BotFighters

BotFighters is a location-based mobile game and a pervasive game [1] developed by It's Alive![2][3] (acquired by Digiment in 2007) designed to be a MMORPG[4] played in an urban environment.[2] It was possibly the world's first commercial location-based game.[2] It was first released in Sweden in 2001, and later in Russia, Finland, Ireland and China.[2][5][6]

In 2002, it was awarded with an Award of Distinction, Net Vision category in the Prix Ars Electronica.[7]

Originally, all game interactions were carried out through SMS, but later updates included implementing the game in Java[2] The mission of the game was to locate and destroy other players. Each player was represented in the game as a robot warrior.[1] Successful battles were rewarded with money which could be traded in, via a website, for armor upgrades and other features for the player's robot. The game was temporally expansive, because there were no safe zones or timeouts; players were always playing. The likeness of the game has been compared to that of Paintball.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 von Borries, Friedrich; Walz, Steffen P.; Böttger, Matthias, eds. (2007), "BotFighters: A Game That Surrounds You", Space Time Play, Basel, Boston, Berlin: Birkhäuser Verlag AG, pp. 226–227, ISBN 978-3-7643-8414-2
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Montola, Markus; Stenros, Jaakko; Waern, Annika (2009). Pervasive Games. Theory and Design. Experiences on the Boundary Between Life and Play. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.
  3. ↑ "It's Alive Mobile Games AB". Archived from the original on 2005-02-07. Retrieved 2013-10-18.
  4. ↑ Oppermann, Leif (April 2009), Facilitating the development of location-based experiences, University of Nottingham, uk.bl.ethos.508291
  5. ↑ The Inquirer: Botfighters - a new Russian addiction
  6. ↑ Laois Nationalist: Mobile could be playing an expensive game
  7. ↑ Ars Electronica Archive

External links

See also


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