Chapter 7: Application Outlook 311 There are some issues related to mobile games. Since the games developed for desktop computers and settop-box game consoles are played next to the device, it is assumed that every player has a device available, and they have purchased a licence to play the game on that device. On the contrary, with mobile games, the ad hoc nature of game play implies that potentially any person may participate on a multi- player game in situ. Now the question is: do all the players need to own the game, or a licence to play? The question of licence ownership is sometimes related to, surpris- ingly, personal content created while played. In case some game- related content (metagame elements) is retained after the game is over, the player needs to own a licence, whereas in other cases only one player may own the game; they then host the game and share the clients that are needed (for instance, Game Boy Advance). These approaches can also be combined: in the beginning, one can play without a licence, but purchasing the licence enables creating and retaining the metagame elements. 7.4.2 Personal Content Types Related to Games From the personal content point of view, user-created content related to games can be divided into two. Some content is created implicitly, while playing, such as high scores, whereas some content is created explicitly, such as game characters. We will discuss both of these types 28 below. The simplest form of personal content related to games is score. Traditionally, scores have been stored locally as a top-ten high-score table, accessible only through the game software. However, these days many games offer the players a way of posting their scores on the web site, thus producing a potentially global high score table. On the gaming scene, game scores are the equivalent of stock valuations – important quantities that refl ect a gamer’s achievement, coolness, and prestige. In addition to achieved scores, the current situation in a game can also be stored. This is referred to as a saved game. In the most simple form, the game is saved locally on a mass storage device, where it can be later retrieved, allowing the player to continue gameplay from the last saved position. There are two basic approaches to saving games: either the player is free to save the game at any time, or alternatively, 28 Please note that in most domains the same division between explicit and implicit content creation applies. However, with games it is perhaps more clear than in others (Chapter 3).