Research Article 3D Space-Time Visualization of Player Behaviour in Pervasive Location-Based Games

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1 Hinawi Publishing Copoation Intnational Jounal of Comput Gams Tchnology Volum 28, Aticl ID , 5 pags oi:1.1155/28/ Rsach Aticl 3D Spac-Tim Visualization of Play Bhaviou in Pvasiv Location-Bas Gams Paul Coulton, Will Bamfo, Kith Chvst, an Om Rashi Infolab21, Lancast Univsity, Lancast, LA1 4WA, UK Cosponnc shoul b ass to Paul Coulton, p.coulton@lancast.ac.uk Rciv 21 Januay 28; Accpt 17 Apil 28 Rcommn by Anw Davison Location-bas gams not only off nw xpincs fo th plays, but also psnt nw challngs fo sachs in tms of analyzing play bhaviou. Whilst many thnogaphical stuis hav psnt usful qualitativ insights into this aa, th is th potntial to both impov suppot fo ths stuis an to povi mo ffctiv psntations of th quantitativ ata that can oftn b xtact fom th gam itslf in a mann that nabls gat unstaning. In this pap, w illustat how combin spatial an tmpoal infomation can b psnt using th human gogaphs tchniqu of spac-tim paths to povi 3D visualizations of a play s o plays movmnt. Ou analysis of a paticula location-bas gam shows how a ich unstaning of ovall gam play is obtain an highlights th possibilitis fo using th tchniqu fo a whol ang of locationbas svics to povi a mo complt viw of complxitis of jounys. Futh, w iscuss how ths tchniqus can b utiliz mo gnally by thnogaphs who stuy th bhaviou of mobil actos. Copyight 28 Paul Coulton t al. This is an opn accss aticl istibut un th Cativ Commons Attibution Licns, which pmits unstict us, istibution, an pouction in any mium, povi th oiginal wok is poply cit. 1. INTRODUCTION Location-bas gaming allows uss to play gams that incopoat knowlg of thi physical location an lanscap, an thn povis thm with th ability to intact with both al an vitual objcts within that spac. Ths gams a oftn cat to answ vaious sach qustions, not only fo gams sachs but also fo thos intst in lat topics such as tchnologis fo ubiquitous computing platfoms, human comput intaction, o collaboativ bhaviou. In tms of analyzing ths gams, vaious tchniqus hav bn us to povi both qualitativ an quantitativ analysis. Ethnogaphical tchniqus hav bn us succssfully [1] to povi insights into how uss intact, both with ach oth an th gam spac, fo infomation that is oftn not xplicitly psnt in th gam vnts co in th systm, such as a iscussion of tactics o th vbal ictions fom an onlin gam contoll [2]. Bnfo t al. highlight in 22 that th was no ag fomat fo logging o suits of analyzing tools [3] fo stuying systm ata quantitativly, an in th yas sinc littl sms to hav chang. Futh, in a cnt pap by Cabt t al. [4] thy fin both th n fo tools an thi qui chaactistics to btt suppot thnogaphical stuy of pvasiv an ubiquitous systms paticulaly in mobil nvionmnts. This is not to say tools hav not bn consi an, in, in th afomntion pap by Bnfo t al., thy iscuss using an inx 3D coing of a pfomanc that can b play an analyz. Whilst this woul povi a usful systm, it quis a gat al of computational suppot an fo som gams that o not incopoat a complx vitual wol, such as thos that a pincipally mobil phon bas, it is ifficult to implmnt. Oth lss complx 2D systms [3, 5] hav also bn popos but, as with th pvious systm, thy pincipally povi a play of th action at instancs in tim ath than an ovall pspctiv on th spatial an tmpoal movmnt of th plays in th gam. In o to nabl this pspctiv, in this pap w highlight th us of spac-tim paths which w oiginally popos by th Swish gogaph Hägstan in 197 [6] as a mans of quantitativly analyzing human migation pattns. A spac-tim path illustats how a pson navigats thi way though th spatial-tmpoal nvionmnt. Th physical aa is uc to a two-imnsional plan with ths imnsions psnting a pson s top-own position (.g., longitu an latitu). Thi location an stination a psnt as zo-imnsional points. Tim is psnt

2 Intnational Jounal of Comput Gams Tchnology 54.13 54.12 Latitu (g) 54.11 54.1 54.9 54.8 54.7 54.6 2.792 2.788 2.784 Longitu (g) 2.78 2 15 1 Figu 2: PAC-LAN clint. 5 54.13 2.78 54.11 54.9 Lat itu 54.

Ths th imnsions combin to fom a wol psnting a spcific potion of spac-tim. Th path of a stationay iniviual will appa as a vtical lin btwn th stating an ning tims at a spcific location.

