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Alternate Reality Gaming 101 - iMedia article
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Varin
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 		Alternate Reality Gaming 101 - iMedia article
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/8508.asp

Quote:
Alternate Reality Gaming 101
March 03, 2006
By Joyce Schwarz

Curious about ARGs and how to use them in your campaign? Get the history of, and best uses for, this up-and-coming marketing technique.

Do you recall the scene in "The Matrix" when Morpheus says to Neo, "I imagine that right now you're feeling a bit like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole."? As fans know, if Neo takes the red pill, he stays in Wonderland and Morpheus shows him how deep that rabbit hole goes.

In an Alternate Reality Game (ARG), the rabbit hole is the first puzzle-piece or event signaling the beginning. ARGs are becoming increasingly popular as platforms today for "alt-marketing" gurus. Major brands such as Microsoft, Hasbro, Jet Blue, American Express, Sharp, Audi, Song Airlines and Stella Artois beer are staking out space in the ARG arena.

Alternate Reality Branding (ARB)

I bet you're familiar with lots of ARGs, and maybe you've even played in one or two and participated in an ARG offline event without even knowing who was sponsoring it, since that's one of the key tactics of ARG marketing or ARB (Alternate Reality Branding), as it's starting to be called. Often lumped into the term "all-inclusive campaigns," or "cross-platform promotions," ARBs are finally becoming a category of their own. Remember "I Love Bees," which looked like a small beekeeping business at first glance, but turned out to be a campaign to launch Microsoft's Halo 2 game? Or what about Audi's "Art of the Heist" designed by McKinney-Silver for Audi's A3? But unless you were part of the target audience, you may have missed Sharp Electronic's "The Legend of the Sacred Urns," and if you weren't in London last fall, you may not have seen Hasbro agencies' Tribal DDB and Tribal London use ARB tactics to turn the city into a "living" Monopoly Board to celebrate that board game's 70th anniversary.

Many more agencies and brands are starting to adapt ARG tactics of stealth marketing, microsites, big stakes contests and real world special events in a hybrid campaign to capture the cache of Augmented Reality Branding and encourage pull tactics that encourage players to tell the story to other players versus outdated "push" campaigns.

Blurring the lines

So just what is this 21st Century phenomena? Wikipedia.com explains-- an "Alternate Reality Game" is a cross media game that deliberately blurs the line between in-game and out-of-game experiences often being used as "a marketing tool for a product or service." Designing ARGs is both an art and a science. It can take months to a year to just design. It launches almost out of nowhere and then takes off, propelled seemingly only by WOM. In reality it is strongly supported by a well-planned infrastructure of cross-media. Before you delve in, you'll want to master the lingo: PuppetMasters-- the secret group that controls an ARG are behind the Curtain-- the layers of plot, technology and social contract between the players and the PuppetMasters. Players use a Guide-- a narrative of the experiences of gameplay, to discover clues and solve puzzles along a Trail-- a reference list of sites, clues and other items found during gameplay.

This is NOT a game!

During the adventure, avid followers and often innocent lookers are swept away on wild chases and quests across convincingly "real" but actually "faux" websites and real life (RL) locales. A multimedia mix of emails, microsites, text messages, IM, billboards, print and electronic ads draw the player into a fictional universe and virtual community. Thecrucial precept in Alternate Reality Games is the perception that "this is not a game." You don't want to tell the story; you want the players to tell it to each other.

New ARGs are launched almost every month, but few can match the success of Microsoft's ARG "I Love Bees," with three million players and a price tag of one million dollars. The campaign propelled the X-box video game Halo 2 into one of 2004's biggest hits. The designers of "I Love Bees," 42 Entertainment, are quoted as saying that they soon found that they weren't building games for individuals but for a "hive mind" composed of millions of walking, talking neurotransmitters that fast became a community online and off. The buzz lives on, and so does the website at www.Ilovebees.com. Last year, two years after the launch, players organized a Hivemeet in Chicago to relive the experience. A DVD compendium of "I Love Bees" was also released leading merchandisers to rethink how to "productize" other campaigns.

Alternate Reality Games may find their roots in role-playing from old text video games like "Zork" or in real-life geocaching GPS technology treasure hunts. Others point to improvisational theatre or performance art for inspiration. Film fans mention Silent Movie melodramas and modern magical realism tales like "Being John Malkovich"as sources. Jordan Weisman and Elan Lee (founders of 42 Entertainment) say their inspiration to create "The Beast," designed to expand on the themes of Steven Spielberg's "AI: Artificial Intelligence," was both Dungeons and Dragons and the Michael Douglas cult classic "The Game."

