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Vodafone’s receiver #17 is out and it’s another interesting issue with various great contributions. This online-only magazine is a neutral space where pioneer thinkers challenge you to discuss exciting, future-oriented aspects of communications technologies.

This receiver issue is a truly playful one. While the urge to play is a human universal, gaming cultures differ widely across different societies – that goes for the games people enjoy as well as how they enjoy them. You can play with interactive media alone or to socialise, to compete or to relax, at home or in the street. What is play and what’s in a game? Here are nine answers.

It was good to read the contribution of Michael Samyn and Auriea Harvey, Games in spite of themselves on Tale of Tales, the design studio they run together in Belgium and their latest game concept development The Endless Forest:

Many games that call themselves multiplayer are in fact glorified single player games. Most of the activities (gathering objects and exterminating monsters) are single player activities at their core. Sometimes the designers make the tasks so huge that practical reasons force the players to collaborate, but the tasks and the motivation remain egocentric. The common exception seems to be games in which players directly confront each other. Instead of killing monsters, they kill each other. With The Endless Forest, we try not only to offer players less aggressive activities to engage in, but also non-competitive forms of playing together.

Michael and me have been pioneering together the early days of the internet in Belgium end of ‘94, early ‘95… waw time flies! Michael still kept some traces of that period here and here; for fans, you can check out his impressive entire portfolio. Michael is a truely original and great designer and artist and his work since he met Auriea has been always amazing and inspiring, together they won the Webby Award Prize for Excellence in Online Art in 2000.

This makes me curious about how they would conceptualize a great mobile game, do check them out!

I wrote an article on Connecting cultures through music for edition #16 of the Vodafone Receiver magazine. The main topic was ‘A Night Out’, interesting challenge and braintwister to write. This issue is covered with some excellent articles by authors like Charlie Schick, Mark Curtis, Lee Humphreys, Tim Cole, Karenza Moore, Frank Lantz, and Antony Bruno (sorry Bruno could not find your link). Definately worth a read, check out the Receiver archives too!

“This receiver issue wants to spark off some ideas about social networking the mobile way: clubbing, seeing your favourite band, sharing memories of a night out or playfully exploring the city, getting to know and experiencing, even creating, music – can mobile add to all these? And how does it affect how we get our friends together for joint action? Does it trigger emergent behaviour? Or is it the ideal means to pull it all together? What do *you* think?”

There is room for discussion on the website, needless to say it would be great to get some of your comments, thoughts and ideas on the evolution of music culture from our mobile lifestyle perspective.

The Artwork for receiver #16 is done by Zaza+Crusher, illustrations by students from the University of Duisburg-Essen (Essen, Germany).

Analysis, Announcements, Art Culture, ethnographics, Mobile Lifestyle, mobile music, Predictions, receiver, vodafone, vodafone receiver