Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) are a form of interactive fiction that uses a variety of media platforms to deliver stories, clues and puzzles. In marketing, their goal is to enhance and create buzz for a product. To get an idea of the concept, think Blair Witch Project, The Game with Michael Douglas, LonelyGirl15, even the whole Paul is Dead phenomenom.
ARGs are most prevalent in video game marketing. “I Heart Bees” for Halo 2 is known
as one of the best ever in the U.S. As we mentioned, the new Iris ARG was created to get buzz for Halo 3 (signature glyph at right). It even has entry points to the game on the cover of Wired. Fans follow the URLs to enter a world with secrets and puzzles, hazy realities and tricks all designed to tease them about the upcoming product release.
ARGs are perfect for the “hive minds” of youth because they require the collaboration of networks. While a young person might start out playing on his or her own, they reach out to others with the expertise needed to overcome new obstacles. This crowd-sourcing is seen in the wikis, blogs, and message boards that bubble up around them. In this sense, an ARG is a form of social gaming just like Halo itself, the Wii, or online games popular in China.
Beyond gaming, ARG’s have been used to create buzz for more mainstream
entertainment releases. NIN used an elaborate ARG to launch their latest album, Year Zero, with a secret website, USB drives left in concert bathrooms, morse code clues in audio tracks, images revealed through spectogram analysis of MP3s and visuals buried in music videos. The Lost Experience took fans of the ABC hit Lost on a hunt through websites, commercials, emails, phone numbers, and more, in search of pieces to a larger puzzle which, when solved, clued them into the shows deeper mysteries.
Here is some ARG jargon to have you talking like an ARG Gosu…
The puppetmaster is like the wizard behind the curtain. He or she designs and/or runs the ARG, both creating obstacles and providing resources for overcoming them in the course of telling the game’s story.
The curtain is the separation between the puppetmasters and the players. This can mean that all identities are concealed and unknown, or that the two groups do not communicate with one another except through the game.
The This Is Not A Game (TINAG) aesthetic dictates that the game should operate in teh real world: phone numbers should actually work, there is no space, there are no “rules.”
An ARGjacker is not part of the game but pretends to be in order to confuse players. Many are often new players who either don’t understand the concept.
The rabbithole or trailhead is the entry point into the ARG (a website, contact, puzzle, etc.)
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