guest post by Johannes Grenzfurthner
urbantakeover is a virtual reality game mashup that was started by a couple of smart guys from Vienna. You play it both in the streets or in places of your ‘real’ city — and online.
The task is to put special stickers with your name/tag/signature or even a picture onto buildings or other static stuff around. You can send a text message to urbantakeover with your mobile phone in order to ‘claim’ the spot you marked. On urbantakeover’s website you can see your and your team’s owned territories. But you have to watch out. Others can snatch your spots away by re-claiming the locations. If you are being attacked you get a text message so you can ‘fight back’ immediately.
More games are coming soon (ever wanted to play Go on a ‘board’ the size of your city?)
Get your team ready, go out and reclaim your city…
Here are some photos of claimed spots:
Microsoft, crossed
Google, crossed
Ferret, crossed
photos by Florian Hufsky & MyraSuicide
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Great. Just what we need: more tagged up sticker graffiti around various cities.
Graffiti 2.0?
Perhaps with Facebook integration the government can subpeona information on those defacing public property. Slick!
Thanks,
-danny
Stupid game. Take your stickers somewhere else.
like it.
already printing some stickers…..
You can avoid the messy graffiti by using photoshop to claim real world spots with virtual stickers. I can see the urbantakeover website quickly devolving into chaos.
How can you support and publicize this? This is horrendous. How about a game that makes some claim a spot by scrapping gum wads off the sidewalk instead of plastering ugly stickers all around.
I’ve never felt the urge to comment on posts, but it’s necessary this time.
This is a terrible idea! Hasn’t anybody ridden MUNI and seen graffiti tags posted on doors and seats? These have to be scrapped off with a razor blade and leave sticky, dirty residue behind. And somebody thought this was a great idea for the Golden Gate Bridge? Since when has tagging a national landmark been cool or creative?
I think you should retract this post. There have been a thousand creative ideas and worthy gatherings posted about here that benefit our community. This isn’t one of them.
i guess i hacked a soveryveryveryliberal community — just by posting.
always causing trouble.
We (urbantakeover) plan to use stickers that are not that bad for the environment: paper ones that peel of easily and just decompose with water -
About the photo shopped-sticker-images: If you really find the time to shoot pictures of a spot and figure out how to paste in a sticker that looks legit I am sure all the work is worth the points :)
We are still an early start-up and have to tweak our game modes and stickers – help us to become the game you would like to play!
Thanks!
@Johannes – I don’t really understand why you resort to personal comments just because myself and other readers don’t agree with the sentiments in your post.
Why are you make some kind of assumption that we are “soveryveryveryliberal.” In the US, many of the backers of Clean Cities type groups are extremely conservative. Other are more liberal. I don’t think litter, graffiti, and ugliest stick to political ideologies.
Maybe you mean liberal in some other sense. I don’t know.
You didn’t cause trouble by posting. You created dissent by glorifying something that is really fucking stupid.
I never want to play a game of public defacement.
Maybe you would do well to figure out a way to “claim” spots without stickers. Perhaps you can claim a spot by taking a photo of the day’s local newspaper at that spot. In San Francisco many bus shelters these days have electronic signs that display the time and date and next bus.
Even with the fanciest “biodegradable” stickers you still run into the “broken windows” sentiment of public order: if it looks like you’re tagging it feels like you’re tagging and you’re inviting further public defacement and making enemies. This is NOT COOL.
-danny
reading your comments, one can quickly gather that most of you squares have no idea what youre talking about. M2 suggests using photoshop to “create” graffiti online? LOL!!!! thats like suggesting someone use photoshop to paste themselves in a woman’s bedroom and calling it sex. graffiti is completely foreign you civilians. look at Danny Howard’s photo. that guy has never been cool in his life, yet hes telling us what is and what isnt cool?
HILARIOUS. get over yourself you silly caucazoids.
this isnt for you.
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