Alternate reality games (ARG)

Alternate reality games are games that use many sources to create a game that is usually based in the real world. These games usually tell a narrative were human players can live with in the store and make it there own. ARG's break away from consoles and focus on media around the player meaning a player doesn't have to step into a created world fit with boundaries. Most ARG's use email, websites, texts and human communication to play the game meaning that there is a large amount of information being transferred through the use of transmedia at one time. The focus of the world is created out of the built imagination and hype of the players that communicate and work to together to learn the story and finish the game.

The first digital game ARG was created by Electronic Arts and was called Majestic which used the use of phone, email, AOL Instant Messenger, fax, and by visiting certain websites. The game was played by finding and using clues to work out puzzles that would lead on to the next. The game had a tag line "It plays you" the game was build around suspense and the need to learn more. You had to play $10 a month to play.
The first ARG was created for the film A.I and is throughly explained on the website :http://www.scribd.com/doc/6470266/The-Beast-ARG-Presentation-10208

Publishers have used ARG's to promote there own games such as large scale games like the Halo series and Call of duty series.
Bungie and Mircosoft got help to create a website called "i love bees" linked: http://www.ilovebees.com/index.html this website lead players through different puzzles and gave away information relating to the game and the halo universe. It was deemed as a success as thousands viewed the website and the website helped promote the release of halo 2 and target an audience they had missed out upon. Resently Activision used the same idea to promote the game Black Ops using Joystiq to set the game going by sending them clues and ways to solve a puzzle in which they released to the public and the public then follow the clue to a website that then slowly gave away hints and clues to what they were trying to promote. It turned out to be a conformation of the Zombie game type returning the call of duty series.

ARG's hit a large range of people while releasing narrative of you game world. With this companies can take the fans views and ideas and get free publicity ovally selling there idea without having to mass market the idea. It expands game worlds out of boundaries. Games that are just ARG's have limitless possibitys and could be endless as long as they can keep the audience happy. These games also show the dedication of the players because the feat of going out of your way in real life shows they are willing to do a lot for a small bit of game info. There world is a mix of given information and fan made ideas.


http://www.giantmice.com/features/arg-defined/
http://www.argology.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_reality_game
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majestic_(video_game)
http://www.pcworld.com/article/48191/majestic_you_dont_just_play_this_game_you_live_it.html