A FRAMEWORK FOR TRAVEL ENTERTAINMENT IN MOBILE LOCATION-BASED GAMING ENVIRONMENT JIANMIN WANG†, ZIBIN ZHENG, QINGTANG GUO, HUI YUAN Institute of Computer Application, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275，China
Abstract Travel entertainment has been advanced greatly by the new achievement of positioning technologies and wireless networks. The evolution of the GPS technologies enables the popularity of car navigation systems. Also, the development of location-based games and in-game advertising provide the drivers more entertainment. Integrating the navigation system and in-game advertising to be a new type of location-based game can offer brand-new entertainment to the car drivers who spend a lot of their time in the car. First, this paper introduces the related works. Then, proposes a framework for travel entertainment, which will not only help the drivers to relax themselves, but also provide a valuable platform for advertising. Finally, the availability and feasibility of the framework are illustrated by using an example which is realized based on the framework. Keywords: Travel Entertainment; Location-based Game; In-game advertising; Navigation System;
1. Introduction The evolvement of the positioning technology has made a great contribution to the popularity of the mobile handset navigation system. Many people in the cities spend a lot of their time in their cars, and they need some entertainment to relax themselves. This paper proposes a brand-new travel entertainment framework which integrates the mobile handset navigation system and in-game advertising to offer the drivers more entertainment. A report from Analysis Research [1] shows that the revenue of mobile location service will increase from 2 billion in 2002 to 18.5 billion in 2006. Almost all of the advertising agencies are seeking opportunities to advertise their products and most of them treat the location-based gaming environment as a new medium for advertisement. A survey about in-game advertising [2] shows that in-game advertising has good effect if it can interact with the players in the game. The in-game advertising achieves greater brand recognition and effectively increases the sale of the products. The framework developed in this paper will not only enhance the entertainment experiences of the players, but also help the advertising agencies get superior responds from the customer. It will provide the drivers more entertainment as well as more information than the custom navigation system. Furthermore, it provides the advertising agencies a low-cost advertising platform. Compared with the practical way of advertising a product via TV or newspaper, advertising via the current framework is more economical and flexible. This paper first discusses the related works of travel entertainment in mobile location-based gaming environment, then proposes a framework and discusses the operation sequence and the entertainment which is provided by the framework. At last, an example based on this framework is realized to illustrate availability and feasibility of the framework.
†
Corresponding author. Email address:
[email protected] (Jianmin Wang)
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2. Related Works 2.1. Mobile Handset Navigation System The emergence of the navigation system has made our lives more convenient than ever before. The navigation system can automatically calculate a path to the destination from the current location and guides the driver to the destination by voice. Corporation KDDI [3] started the world's first nationwide GPS solutions on mobile phones in Japan and brought a great advancement in this field. CHINA UNICOM [4] launched a voice navigation service for mobile handsets in the main cities of China and led to the rapid establishment of the mobile handset navigation service in China. Compared with the embedded navigation equipment, the Mobile handset navigation devices are much cheaper and more powerful, Table I described the difference between these two kinds of navigation devices. Table 1 Difference between the Embedded and Handset Navigation Devices Embedded Navigation
Handset Navigation Devices
Devices PRICE
About 15000-2000yuan
Handset:3000-5000yuan service:5-50yuan/month
SENSITIVE
VOICE
Using GPS technology to
Using
identify and influence by
identification and the GPS
both
the
cell
the satellite signal
technology
Some equipment support
Almost all devices support
voice navigation
voice navigation
2.2. Location-based Game Location-based game, a new kind of entertainment using location-based technology, utilizes the location of the mobile device as a feature to enhance the amusement of mobile games. In these games, players use GPS-enable mobile handsets to locate themselves and get the related information from the server. When playing the game, players have to travel in the real world and they enjoy themselves by communicating, competing, and collaborating with other people in the game. Moreover, the attraction of the game is greatly enhanced since the players may meet each other in the real life. This kind of games provides more pleasure to the players than the traditional mobile games. There are many location-based games in the world, such as “Real Tournament” [5], “Backseat Gaming” [6], “Human pacman” [7] and so on. These games are trendy in the countries where the GPS-enable mobile handsets are popular. Also, there are many researches about location-based game, such as Ref. [8] gives a detailed introduction about the location-based game, Ref. [9] designs a framework for interactive marketing, Ref. [10] discusses a mobile location-based multimedia game. Most of these games are designed for players who is walking while playing the game, such as in the game “Human Pacman” [7], players are equipped with GPS devices and inertia sensors (to track players’ perspective). They walk to seek the virtual cookie. However, few location-based games are designed for the people who are driving their cars. The framework proposed in this paper describes a new kind of location-based game which can be played in the cars. 2.3. In-game Advertising The rapid growth of mobile handset users and the prevalence of mobile games have provided great commercial opportunities for advertising agencies [11] and open a new way for the agencies to reach the consumers. The combination of advertisement and location-based mobile game will increase the
