
Introduction – (Mrunal Patel)

Game or not a Game??? – (Priyanka Patel)

Types of ARGs – (Dhaval Patel)
www.reperio.ca
 http://www.argn.com/
 http://whysoserious.com/
 http://www.mirlandano.com/arg-quickstart.html
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7638581.stm
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pd74It-yVo


Telling and producing a story while the audience
interacts with ARG
› May converse with fictional characters
› Ideas produced by players might be incorporated into
plot

Direct interaction is not required to affect the
narrative

In simpler words
› New genre of games that encourages players to
interact with fictional world using the real world to
do it
You are spending some time exploring the
internet
 Someone points you to couple of sites
 Tells you it’s a crazy mystery about some missing
monkeys
 So, you visit a site everyonelovesmonkeys.com


Everyonelovesmonkeys.com
› Pictures of monkeys

Everyonelovesmonkeys.com
› List of monkey zookeeper’s email addresses
 bob@everyonelovesmonkeys.com
 john@everyonelovesmonkeys.com
 evan@everyonelovesmonkeys.com
 crazymonkey@crazymonkeyman.com

Intrigued, you visit crazymonkeyman.com
› Concern that monkeys have been replaced by
robomonkeys!

What you have done?
› Used your real world computer to explore a bit of
fictional world
› You have also solved your first ARG puzzle

You decide to send a little email to
crazymonkey@crazymonkeyman.com to inquire
more about his concerns
You receive a reply
 What you have done?

You communicated with the fictional world using
your real world email
 You notice a contact number and decide to give
a call

› Someone answers your call

What you have done?

Now you are interacting
with a fictional world
using your real world
phone and your real
world i.e., “you”

Conclusion
› You were playing ARG when you were
 Exploring the websites
 Sending the email
 Calling the phone number

What is a game?
› ….an activity which is essentially: Free (voluntary),
separate [in time and space], uncertain, unproductive,
goverened by rules, make-believe.”
- Roger Caillois (1961)

4 Paradigms of a Game
› Defined rules
› Defined playing space
› Set of components/game pieces
› Win/Loss scenarios
Rabbit Holes
 Puppet masters
 Interactions
 Real World Events

Compelling Storyline
 Collaborative Gameplay


Delivery tools
› Web pages
› email messages
› phone calls
› print-based mailings

Dreadnot (1996)
› http://web.archive.org/web/20000229151210/www.sfg
ate.com/dreadnot/index.html
Blair Witch project (1999)
 Go Games and Nokia Games
 The Beast
 I love Bees

Promotional Campaign developed by Microsoft
and Dreamworks for Steven Spielberg's movie
"Artificial Intelligence”
 Clues planted in the postersDiscussion group "Cloudmakers“ www.cloudmakers.org
 3 million unique visitors by July

•Launched in July 2004 to promote Halo2

http://www.youtube.com
/watc
h?v=VeyskiiWRdI&featur
e=related
Aim: To attract gamer and media interest in the
Halo2 release.
 Ilovebees.com seemed to be infected
 Gamers help AI program (“the Operator”)
 Operator’s Goal

› Fix the spacecraft
› Gather the crew members
› Deactivate strange artifact (“The Artifact”)
› Return to Halo time and fight (“The Covenant”) army
Successful experience with the ARG “The Beast”
 3 storywriters

› Storyteller
› Community Lead
› Technology and Sound effects
Assemble the story of the Operator
 3 primary channels

› Hidden HTML code, email exchanges, sound files, and
images
› Voice clips sent to payphones
› A blog maintained by an imaginary character in the
game
The main goal is to create a buzz for the new
product
 Traditional marketing

› Traditional ads are expensive
› Time consuming
› Often highly ineffective
› Printed ads and commercials lacks power to create
necessary buzz

Advertisement with ARG
› Highly effective
› Fairly inexpensive
› Draws target audience into the story
› Treasure hunting
One of the successful ARG of recent times
 ARG was one of the major reason for the
success of the film
 Played across 75 different countries
 More than 10 million participants
 Used internet, mobile phones, real world events,
videos etc

Known as 33 keys ARG
 Mazda’s most successful marketing campaign
 More than expected people took part in the
ARG
 Events occurred over four weeks
 Took place across multiple platforms (Radio,
online, etc.)
 Game took place in Quebec (Canada)
 Main Goal: Solve puzzles to find 33 keys hidden
in different parts of Quebec

People win prizes by solving this ARG
 Funded through participation fees, in game
advertisement of other products
 Example

› Perplex City
 200K prize money
 Finding Receda Cube
Using ARG to solve real world problems
 Introduce plausibility as a narrative feature to
pull players into the game
 Serious subject matter distinguish Serious ARGs
from mainstream ARGs in design
 Examples

› World Without Oil
› Traces Of Hope
› The Black Cloud

Binding medium
› ARG uses multiple media
› Video games uses special software

Non player characters
› ARG – Real time by puppet master
› Computer AI

RPG vs. LARPG
› ARG don’t have fixed rules
› Players discover rules through trial and error
How secured it is for a real person to play in a
real world?
 Do alternate reality game damage children's
social skills?
 If ARG's can spark players to solve very hard
fictional problems, could the games be used to
solve real world problems?
