are setting up formal systems where people can interact with others.

How do let people it’s okay to play?

Kevin Slavin: Event based and pervasive (going on all the time). How do discover that there is Tetris on your phone? Have games that produce physical media that are as the cue.

Dennis Crowley: It’s hard because you have to have a specific device.

Aaron Meyers: We just wanted to make people look silly. I’m not sure where we are going to go with that.

Kevin Slavin: When we did plundr, we realized that the likelihood of people being close was low. so they had to change the game. It’s more like a play by mail chess game.

What is the world going to look like in five years?

Dennis Crowley: I always think of NYC as a whole bunch of magic squares where you can step on them and something will happen. You will have more people interacting with this. All the work I’ve been doing will be based on location.

Kevin Slavin: The cellphone is ALREADY location aware. We just can’t access this data. We can’t touch most of those things yet. I would love to see those business problems solved.

Dennis Crowley: Dodgeball was the most important part was getting all the dots on a map. Once they were on the map, we were able to do a bunch of stuff with them.

Kevin Slavin: The goal is not to mislead other people. The goal is to rethink your position. These tools could be used for all different sorts of evil

Dennis Crowley: The handset manufacturers are integrating GPS into the handsets, but it’s not the best. We prefer wireless positioning instead.

Aaron Meyers: Mobzombies has problems with multi-player, so right now it’s just a single player game right now.

Dennis Crowley: For a single player with the powerup stuff is great with the Nike+ will shave seconds off your time. It gives me a reason to go out and run.