Privacy and Awareness in Multiplayer Electronic Games

Multi-user electronic entertainment products have a unique set of requirements for the support of user awareness and information privacy. The level of support has a profound e ect on the gaming experience, and can result in the same game providing a very di erent experience on two di erent systems. The available support for these requirements depends largely on the structure of the gaming system, be it a distributed groupware system such as networked PCs, or a Single Display Groupware system such as a PlayStation console. This paper analyzes the support for awareness and information privacy of several games from both of these broad categories. A new category of systems is also discussed, dubbed Single Display Privacyware, that takes advantage of the strengths of both distributed groupware systems and Single Display Groupware systems.