GEO-GAMING: THE MOBILE MONOPOLY EXPERIENCE

Mao Li

School of Computer Science & Informatics, University College Dublin, Belﬁeld, Dublin 4, Ireland

M. J. O’Grady, G. M. P. O’Hare

Adaptive Information Cluster (AIC), School of Computer Science & Informatics

University College Dublin, Belﬁeld, Dublin 4, Ireland

Keywords:

Pervasive gaming, Mobile gaming.

Abstract:

Advances in mobile computing technologies have proved an unheralded boon to mobile games developers.

Increasingly, position-sensing technologies such as GPS and cellular techniques can be harnessed. This offers

exciting opportunities for novel game development. However, classic board games can also be reﬁned and ex-

tended, leading to, amongst other things, alternative modalities of interaction. The popular game of monopoly

is one example. In this paper, a prototype game, termed Mobile Monopoly, is introduced. This game can

be modelled on any arbitrary urban environment. Gamers participate by roaming about the environment,

acquiring properties and paying rents as they proceed.

1 INTRODUCTION

A common criticism of computer gaming concerns it

perceived sedentary and solitary nature. Parents es-

pecially worry about the emotional and physical wel-

fare of their children, and frequently view computer

gaming activity with reservation. This reaction is un-

derstandable, and it beholds the gaming community

to address it and to identify innovative and creative

ways of mitigating these concerns. One method of

achieving this is to introduce a necessity for physical

activity. Geo-gaming is one interpretation of how this

might be achieved.

Two key technologies enable geo-gaming: the

ubiquitous availability of mobile phones; and the de-

ployment of GPS. The mobile phone represents a

common platform, for the most part, for gaming de-

velopers to design and implement for. And the avail-

ability of cheap GPS devices ensures that accurate po-

sitions are available in practically all outdoor environ-

ments. The challenge facing the gaming community

is to effectively harness these technologies to develop

new and stimulating games. Another approach is to

consider traditional board games and augment these

with new modalities of engagement. In this paper,

this latter approach is adopted. The classic game of

monopoly, a game with an implicit geospatial compo-

nent, is extended into the physical realm.

The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 de-

scribes some related research. The design and imple-

mentation of Mobile Monopoly are described in sec-

tions 3 and 4 respectively. Future work is outlined in

section 5 and the paper is concluded in section 6.

2 RELATED RESEARCH

A number of pervasive games have been described in

the literature. However, the ones of most relevance to

this discussion concern those that utilise GPS and/or

another position sensing mechanism. Perhaps, the

must successful game that utilises GPS is Geocaching

(Geocaching, 2007). In essence, this is a treasure

hunting game, of which there a number of varieties.

Geodashing (Geodashing, 2007) is a game in which

participants compete to get to the most dash points.

In all these cases, a GPS receiver is essential. A use-

ful overview of location-based games that use cellular

phones may be found in (Rashid et al., 2006).

In the case of monopoly, various implementa-

tions of the classic game have been ported to mobile

phones. However, examples that utilise the physical

geographical environment are rare. Live Monopoly

(Live, 2007) is one interesting example. This uses

220

Li M., J. O’Grady M. and M. P. O’Hare G. (2008).

GEO-GAMING: THE MOBILE MONOPOLY EXPERIENCE.

In Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies, pages 220-223

DOI: 10.5220/0001514902200223

 SciTePress

18 taxis, all ﬁtted with GPS devices, as the playing

pieces. The city of London is divided up between

the players and a London cabbie is assigned to each

player. Rent is paid when a player’s cabbie stops out-

side the property of another player. Though similar in

principle but within the spirit of geo-gaming, Mobile

Monopoly adopts an approach that forces players to

become physically active if they wish to participate

and compete in a game.

3 DESIGN

Mobile Monopoly is designed to be played in the out-

door environment. It assumes the player is equipped

with a mobile phone or PDA of suitable speciﬁcation -

an approximate screen size of 1/4 VGA being one es-

sential characteristic. A model of the environment in

which the game is being played must be constructed.

This does not have to be that sophisticated, primarily

due to the limitations of GPS. Recall that GPS sup-

ports an accuracy of 20 meters approximately. Thus

a property can be approximated with a central geo-

graphic point in GPS coordinates and a radius in me-

ters. Properties must be chosen such that there is an

adequate distance between them that accounts for the

inherent inaccuracy of GPS. Most of this information

can be gleaned from a standard map, although the da-

tum used must be converted to WGS84.

To play the game, the player must explore their

environment. As they enter zones that deﬁne business

premises, they have the following options, as per the

classic monopoly game:

1. Acquiring or purchasing a property, when phys-

ically in the geographic zone that deﬁnes that

property.

2. Upgrading a property that the player already

owns, after physically re-entering the geographic

zone that deﬁnes the property.

3. Paying rent to the owner of a property, after

entering the geographic zone that deﬁnes that

property.

A detailed design for each of these activities is

now described in the following sections.

3.1 Acquiring a Property

As the player roams about the environment, their lo-

cation is continuously tracked and compared against

Figure 1: Acquiring a property.

the list of premises in the property model. On de-

tecting that the player has entered a zone that deﬁnes

a property, the ownership is then determined. If the

property is not owned, the player has the option of

buying it. If they already own it, they may upgrade it

(see section 3.2). If it is owned by another, they must

pay rent (see section 3.3).

