Prior to working on the design of the Techno Medicine Wheel ARG, I was playing ARGs on and off just out of curiosity. I just missed my chance to go to the live event in Texas for the promotional GUN ARG, since I had to fly out that day, so I’ve never had the opportunity to actually participate in the live event side of ARG play. I’ve broken down some examples of ARGs into rough categories I made up (a call to my ARG people to critique the categories, add to them, and add examples).
Although the design phase of Techno Medicine Wheel is over and I’ve had to move on to focus on my dissertation research, I’d like to continue work in ARGs for social change with a First Nations take in the future. I feel that ARGs are a fascinating form of viral marketing mixed with play that can be used for non-profit purposes.
The “wtf was that?”: Think Blair Witch Project. Something is audio taped, video taped, or photographed, which is claimed to be real. The “alternate reality” is in manipulating imagery/audio to make us question what we “know.”
401 (http://401wtf.wikispaces.com/) – Ashton Kutcher appeared in the MTV show with signs with messages that led to a website with a very bizarre video hidden in the text.
The “message from the future”: A message is found which unravels a story jumping from one media to another.
The Beast (http://www.seanstewart.org/interactive/args/) – Made as an extension of the AI movie, a web site from the future leads to another leads to another leads to another, revealing a sorted tale of robots accused of murder and robot rights.
ilovebees (http://www.ilovebees.com/) – Made as an advertisement of the video game Halo, a message popped up on a website which led to audio recordings, puzzles that revealed GPS locations of phone booths where more messages could be received, all sent from a future/different reality.
The “imagined future”: There’s a different future imagined and coped with.
World Without Oil (http://worldwithoutoil.org/) – What if we ran out of oil? This one is put together by Jane McGonigal, who also worked on ilovebees. She’s looking at using ARGs for social change.
Year 0 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Zero_%28alternate_reality_game%29) – Follows up from the NIN CD and may be turned into a movie, storage devices with music files are left in bathrooms at concert locations and other destinations, revealing a story about a dystopian future.
The “mystery in the present”: Something different is happening around people, and although fictional, made to be “real,” thus making it an alternate reality within our timespace.
Last Call Poker – Made to advertise the video game GUN, the site was a free poker site which people gave personal phone numbers to. Automatic calls with odd messages (like someone in a fire accidentally patching in to your phone and calling for help) about mysterious deaths led to the story of a gun, from the game GUN, wild west era, which was bad luck in our present time. They met at graveyards late at night (illegally, ooo) to play live poker games.
(Can’t remember) – There was another one I can’t remember the name of now that was actually meant to promote a new car. There was a website with a mistaken login that led to messages about a party, which was really held. People could join up and go to future real live events held by other groups but they had people in the audience passing out secret booklets to those that wore certain symbols I believe.