Dissect an ARG, and you'll find elements of immersive gaming, viral marketing, interactive fiction, social communities, virtual worlds and real-life publicity stunts that would make P.T. Barnum blush. Agency and brand budgets for online and new media continue to grow, but there is no source chronicling the rise of ARG advertising and sponsorship because the funds are often dispersed across such silos as special events, promotion, guerilla marketing and sweepstakes budgets. One indicator that there is plenty of opportunity for growth in the ARG space and evolving spin-offs is the growth of experience marketing. According to the Chicago-based IEG Sponsorship surveys, North American companies spent an estimated $5 billion of their $11.1 billion events budget on experiential marketing in 2004 with a projected 25 percent increase forecast annually beginning last year.

ARG Spin-Offs Growing

Inspired by the success of Alternate Reality Games, new spin-offs are capturing attention and funding. Most of these "mash-ups" include some elements of ARGs, but the curtain and the puppetmasters are often visible so ARG purists will insist they are outside of that box. The new "categories" that I see evolving include experiences that might be better termed Extended Reality, Mega-Reality, Alternative Reality, Collective Reality and Faux-reality. Here are some examples:

Extended Reality Games (ERGs) extend the drama, excitement and characters from films and television shows with a combo of online and offline experiences and adventures that span far beyond the norm. Some ERGs are created by entertainment brands or networks and studios while others are designed by the sponsors. The remake of the 1963 "Pink Panther" film opened the door for European smart car to feature its smartfortwo in a leading role as Inspector Clouseau's police car. Pink Panther aficionados are invited to "Pick up the Trail" and hunt for the stolen diamond at www.smart.com/pinkpanther. Online a lavish internet special draws players into a 3D and photo realistic experience where Inspector Clousseau personally greets them. Smart says that players are spending an amazing 10 minutes driving through the interactive indoor and outdoor scenes from the film gathering clues and tracking the thief and win a chance to be a finalist in a Paris smart fortwo road rally to track down the "diamond" in real life. What's so amazing is that the site continues to draw long after the American premiere of "Pink Panther," extending both the smart brand and feeding the post-audience appetite for even more Clousseau as a prelude to the European movie launch. In this case smart, not the studio, created the ARB experience.

Television is fast recognizing the value of Extended Reality experiences. One of the classics is the campaign for Sci-Fi Channel's "5ive Days to Midnight" mini-series that wowed even sage New Yorkers when something called the Buck Naked bar, featuring a young woman dancer gyrating on a silver pole, turned up in front of a Union Square shop window. Turned out it wasn't a scene from a movie or a lingerie promo but rather a live billboard designed by Seattle-based creative marketing shop Neverstop to recreate the opening scene of the upcoming "5ive Days to Midnight" mystery.

Page 2 of 2

Being "Monkish"

One of the most popular ARB-type campaigns still running is a new multi-level interactive game designed to generate buzz and loyal viewers for "Monk" created by Glow Interactive, New York for USA Network. The flash-packed game draws viewers into an office scenario and asks them to rearrange the paperclips on Monk's desk. The game, an online store selling "Monk" items, blogs, quizzes, interviews and video clips are all adding to the stickiness of the site which in just over two weeks, January 1-18 pulled in 1.5 million visits and 20 million page views and an astounding one million video streams. The Monk ARB is so popular that other brand advertisers want to be involved. Ads on TV show sites are becoming another revenue source for the networks.

Mega-Reality: Monopoly: Sometimes the scale of the Alternate Reality Branding campaign is so big it deserves to be called Mega-Reality since it is larger than life and lets players experience their favorite online video or board games in the real world. Last summer, Tribal DDB and DDB London pitted groups of five players against each other by giving them each a Monopoly fortune of 15 million pounds (fake) to invest in (real) London properties while linking their moves on the board to the locale of 18 GPS transmitter-equipped cabs (real). To add a fresh spin, Chance and Community Chest bonuses were sent via SMS (text messaging.) The ARG-type event made international headlines to celebrate Monopoly's 70th anniversary. Another example of Mega-Reality ARB style promos was the unexpected unveiling of an airplane cabin in New York's Soho district. Turned out it housed a cocktail lounge designed by Neverstop promoting the spirit and warmth of Song Airlines during the holiday season; it attracted more than 60,000 visitors in six weeks.

