Review #11: Goncalves

N. Goncalves from Portugal reviews Pervasive Games: Theory and Design in Amazon UK, as follows:

Pervasive games are very new, and by their own pervasive nature, difficult to study in an organized manner. However the authors did a good job covering many topics, from the social implications to the salient features of pervasive games and even marketing of these games. The book stays clear from technologies, which I believe was a good decision. Although I bought the book wanting also to know more about technology used in pervasive games, focusing on the technological aspects would greatly reduce the scope and value of the book. Another good aspect of the book is that it presents several case studies of actual pervasive games.

The only negative aspect I can point to is that the authors focused mainly on elaborate role playing game styles, which are very expensive to organize and are not for the general public.

Overall the book provides a good starting point for those interested in pervasive games and gives some interesting pieces of advice based on the authors experience in organizing, and playing, this type of games.

On the Amazon scale, we get 4/5 stars.

Also, we learned that the Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds will publish an academic review of Pervasive Games.  Very much looking forward to that.

Earlier reviews: Hosken, Chong, Hook, White, Fatland, Gerdes, Holter, Noyons, Pettersson, Harviainen.