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commercial opportunities as well as increasing the amusement of the games. The study by Activism and Nislsen Entertainment [12] shows that effectively integrated in-game advertising will inspire the interest of the consumers to purchase the products. Integrating advertising into mobile location-based games will form a brand-new location-based entertainment and will be propitious to both consumers and merchants. In the following, a framework, which serves as a platform for advertising as well as a gaming environment for the drivers, is discussed. 3. Framework for Travel Entertainment 3.1. Operate Sequence of the Framework Figure 1 provides a framework for travel entertainment in mobile location-aware environment. This framework, which enriches the functions of the mobile handset navigation system, is a client-server system. Client-side is GPS-enable mobile handset, and the server-side, which stores the advertising information and processes the message from the clients, is the game server,
Fig. 1 Framework for Travel Entertainment
In this framework, drivers play the game by collecting different e-coins which embedded with economic incentive. For example: a driver checks his GPS-enable mobile handset screen, from the map he picks up virtual e-coins which are nearby. These virtual e-coins may be a restaurant e-cash or a discount movie ticket which can be used in the appointed stores. By saving these e-coins, the experience points of the players are increased and these points can be used as e-cash in certain stores. The detailed operation sequences of the framework are as follows: 1．After the stores register an account on the server via Internet and pay some advertising fees, they can login the server to add, remove or modify the advertising information. For instance, by fill in the product information, discount information and location information in the server, a T-shirt store can adds the some advertising for its products. When a driver is nearby, the server will send the advertising message to his mobile handset, then, the advertising displays itself as an e-coin on the map of the driver’s navigation system screen. If the driver is interested in this advertising, he can use the location information in the e-coin and start the navigation system to get to the store. Then he can buy the products with the discount provided by the advertising. There are several attributes contained in the e-coins. “Product Information” is used to introduce the information about the products such as tickets, clothing, hotel, etc. “Discount Information” is used to attract the consumers’ attention, and “Store Location Information” is used to keep the location information of the store. 2 With the help of GPS satellites, the mobile handset calculates and stores his current location information.
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3 The GPS-enable mobile handset sends the current location information of the driver to the server via wireless network. According to the different location information of the clients, the server sends the corresponding advertising back to the clients. 4. The client-side receives the message from the server, then, the advertising is shown as an e-coin on the screen of users’ handsets. The framework contains different kinds of virtual e-coins to meet the different requirements of the users. By picking up the e-coins, the users can learn the information of the advertising and then decide whether to save the e-coin or not. 5. When the drivers are waiting for red light or stuck in traffic jam, they can pick up e-coins from the map in GPS-enable mobile handset screen, and read the information. Moreover, they can use the voice navigation system to read the information for them. When a driver saves an e-coin, his experience points are increased. When his experience points achieve a certain amount, he can win some gifts or use them as e-cash in the appointed store. In this way, drivers can not only enjoy themselves in the location-based game but also get some benefits in the real life. Also, if a driver is interested in the product, he can use the navigation system, which can get the location information of the store from the e-coin, to guide him to the store. 6. In the store, the driver can show the e-coin from their mobile handset screen to the shop assistant. After the shop assistant validates the e-coin, the driver can buy the product with some discount which is promised in the e-coin. 3.2. Entertainment Based on the Framework Based on the framework, some characteristic of online can be added to the game to enhance the pleasure. In the game, some special e-coins with attractive discount are provided in certain time to trigger competition between players. The players have to compete with others to get the special e-coin. Also, when the experience point reaches a certain limit, the players upgrade themselves. Some useful functions are provided by the framework, such as the players can turn on the voice navigation system to read the e-coin information for them when they are driving, so they can concentrate on driving instead of looking at the screen. Furthermore, some competitions such as cross-country game can be organized based on the framework. In this game, the players use the GPS-enable mobile handset to receive the map form the server. On the map, there are some checkpoints indicating the places where the player can find the e-coins. By driving their car and using the location information, the players use the navigation system to guide them to reach different positions and get the appointed e-coins. All players try their best to get all the e-coins in the shortest time. The one who first collects all e-coins and returns to the starting point is the winner. For example, a map for a cross-country game is shown in Fig. 2.
