May 19th, 2005 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Trends | No Comments »
TOKYO — Jin Saburi was drinking coffee at a Tokyo Denny’s when an urgent message hit his cellphone: "Shion, level 12, requests a rescue. Will you respond?"
The "rescue" wasn’t real — it was part of the fantasy game Mr. Saburi was playing on his mobile phone. But the plea for help was genuine: Shion was another gamer somewhere in Japan playing that same game — one of thousands of Japanese playing each other, in real time, over the cellular network.
"It’s nice to have the feeling that other people are playing along with you," says the 33-year-old Mr. Saburi. He went on to rescue Shion and so many other players that day that he ended up having a second meal at Denny’s. More …