Th slow an iniviual tavls, th gat th lin s vtical gaint. Thfo, vtical gaint of th plot is invsly popotional to th us s goun-bas vlocity.

2 2 Intnational Jounal of Comput Gams Tchnology Latitu (g) Longitu (g) Figu 2: PAC-LAN clint Lat itu 54.7 ( g) ng Lo itu ) g ( Figu 1: 2D path an 3D spac-tim path of a jouny aoun Lancast Univsity campus (7th of Apil 27). by th vtical axis. Ths th imnsions combin to fom a wol psnting a spcific potion of spac-tim. Th path of a stationay iniviual will appa as a vtical lin btwn th stating an ning tims at a spcific location. If an iniviual movs btwn two gogaphical locations at a constant vlocity, th gaph will show a lin with a fix tajctoy which joins th stat an n points. Th slow an iniviual tavls, th gat th lin s vtical gaint. Thfo, vtical gaint of th plot is invsly popotional to th us s goun-bas vlocity. In Figu 1, w illustat both a 2D spatial plot an a 3D spac-tim path fo an acto walking aoun th campus at Lancast Univsity th ata was collct at on-scon intvals using a moifi vsion of Locoblog [7]. It is vint in this figu that whilst th 2D plot povis us with tails of th paticula locations visit, it povis no spcific infomation lating to th acto s movmnt along th path itslf, in oth wos it povis infomation about th out an nothing about th paticulas of th jouny. Th viw that th jouny itslf shoul fom pat of th stuy of mobility has cntly gain populaity amongst sociologists stuying tanspotation an is tansfoming th viw that th tim on th mov shoul b consi as lost an of lss lvanc than th locations thmslvs [8]. Rpsnting spatial an tmpoal ata an its lationship to cognitiv pocsss is byon th scop of this pap. Howv, by obsving th 3D spac-tim path shown in Figu 1, w bliv it povis a gat sns of th acto s movmnt an a cla pictu of th iction of tavl, th sp of movmnt, an any placs, wh th actos paus o lay thi tavl. Although th spac-tim path os not povi th fin tail of a paticula jouny, it coul b annotat with ata fom an thnogaphical stuy, such as photos, auio, vio, an txt fom th us thmslvs to pouc a mo holistic psntation. In this pap, w will illustat how spac-tim paths can b us as mans of analyzing play bhaviou fo th mobil mix-ality locationbas gam PAC-LAN [9]. Howv, this tchniqu can b appli gnically acoss a vaity of location-bas applications ispctiv of th location snsing tchnology o th unlying communications. 2. PAC-LAN PAC-LAN is a novl vsion of th classic vio gam Pac-Man, in which human plays us th Alxana Pak accommoation complx at Lancast Univsity as th gam maz [9]. Th play who taks th ol of th main PACLAN chaact collcts gam pills (using a Nokia 514 mobil phon quipp with a Nokia pss-on RFID a shll) which a in th fom of yllow plastic iscs fitt with ahsiv RFID tags plac aoun th maz. Fou oth plays tak th ol of th Ghosts (M. Blu, M. R, M. Oang, an M. Pink) who attmpt to hunt own th PACLAN play. Th mobil phon gam clint is implmnt on th Java 2 micoition (J2ME) platfom which is connct to a cntal sv using a gnal packt aio svic (GPRS) connction. Th sv lays to th PAC-LAN chaact clint his/h cunt position along with th position of all Ghosts bas on th pills collct as shown in Figu 2.

