FAQ

Factory Girl is a game development studio. Accessorily, it is a woman-friendly project aiming to offer a number of resources and tools for discussion and networking to all women interested in games, gaming, pop culture and women’s culture.

Cross media communication allows a story or a concept to be narrated through a variety of media in a number of different places.
Cross media is also known through several analogue terms, like transmedia, transmedial, x media, and 360° entertainment. Neither the scientific community nor the commercial scen heave still agreed on a common term, although "crossmedia" and "cross media" are the more used.

A playable product or event conceptually extends the notion of game and play, while the term “game” usually implies “videogame” and is related to the idea of a single platform or medium. A playable product can involve an online experience, your mobile, your email, or all of the above, connecting media and life.
A playable event can happen anywhere, in a virtual world (Second Life our favorite) or in real life, or both.

Serious games are games (computer, video, mobile, multiplatform) made for training, advertising, simulation or education. They can also be called edutainment, infotainment, persuasive games, and advergaming. Serious games address very different issues like industry training; healthcare; social training and information; school subjects as mathematics, literature and history; language learning; and basically everything you can think of, as long as it has an agenda

An alternative reality game is an interactive narrative, which takes place in the real world and involves users through several media, incorporating game elements, with the aim of telling a story that may or may not be influenced by participants’ actions.
The story takes place in real time, often under the fictional statement that “This Is Not A Game” and that the fictional events are actually happening.
Players interact with characters, solve challenges and puzzles, co-ordinate real-life and online activities in online communities. ARGs use several channels (telephones, email, mail, podcast, etc) but mostly rely on the Internet as the main medium.
The ARG form has been used as a promotional move for entertainment products (the film “AI”, the videogame “Halo2”, the TV show “Lost”, the latest Nokia phone).
ARGs are unfortunately not very developed in many EU countries.

Factory Girl believes the power of ARGs can be employed successfully also for education and information purposes, as well as for viral marketing

The term “virtual worlds” can define actual worlds existing in a 3D virtual environment, like Second Life, War of Warcraft, Habbo Hotel etc. According to a broader definition, virtual worlds structure the overall theme of a story, encompassing all characters and background details, making the story apt to be transformed and retold through every kind of channel. Star Wars has a virtual world, like Star trek, Lord of the Rings, The Simpsons, and “LOST”, while “Will and Grace” or “The Age of Innocence” are single narratives

Similar in principle to alternative reality games, pervasive games interweave real world experience and (mostly multiplayer) gaming, through mobile applications and context-aware technologies. Most of these games are “locative”, that is, they are deployed in a real world environment and the interaction is guided and/or performed through the use of mobile devices. Pervasive gaming, compared to ARG, features less narrative and more gaming, involving actions in the physical world