Assuming the player has the funds to complete the

purchase and agrees to do so, the transaction manager

then decreases the player’s balance by the cost of the

premises. The property model is then updated and

the player is registered as the owner of the property

(Figure 1).

3.2 Upgrading a Property

When a player enters the geographic zone that deﬁnes

a property that they already own, they have the option

of upgrading that property, assuming they have ade-

quate funds. If they agree, the Transaction Manager

reduces their balance by the corresponding amount,

and the property model is updated (Figure 2).

3.3 Renting a Property

When a player enters the zone that deﬁnes a property

owned by another player, they must pay the appropri-

ate rent or compensation. The Transaction Manager

proceeds to decrease the player’s balance by the ap-

propriate amount and transfer this to the balance of

the player that owns the property.

GEO-GAMING: THE MOBILE MONOPOLY EXPERIENCE

221

Figure 2: Renting a property.

3.4 The Game Loop

For the purposes of this initial prototype of Mobile

Monopoly, the player plays against a virtual player

(Figure 3). In this way, a number of problems are

eliminated such as the latency due to data communi-

cations, the need for a centralised model for maintain-

ing the status of the game and so on.

A further variable introduced into the game de-

sign concerns the strength of the player. This is based

on the speed of the player as they roam about. The

faster the player operates, the more strength they ex-

pend. Hence, to conserve strength, they must move at

a slower pace. If their strength is entirely depleted, the

player must pay a ﬁnancial penalty so as to replenish

it. In this way, the advantage that a ﬁtter person would

have is somewhat compensated for.

4 IMPLEMENTATION

Mobile Monopoly has been implemented using

J2ME. Hence, it will run on any device that supports

J2ME, and that has access to GPS, either via a serial

port or through Bluetooth. This latter point may be-

come less of an issue over time as it envisaged that

a new generation of mobile devices will come with

GPS chips already embedded within them. The cur-

rent prototype has been successfully demonstrated on

a HP IPAQ device. For the forthcoming illustration, a

phone emulator from one of the major telecommuni-

cations manufacturers was used.

Figure 3: The Game Loop of Mobile Monopoly.

Figure 4: Commencing a game of Mobile Monopoly.

1. Figure 4 illustrates the situation at the start of the

game. The player has a 15000 euro in their ac-

count and the virtual player has 20000 euro. The

player is positioned at the centre of the map.

2. On entering a zone that deﬁnes a property, the

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Figure 5: Player is prompted to buy a property.

Figure 6: Rent must be paid when in a property owned by

another player.

player is asked if they wish to buy it (ﬁgure 5).

Note that the virtual player has acquired a prop-

erty for 700 euro resulting in a balance of 16300

euro.

3. On entering the zone of a property owned by an-

other player, it is necessary to pay rent (ﬁgure 6).

This amount is automatically deducted from the

player’s balance and accredited to the owner’s bal-

ance.

5 FUTURE WORK

Have developed an initial working prototype, there is

plenty scope for improving its performance. Initially,

there are two issues that of particular interest. The

ﬁrst concerns the realism of the virtual player’s behav-

ior, which is currently very primitive. It is intended to

model the virtual player as an intelligent agent, as it is

increasingly feasible to deploy agents on mobile de-

vices (O’Hare et al., 2006). In this way, more sophis-

ticated strategies can be adopted through the speci-

ﬁcation of rules, resulting in more dynamic and less

predictable behavior. In addition, strategies for mo-

tivating and encouraging individual players may be

adapted.

A second issue concerns the introduction of addi-

tional players. This introduces a number of difﬁcul-

ties from a interface and data management perspec-

tive, though none insurmountable. However, one key

issue concerns the performance of TCP/IP. This has

been investigated already in real-time games (Chen

et al., 2006). However, the latency introduced by the

essential incorporation of wireless networks, includ-

ing WiFi and 3G, could well have performance impli-

cations. It is intended to investigate this and attempt

to identify and quantify the pertinent issues.

6 CONCLUSIONS

Geo-gaming can combine fun and activity. It is not

necessary in all cases to conceive new strategies for

games. Rather, traditional games can be enhanced

and extended with new interaction modalities. An ex-

ample of this is Mobile Monopoly. The rules of the

game are well understood. However, by combining

cellular phone and satellite positioning technologies,

new possibilities are available for enhancing and ex-

tending the core game both to new environments and

new audiences.

REFERENCES

Chen, K.-T., Huang, P., and Lei, C.-L. (2006). How sensi-

tive are online gamers to network quality? Commun.

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Geocaching (2007). http://www.geocache.org.

Geodashing (2007). http://geodashing.gpsgames.org/.

Live, M. (2007). http://www.monopolylive.com/.

O’Hare, G., O’Grady, M., Muldoon, C., and Bradley, J.

(2006). Embedded Agents: A Paradigm for Mobile

Services. International Journal of Web and Grid Ser-

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Rashid, O., Mullins, I., Coulton, P., and Edwards, R. (2006).

Extending cyberspace: location based games using

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