3 Paul Coulton t al. 3 Figu 3: PAC-LAN tial tam fo 1th of Fbuay. Th gam pills a us by th Ghosts to obtain th PAC- LAN chaact s last-known position an to st thi kill tim which, if xpi, will pvnt thm fom killing PAC-LAN. In this way, th ghosts must gulaly intact with th sv which is thn abl to lay thi position to PAC-LAN. Th Ghosts can kill th PAC-LAN chaact by tcting him/h via an RFID tag fitt to thi costum (assuming thi kill tim has not xpi). Onc PAC-LAN is kill, th gam is ov an th points fo th gam a tmin by calculating th numb of gam pills collct an tim takn to o so. Whn PAC-LAN tags on of th pow pills, inicat by all Ghost icons changing to whit on th phon scn, h/sh is thn abl to kill th Ghosts, an thus gain xta points, using th sam RFID tction pocss. Da Ghosts must tun to th cntal point of th gam maz wh thy can b activat into th gam. It shoul b not that PAC-LAN uss an impli, ath than masu, mtho of location positioning [2] in that th plays positions a obtain though thi intaction with an objct (gam pill) at a known location. 3. ANALYZING PLAYER BEHAVIOUR To illustat th us of spac-tim paths in location-bas gam analysis, w will not ty to ncompass th numous gams of PAC-LAN which hav bn play thus fa [9] but ath consi a spcific gam which took plac on th moning of 1th of Fbuay 26. Th plays, in this cas, w fiv mals fom Lancast Univsity btwn th ags of 22 an 27 shown in Figu 3. Non of th plays ha pvious xpinc of th gam no ha any of thm us an RFID-nabl mobil phon. Futhmo, only M. Pink was familia with th gam s al-wol nvionmnt (h liv in th accommoation aa which foms th gam s maz). Th gam in qustion was shot than avag at 16 minuts an 3 scons (th avag gam uation was 26 minuts), although th action was faily typical of a fist play xpinc. In tms of mapping th gam, w hav cat a Java class that uss th JBDC conncto libay to link th atabas of ou gam sv to Matlab. This mtho not only povis a quick an asy mtho fo poucing th spac-tim paths, but also allows us to gnat thm in altim as th gam pogsss. Onc th paths a gnat, Matlab allows us to manipulat thm in 3D spac, as shown in Figu 4, which is usful fo xtacting tail an allows vaious combinations of plays to b slct. In all th Figus us fo th gam analysis of PAC- LAN, w hav not psnt th axs of th spatial plan in mts o gs an minuts but ath in tms of th pixls as thy woul appa on th phon scn map. Fo xampl, th actual gam maz aa is appoximatly 35 mts squa an th mobil phon map of this maz is psnt as a pixl bitmap. Thfo, ach pixl g psnts a lngth of appoximatly 2.74 mts. Figu 4 illustats that at th stat of th gam, th path takn by M. Blu bas lativly littl colation to that of PAC-LAN but as th gam pogsss it can claly b obsv that M. Blu stats to tack th movmnts of PAC- LAN. In Figu 5, w show th spac-tim paths of all fou Ghosts togth with that of PAC-LAN. It is woth noting that unlik oth location-bas implmntations of Pac- Man, such as Human Pac-Man [4] o Pac-Manhattan (www. Pac-Manhattan.com), th a no onlin contolls an ach play acts on his/h own initiativ within th gam [9]. Fom this, w can s thos spac-tim paths of M. Blu appa to closly colat with PAC-LAN, whilst M. Oang s path is simila but with gat ivgnc at mo points. Convsly, M. R gnally appas to hav un aoun faily aimlssly, as M. Pink os although h confin himslf to a much small spatial aa. To asctain th ffctivnss of th spac-tim path, consi Figu 6 which psnts a unning colation of th paths takn by ach of th Ghosts lativ to that of th PAC-LAN plays. Fom this figu, it can b sn that th paths takn by M. Blu an M. Pink a mo closly colat than ith M. Oang o M. R. Howv, fom th pvious analysis of th spac-tim paths it was obsv that M. Pink s path was lss colat to PAC-LAN. This appant iscpancy is u to th fact that th colation mly povis a simpl istanc masu an bcaus M. Pink main faily cntal in th gam maz h maintain a goo colation. This actual play activity can bst b illustat though Figu 7 which shows ach play s movmnt as a cicl whos aius is th man isplacmnt cnt aoun his/h avag position to giv som sns of how avntuous ach play was uing th gam. Whilst this givs a viw of gnal activity it os not povi th tail of th spac-tim path. Ou obsvations uing th gam an th vio footag confim what was obsv in th spac-tim paths. This is not to say that w shoul ly on puly quantitativ analysis, in fact, th qualitativ obsvations an iscussions val that M. R was not as aimlss in his movmnts as it may at fist hav appa; ath, h claim his pimay statgy uing th gam was to ambush PAC-LAN, an his pattns

4 Intnational Jounal of Comput Gams Tchnology 14 14 12 1 1 8

12 14 14 12 12 1 1 1 c 5 n f i g 8 6 8 6 4 4 2 12 Y gi 8 4 f

4: Rotating spac-tim paths fo PAC-LAN an M. Blu.

1 8 14 12 14 12 6 1 8 6 4 4 2 12 8 4 Y gi fnc 2 12 8 4 Y gi

fnc gi 14 12 pink 1 5 fnc gi oang 1 8 6 4 2 12 8 4 Y gi

4 4 Intnational Jounal of Comput Gams Tchnology f n 8 4 Y gi fnc Y gi 4 fnc c 4 gi c 5 n f i g Y gi 8 4 f nc 2 Y g 1 i f 5 nc 1 5 nc f i g (c) c n f gi () Figu 4: Rotating spac-tim paths fo PAC-LAN an M. Blu. PAC-LAN an M Y gi fnc Y gi fnc 1 c 5 fn gi PAC-LAN an M. blu Y gi fnc (c) 1 5 fnc gi PAC-LAN an M. pink 1 5 fnc gi PAC-LAN an M. oang Y gi fnc 1 5 fnc gi () Figu 5: Spac-tim paths of PAC-LAN compa to ach of th fou Ghosts.