Fig.2 Map for Cross-country Game
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There are 6 e-coins on the map. From the starting point, the players drive their cars and organize their own route to collect the 6 e-coins which are shown in the map. The first one who collects all the e-coins and return to the starting point will be the winner. In this competition, the location identify technology brings a unique entertainment to the players. 4. Example Based on the framework proposed above, an example is realized to illustrate the availability and feasibility of the framework. Fig. 3 shows the main interface of this example. In the first picture, the square is the current location of the player; and the rounds are the e-coins. There are three e-coins in the figure. The second picture shows the detail information of an e-coin. If a player clicks the button-“More Information”, more relevant information will be shown on the screen. The “Menu” button contains several sub-buttons, such as “Save”, “Show the way”, “Read”. The functions of these buttons are shown in the following: “Save”: saving the e-coin to the virtual equip box. “Show the way”: utilizing the navigation system to guide the player to the store. “Read”: using the voice module to read the information of the e-coins.
Fig.3 Interface of the Example
5. Conclusion The current study presents a framework for travel entertainment in mobile location-based gaming environment. Both the drivers and advertising agencies will benefit from the framework. The drivers can get some pleasure from the game during a traffic jam, while advertising agencies have a new way to get to the consumer. Example presented in this study demonstrates the availability and feasibility of this framework. This framework still needs some improvement to be more feasible and more powerful. The communication and trade aspects between players need to be refined and explored in richer ways. The number of cars and GPS-enable mobile handsets are increasing rapidly in the world. We believe that this framework will be a great way to reach new amusement and new advertising opportunities. Acknowledgement This work is partially sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 60403039 and the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province of China under Grant No. 031538. References [1]
Zhao Xia, “Mobile Location Server: The next SMS?” Communications Weekly, pp. 5, November 2005.
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Michelle R. Nelson, In Curt Haugtvedt, Karen Machleit, Richard Yalch (Eds.), “Exploring Consumer Response to Advergaming,” Online Consumer Psychology: Understanding and Influencing Behavior in the Virtual World, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 167-194, 2005. [3] Press Release QUALCOMM Incorporated, “QUALCOMM CDMA Technologies' gpsOne Technology Supports World's First Nationwide Launch of GPS Solutions on Wireless Phones by KDDI in Japan,” January 2006, http://www.qualcomm.com/press/releases/2001/press2.html(Last viewed on 2006-01-22) [4] “China Unicom launches cell phone voice navigation service,” January 2006, http://bjtoday.ynet.com/article.jsp?oid=7350783 (Last viewed on 2006-01-22) [5] Mitchel, K., McCaffery, D., Metaxas, G., Finney, J., Schmid, S., Scott, A., “Six in the city: introducing Real Tournament - a mobile IPv6 based context-aware multiplayer game,” Proceedings of the 2nd workshop on Network and System Support for Games, ACM Press, Redwood City, California, USA, pp.91-100, 2003 [6] Liselott Brunnberg, “Backseat gaming: exploration of mobile properties for fun,” Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI '02 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, 2002. [7] A. D. Cheok, S. W. Fong, K. H. Goh, X. Yang, W. Liu, and F. Farzbiz, “Human Pacman: a sensing-based mobile entertainment system with ubiquitous computing and tangible interaction,” Proceedings of the 2nd workshop on Network and System Support for Games. ACM Press, pp. 106-117, 2003. [8] Wouter Wiegmans, “Location-based gaming: Be aware, everywhere!” Enschede: University of Twente, The Netherlands, January 2005. [9] Sang-Yeal Han, Moon-Kyo Cho and Mun-Kee Choi, “Ubitem:A Framework for Interactive Marketing in Location-Based Gaming Environment,” IEEE Proceedings of the International Conference on Mobile Bussiness, June 2005. [10] Palle Klante, Jens Krosche, Daniela Ratt and Susanne Boll. “First-year Students’ Paper Chase-a Mobile Location-Aware Multimedia Game,” Proceedings of the 12th annual ACM international conference on Multimedia, New York,USA, pp.934-935, October 2004. [11] Mohamed Yunos, H., Zeyu Gao, J., Shim, S., Computer,"Wireless advertising's challenges and opportunities", IEEE Computer, Vol. 36, No. 5, IEEE Press, pp. 30-37, May 2003. [12] Activision, Nielsen Entertainment, “Activtion and Nielsen Entertainment announce pioneering test to measure how consumers interact with ads in video games”, Oct. 19, 2004, http://investor.activision.com/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=148646/.(Last viewed on 2006-01-23)
