Development of a Platform for the Creation and Reproduction of Digital Pervasive Games for the Promotion of Products and Services

Official Website

The aim of the project was the development of an open, integrated Digital Platform (DP) for the design and creation of Pervasive Digital Games (pervasive games) which were played through mobile devices (smartphones, tablets) for the purpose of marketing and promoting products and services using and exploiting basic principles, tactics, and mechanisms from the field of games (gamification). Specifically, the DP provided a tool for planning, creating, and managing (editing the script, scenes, characters, plot, etc.) and customizing the User Interface. The tool was based on a game representation model which was described by a formal language which was then provided as input to the execution engine to play the game. The playing of the game took place through the application for mobile devices (player application) which was developed in the framework of the act.

During the game design phase, the policy of targeted advertising and promotion of local products and services was determined (in relation to the geographical playground of a game) by businesses. More specifically, the game designer had the possibility to include in their development scenario the points (time and/or geographical) at which the promotional actions would take place in a transparent and smooth manner so as to achieve the dual goal of not disrupting the flow of the game on the one hand and communicating the appropriate promotional message to the user on the other. To support this process, the game description language provided the necessary modeling elements.

Finally, the DP integrated tools and mechanisms for business analysis (business analytics) of the collected data and the extracted conclusions were made available both to the companies for the evaluation of the packages and services provided and the promotion of new products and to the official bodies for drawing conclusions and the formation of the corresponding policies and the drawing up of strategies. In addition to the promotion of products and services, the DP could also be used for the development of educational games (e.g., in archaeological sites, geoparks, etc.), games to highlight the cultural capital of a region, recreational games to enhance the tourist experience (e.g., pervasive games in the premises of a hotel), as well as pure cultural activities with broad participation of local communities.