Legal Niches

Game Attempts to Bring Fun to High Security Environments

By pete_gallagher

A new game, designed to 'explore the limits of pervasive gaming,' takes place in real airports and prompts players to plant drugs on other travelers in a bid to get the contraband through security.

Blowtooth is the work of the UK-based Lincoln Social Computer Research Center and relax, the drugs are virtual, though the airport security forces a user is trying to dupe are real. The game operates like this: once in an airport—and before passing through security—a user fires up the Blowtooth application on their smart phone. The application will scan the nearby vicinity for Bluetooth devices, allowing the player to 'conceptually dump or retrieve contraband,' on other people's devices.

The goal is to then retrieve the 'contraband' on the other side of security, with points being awarded for how many 'couriers' "drugs" can be retrieved from and how fast the roundup was. The 'couriers' or 'mules' remain blissfully unaware of their involvement in the game.

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Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on April 19, 2010 (boomark / email).