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Ambient Play: Understanding Mobile Games in Everyday Life

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Part of the book series: Advances in Information and Communication Research ((AICRES,volume 3))

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Abstract

In this chapter, we seek to conceptualize the shifts in mobile gaming through two key rubrics – ambient play and digital wayfaring—to coalesce the multiple forms of domestic, casual and urban play that constitute mobile gaming. This chapter begins with a contextualization through a short history followed by a discussion of pervasive games as vehicles for transforming urban environments into playspaces. We finish with a brief discussion of the Pokémon Go phenomenon as exemplary of both the possibilities and limits of contemporary mobile gaming. The chapter brings together three areas often disconnected—pervasive urban games, casual mobile games and domestic gameplay on mobile devices—to think about how mobile play has become ubiquitous and diversified.

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Acknowledgements

This chapter draws from our previous publication “Pokémon GO: Mobile media play, place-making, and the digital wayfarer”. Mobile Media & Communication, 5 (1): 4–14.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Media and Communication, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, Melbourne, Australia

    Larissa Hjorth & Ingrid Richardson

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  1. Larissa Hjorth
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  2. Ingrid Richardson
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Correspondence to Larissa Hjorth .

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  1. Faculty of Sociology, Kansai University, Suita, Osaka, Japan

    Hidenori Tomita

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Hjorth, L., Richardson, I. (2021). Ambient Play: Understanding Mobile Games in Everyday Life. In: Tomita, H. (eds) The Second Offline. Advances in Information and Communication Research, vol 3. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2425-4_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2425-4_8

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