Where's the Beef? is a location-aware multiplayer cross-platform social game of territory capture using geo-fences and mobile devices.  This game is the latest technology from Wandering Shepherd, which for years has been using GPS systems to track the real-time movements of livestock all over the world.

In the game, players are trying to capture real live cattle, located throughout the world, that have our GPS tracking devices on them by using geo-fences that are in the game's playing field (real satellite imaging of where the cattle are). When players join the game, they are automatically assigned to one of two teams, either White Hats (rancher) or Black Hats (rustler).

Players setup geo-fences in order to capture the cattle. When a player catches a cow, that cow is removed from the rest of that round and the points are added to their own personal score and to the team's total. They are able to view historic cattle movement information and real-time weather (and forecast) to help them make the best possible educated guess.

A geo-fence is a virtual perimeter for a real-world geographic area. In the mobile context, when a mobile device (in our case is the GPS device on the cattle) enters or exits the geographic area, the relevant caller (the player) is notified.

With peer-to-peer geo-fencing, both the geo-fence location and the time window are regularly shifting - and the goal is to detect "collision" (nearness) of two very dynamic points as, for example, when we want to detect that both the cattle and player are near each other.

This is a more advanced feature of a geo-fencing service because it involves a real time comparison of many streams of location data both for location and time collision (it's much less interesting to detect that the cattle was here a few days ago).

We have been asked by a USDA Livestock Researcher if we can help him and his team with technology that they can use for the monitoring of cattle's movements and behavior.

Why is this information important?

Remote monitoring of animal behavior in the environment can assist in managing both the animal and its environmental impact. GPS collars which record animal locations with high temporal frequency allow researchers to monitor both animal behavior and interactions with the environment.

In order for the data to be of use, they require that the movements are collected and sent every 10 minutes for at least a 2 week period.  They have tried other technologies available and even cellular carriers to help them with this project, all with no success.

Early tracking methods have previously shown low animal-location-per-time predictability. Methods relied on human observation of natural (color patterns) or artificial features (colored collar or tag). Problems included observer fatigue and associated error, study area accuracy and physical limitations, external factors (weather and light), and observer proximity effects on animals.

Researchers have been using GPS devices in the past, but they have been big, bulky and battery life lasting only a few days.

The Wandering Shepherd technology fulfills their research requirements and we are extremely honored to help them with this research project.

Even with ours in a downwards position as pictured above, we have over a 95% read/send success rate.

This fundraise is to pay for the actual GPS devices that will be placed on the cattle during this research project.  The research team does not have the funding available to them to fund this project on their own.

At the end of the project, the GPS devices will be awarded to the supporters who pledged the Certified Angus Beef Reward (Featured Reward).  Supports of this Pledge Reward can use the device for their own personal use like hiking or boating.

The idea for the video game came during a meeting with a Venture Capitalist while I was pitching them our Wandering Shepherd GPS Livestock Traceability technology. They mentioned to me that this would make a great game and never elaborated on it.

I have had this idea in the back of my mind for some time and now that "social mobile" games are becoming more popular, decided to test it out as a video game while helping out a great cause.

This game takes location-based social gaming to a new level where current games require the player to enter the geo-fence before another player does in order to capture the points.

Where’s the Beef? Requires the player to setup their own geo-fences plus the timestamp of when they think the cattle will be in order to get the points.  Making it more of strategic game plays rather than who might be the fastest.

Advertising on mobile devices have companies like Facebook confused on how to provide ads without disrupting the users experience. During game play, product placements will be displayed like in the screen shot below. As the player is looking around the games 360 video searching for cattle, they could be driving in a GMC truck, pass by a John Deere tractor.

Including 360 Degree Interactive Video of actual playing fields into the game.  This allows the user to "look around" and get right inside the game, giving a better than just a "birds eye" view. 

Want to learn more, watch this short video here:

Putting you directly into the game, literally.

Cool Rewards for your Support

Ladies t-shirt sample:

Mens t-shirt sample:

More reward sample images coming soon.

Wandering Shepherd is a global GPS livestock traceability device and platform allowing ranchers to effectively manage livestock.

Awarded a Top 50 Outstanding Agricultural Innovations by the ASABE for 2010. Products winning the 2010 AE50 awards represent the best and the brightest developed around the globe for the agricultural, food, and biological systems industries.

Selected as 1 of 5 finalists for IBM’s SmartCamp in Silicon Valley 2010 from over 200 companies, only Canadian selected.

View IBM SmartCamp presentation here: 

Copyright © 2012 Wandering Shepherd.  All Rights Reserved.

Product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.

No animals were harmed in the making of this game.