Ask YC: What do you know about ARGs (Alternate Reality Gaming)

[jasonlbaptiste]

Hey Guys,

I'm helping a friend gather research on ARGs to help her launch her startup. I figured some of you may know yourselves or someone who does know something about ARGs. You can leave the comments here or email me at jason [at] publictivity.com

Examples of popular alternate reality games/campaigns are:

-i love bees (halo 2) -lost experience (lost) -the beast (AI movie in 2001. it started the genre off) -recent dark knight campaign with citizens for gotham

[nickmolnar]

I have created two small ARGs, Faceless Invasion and FCLSNY. Since then I have spent extensive time researching the genre, trying to figure out how & why it is effective. I'd be happy to share what I know if your friend has some specific questions.

[jasonlbaptiste → nickmolnar]

awesome. is faceless invasion the same one as this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Faceless_Invasion

Let's connect offline. jason [at] publictivity dot com

[lpgauth → jasonlbaptiste]

Wow, if this is the one this sounds cool... I live in Montreal and would love to try this out.

[nickmolnar → lpgauth]

Unfortunately, that was a one-time event. A great time was had by all, but I am no longer living in Montreal. It will continue, but in another city and in a completely different form. Faceless Invasion is a broader organization, and each game aims to be both subversive and unique.

[drewcrawford]

I played perplexcity. It was fun and interesting, and the fact that they had money behind it (and could hire helicopters and actors and stuff) made it stand out.

That said, I think you can do a good job without much money if you shoot for the niche. I live in a small, boring town with a lot of bored college students, and I've thrown around the idea to make a local low-budget ARG more than once and it's been met with a lot of interest.

[jkent → drewcrawford]

PerplexCity was great - an ARG that gave away $500,000 if you found the prize. They paid for that by selling game cards (difficulty: 30min crossword to a proof of the Riemann Hypothesis).

However, the VC-backed company didn't deliver the second wave as promised and now does something else. It was one of the first serious attempts to commerciaise ARGs.

[jasonlbaptiste → drewcrawford]

mind sharing what interested people?

[drewcrawford → jasonlbaptiste]

Well like I said, I live in a small town with lots of bored college students. It's easy to get support from:

* Local historical society, has a ton of info and is only too happy to share ("Youngin's these days don't care!") etc. etc. Excited that young people will be researching the town's history.

* Local newspaper, willing to let us have the entire newspaper archives in exchange for digitizing it for them. At the end of it we will have an entire searchable DB of hundreds of years worth of plot and character info.

* Local newspaper, willing to give us free press because it's more exciting than printing about Sherrif Farmer's dog or whatever else they fill up space with

* Local college students and student associations (engineering/nerd school), bored to tears with Nerf Wars or whatever else it is they do on weekends and are willing to do insane amounts of work for even a modest reward

* Local college is based around a historical person and is only too happy to learn he is a major character in the plot, instant writeups from student journalists and support/goodwill from college staff, invaluable help from professors

* Lots of bored CS students with nothing better to do. There's plenty of bored website designers and so on, and enough really competent people that we can roll out a small voip network or build a few robots into the landscape (trapdoors in abandoned buildings and whatnot)

This is, I think, the recipe for our success in a small college town. I would not take this route at all if you're trying to hit some urban area (from your initial post it looks like you're doing it as marketing, so quite frankly I wouldn't recommend doing any of this if your intent is to reach large groups of people). I should also note that this is just a side project (and a long-term one at that), I expect to take a few years planning before I actually do it (I have a startup that requires all my attention in the meantime).

[jasonlbaptiste → drewcrawford]

I think doing smaller ARGs can definitely have benefits. When doing events and real life interaction you want to focus on smaller communities if your budget is small.

[warwick]

I'm currently reading "Halting State" by Charles Stross, it contains some good scenes showing the characters interacting with an ARG. Not necessarily research material, but it goes to show how playing an ARG could fit within life.

[dandelany]

I was way into ARG's... I played The Beast and Dave Szulborski's excellent "Chasing the Wish," as well as a few others. I also PM'ed (puppetmaster'ed, for those not up on their ARGonyms) Lockjaw, and I believe I wrote a puzzle or two for Urban Hunt. ARG's are a lot of fun and tend to be surprisingly innovative, though actively keeping up with their goings-on can quickly become a full-time hobby.

If you're interested in talking further, let me know: dan [d0t] delany [at] gmail

[jkent]

In the UK, Cancer Research commissioned an ARG competition. Proposals were taken and the winner got £1k to develop their ARG.

The person behind the idea runs a small ARG consultancy, http://www.sixtostart.com/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2007/oct/02/b...

[MaysonL]

Check out the Institute for the Future: http://www.iftf.org/ and their resident game designer Jane McGonigal.

From their site:

Chronicle the dark world of 2019. Then help us figure out how to fix it.

On September 22nd 2008, the Institute For the Future will launch the world’s first Massively Multiplayer Forecasting Game: Superstruct.

[UandIblog]

Delve deep into everything Trent Rezner does. Not only is he a master of exploiting the power of ARG's but you can see hints of his ARG mindset when he and NIN release product/content.

[jasonlbaptiste]

btw, here is an AWESOME whitepaper on ARGs:

http://www.igda.org/wiki/Alternate_Reality_Games_SIG/Whitepa...

[beaudeal]

i really love playing ARGs myself when i can find the time, and i have some ideas on the back-burner for making one someday down the road -- in the mean time i have another project i'm working on, but i would imagine making/executing an ARG would be rather fun -- if you're looking for more info, the people at unfiction.com are great and despoiler.org is a great resource as well...good luck!

[elai]

Dennou Coil is an uses an 'alternative reality/VR' that overlays the real world with transparent glasses as it's plot device. It's pretty good!

[sabat]

Well, you didn't mention The Game (movie, 1997). It actually started the genre, and inspired a real-life game called Majestic which technically predates The Beast. It's very much worth watching for inspiration.

Majestic was lackluster but ambitious: it wanted to be a realization of The Game but lacked the necessary good writing and good acting to pull it off.

I've often wondered at what point technology and its side-effects will allow people who are dissatisifed to create or join alternate realities and literally tune in, turn on, and drop out. At what point can you say that you have effectively stopped living in 'reality'?

[jasonlbaptiste → sabat]

ive seen the game before, but rewatched last night. awesome movie. yeah, majestic was just right after the beast. those two are the fathers of the genre. EA discontinuted majestic though.

I think technology is making the line blurred between two realities.

[nickmolnar → jasonlbaptiste]

The Game didn't really start the genre. Microsoft was doing ARGs internally before 1997, and possibly provided some of the inspiration for the film. There was also Dreadnot which predates the film as well.