5 Paul Coulton t al. 5 Running colation of istanc fom PAC-LAN (pixls) M M pink M blu M oang Figu 6: Running colation of th Ghosts paths though th gam lativ to that of PAC-LAN. synchonization, an psntation. Th cunt gnation of mobil phons is capabl of coing txt, imag, vio, an voic, an it also povis an ffctiv mans of captu whn coupl with an application such as Locoblog. By coing th ata to th phon ca in stana fomats, it can thn b asily xtact an combin as qui. In tms of synchonization, th GPS unit povis a univsal timstamp with which w can synchoniz th oftn multipl soucs of mobil infomation an this tim is availabl vn whn th a insufficint satllits to povi a positional fix. Finally, in tms of psntation, th spac-tim map psnts a vy powful mtho of psnting combin spatial an tmpoal bhaviou. ACKNOWLEDGMENT Th authos woul lik to xpss thi thanks to Nokia fo th povision of softwa an hawa to th Mobil Raicals sach goup at Lancast Univsity which was us fo th implmntation of this pojct. Play ID M oang M blu M pink M PAC-LAN Y gi fnc gi fnc Figu 7: Plays man isplacmnt fom thi avag position. of movmnt flct this (PAC-LAN was in caught in such a manuv). 4. CONCLUSIONS In this pap, w hav psnt human gogaphs spac-tim paths as an ffctiv mans of analyzing play bhaviou in location-bas gams. W bliv that this tchniqu has significant potntial fo psnting actos spatial an tmpoal movmnts in many location-bas scnaios, an, if coupl with qualitativ ata, can povi significant avantags whn analyzing mging computing nvionmnts. W a alay woking with sociologists an gogaphs to cat vsions of Locoblog that will ai thm in thnogaphic stuis, an with th fothcoming visualization tool it will povi significant oppotunitis fo bhavioual analysis of mobil actos. In spct of mting th quimnt of tools to b us in thnogaphical stuy, w bliv it asss many of th mo salint points intifi bycabt an Rouncfil [1] of captu, xtaction, REFERENCES [1] A. Cabt an M. Rouncfil, Woking with txt logs: som aly xpincs of -social scinc in th fil, in Pocings of th 1st Intnational Confnc on Social Scinc, Manchst, UK, Jun 25. [2] O. Rashi, I. Mullins, P. Coulton, an R. Ewas, Extning cybspac: location bas gams using cllula phons, Computs in Enttainmnt, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 3 2, 26. [3] S. Bnfo, M. Fas, G. Ryna, B. Kolva, an A. Doz, Staging an valuating public pfomancs as an appoach to CVE sach, in Pocings of th 4th Intnational Confnc on Collaboativ Vitual Envionmnts (CVE 2), pp. 8 87, Bonn, Gmany, Sptmb-Octob 22. [4] A. Cabt, S. Bnfo, C. Gnhalgh, P. Tnnnt, M. Chalms, an B. Bown, Suppoting thnogaphic stuis of ubiquitous computing in th wil, in Pocings of th Confnc on Dsigning Intactiv Systms: Pocsss, Pactics, Mthos, an Tchniqus (DIS 6), pp. 6 69, Univsity Pak, Pa, USA, Jun 26. [5] N. Nova, F. Giain, G. Molinai, an P. Dillnboug, Th unwhlming ffcts of automatic location-awanss on collaboation in a pvasiv gam, in Pocings of th Intnational Confnc on th Dsign of Coopativ Systms, Cay-l-Rout, Povnc, Fanc, May 26. [6] T. Hägstan, What about popl in gional scinc? Paps in Rgional Scinc, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 6 21, 197. [7] W. Bamfo, P. Coulton, an R. Ewas, Spac-tim tavl blogging using a mobil phon, in Pocings of th 4th Intnational Confnc on Avancs in Comput Enttainmnt Tchnology (ACE 7), vol. 23, pp. 1 8, Salzbug, Fanc, Jun 27. [8] C. Licopp an Y. Inaa, Emgnt uss of a multiplay location-awa mobil gam: th intactional consquncs of miat ncounts, Mobilitis, vol. 1, no. 1, pp , 26. [9] O. Rashi, W. Bamfo, P. Coulton, R. Ewas, an J. Schibl, PAC-LAN: mix-ality gaming with RFID-nabl mobil phons, Computs in Enttainmnt, vol. 4, no. 4, 26.

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