Though I haven’t added any new posts for nearly a month, “Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated,” as Marc Twain famously said. What I have been doing is studying the effect of extreme localization by playing Rayman’s Raving Rabbids II on my neighbors Wii. It didn’t get rave reviews, but the reviewers don’t live in my neighborhood (click image to see video trailer).

As the game started up there was the Statue of Liberty and downtown Manhattan… City Hall Park… the Brooklyn Heights Promenade… and DUMBO…  landmarks and neighborhoods I see every day. Momentarily stunned by the familiarity, shooting rabbid rampaging bunnies on home turf soon began to have a hypnotic effect, blurring the line between game play and something much deeper… my life. Why don’t more games go there? And why limit customization to choosing an avatar, why not allow users to swap out the location, landmarks, rules of play, too? There’s magic to such extreme localization that’s ripe to be explored and exploited. After all, what better way to get players into a flow state than letting them play on the streets where they live?