Location Based Gameing

Rew

http://www.vodafone.ie/botfighters/index.jsp

It took off in a big way in Norway...

LoBo

This is actually quite cool, apart from cost (24c per message). I blew up one "Dartman" and was exchanging pot shots with Dustaz's Dustbot.
I had no idea vodafone had location based services rolled out - anyone know if they have them available to third party application developers, or even a link to any more info about it?

Here's the other thread about this, currently in After Hours:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=66909

The Corinthian

Originally posted by LoBo
anyone know if they have them available to third party application developers, or even a link to any more info about it?

HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa!!!!!!!

I won't go into it... :mad:

Rew

O2 and Voda have their networks geared up for all the Location stuff. as to whether or not they are letting 3rd partys in... the short answer is no...

HUGE privcy issues with letting 3rd partys have access to location info. Not to mention they will just be anal about it in general for a long time (milk it for money them selfs for a while).

Hopefully at some stage they will give out an API and some sort og access control system so that u can get at the location certain of certain (ie: ones u own or people have agreed to let u have info)

In the mean time, there are people (including me) working on location systems for wifi netS which will open up the options for location games and services.

these guys http://www.playresearch.com are doing work for nokia and came up with a game called "Pirates!" where everyone runs an app on their PDA which makes em a pirate captain. U can interact with other players a u come near them etc.

Bots is only the begining

LoBo

yep, the whole location based idea seems good - I presume 3rd party developers would be given access to an API so they could, for example, check distance between 2 peeps etc, without actually ever being given actual locations of users?

However, SMS just isn't going to cut it for neat, interactive apps. We need a micropayment system like iMode's for anything of that sort to work. I'd love to see something like it around here in the next few years.

The Corinthian

Originally posted by LoBo
I presume 3rd party developers would be given access to an API so they could, for example, check distance between 2 peeps etc, without actually ever being given actual locations of users?

That would require some computation at the operators end, and for the most part they don't have the skills to do that in-house.

Additionally, the operators prefer to control as much of the content that goes through their network. As such, becoming a partnered 3rd party developer is a painfully political affair at best, with any of the operators.

At worst I recall one conversation I had with one of the three operators here in Ireland a while back, that boiled down to "if you tell us your idea (without any NDA) we'll think about letting you do it" - In conversation with another company, we were warned that the same operator had a habit of rejecting such ideas and then miraculously launching them six months later themselves. We declined the operator's offer.

Numerous barriers to entry for 3rd party developers have retarded the uptake of new mobile services in Ireland, IMHO, and ultimately hurt the operators themselves. Quite depressing, really.