Alternative Reality: Nothing like a venture into an alternative universe to break up the workday. Last Call Poker, created by 42 Entertainment, turned out to be a tie-in with Activision's Gun console and PC game, but it functions like a high-end poker site. Quirky real-world poker tournaments in graveyards, of all places, across the United States attracted avid fans who got radio transmissions propelling them to the next play.

Collective reality: The Halo 2 "I Love Bees" and Sharp Electronic's ARG titled "The Legend of the Sacred Urns" all require a collective virtual community to solve the quest, or in Sharp's case, the hunt for a rare artifact. Vital clues were embedded in oddball TV commercials and visitors to www.moretosee.com could not only view the ads again, but also discover pointers to new clues. In an interesting twist, all of the game play took place on internet bulletin boards where players swapped and analyzed clues. Who wins the grand prize (in this case a Sharp Entertainment Center) becomes almost secondary to the group camaraderie.

Faux-reality: One of the toughest versions of Alternate Reality Branding to pull off is a version called Faux-Reality where false or misleading info appears real. The challenge in this arena is to walk the line between stealth marketing and punking the players. ARG enthusiasts are a sophisticated bunch that doesn't want to be punk'd. One brand that pulled off the ultimate faux-reality campaign is Audi with The Art of The Heist campaign, first unleashed at a live event in New York City as a game and then fueled by a torrent of interactive missions. At the same time the game was taking off, a shadow side popped up as bloggers and TV viewers started seeing notices searching for the person who stole a brand new Audi A3 from the New York Auto Show. A spy mission at a major music festival and a helicopter special effects finale in Santa Monica added real life drama to the faux heist.

If you're flying Jet Blue in April, you can turn on your seat's Direct TV screen and participate in what may be the first made for in-plane only reality show called "Share the Love" from American Express. A vote for one of the two families competing in a cross-country race to win a year's free travel will not only help pick the winner, but will also prompt a contribution to charities such as the Boys & Girls Club. Online at www.jetblue.com, consumers can also catch a peek at the videos and cast their ballot. The ARG-style race is designed by multiple agencies and an integrated team led by Nancy Smith, VP, global media and sponsorship marketing, American Express. Out of home and airport creative billboards, banners, posters and even luggage tags encourage you to "Share the Love."

Steeper Rabbit Holes

In the next year, watch for Alternate Reality Gaming and ARB to kick it up a notch to a new level of group player involvement as Hollywood heats up the arena. Making headlines in the entertainment trades is news that MMORGs (massively multiplayer online games) are in development by such major names as producer James Cameron, actor Vin Diesel and Imagine Entertainment. What makes these announcements so different is that the games are designed by Hollywood types to create virtual communities of fans for upcoming films or television shows. Step carefully-- the new Hollywood-style rabbit holes may be deeper than any we've gone down before.

Joyce Schwarz is an author, analyst and consultant on emerging entertainment. Her firm JCOM is located in Marina Del Rey, CA and specializes in launching next-stage media companies and products. She blogs at www.hollywood2020.blogs.com. Schwarz has organized such ARB-style events as turning New York into Hawaii for a week and the "Day in the Life of Paris" quest. She also consulted on the launch of Hasbro online.

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PostPosted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 1:16 pm
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colin
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 		wow
Now ARGs blur the line between themselves and not just reality Confused nice to see another new acroymn, ARB (I guess because marketers brand things, they don't make games)

How is monopoly an ARG?

PostPosted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 7:18 pm
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konamouse
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colin wrote:

How is monopoly an ARG?


That was just performance art combined with a contest that extended a small board game into real world.

I did a smaller version in art class in 1985 - we built a giant monopoly board, giant dice, giant pieces and "played" the game in the quad.

These guys just took it up in scale to real life.

Not Alternate Reality in any sense, just an "amazing race" to be the next realtor winner.
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 7:29 pm
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Phaedra
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Quote:
Last year, two years after the launch, players organized a Hivemeet in Chicago to relive the experience. A DVD compendium of "I Love Bees" was also released leading merchandisers to rethink how to "productize" other campaigns.


Two...years...after...the...launch?

Pinch me: ILB was in 2004, right? Razz

Although I am totally tickled that Hivemeet got a shout-out. Very Happy
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 12:14 am
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Ehsan
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 		This is what you get for saying the genre can't be defined because that will restrict creativity, and allowing people to come up with their own ARBs, RLs and ERGs.

/me goes back to his Mega Collective Alternative Pseudo Extended Fauxy Reality

PostPosted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 12:53 am
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colin
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 1:48 am
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SirQuady
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 		Of course, the birth date of ARGs differs depending on who you talk to... Ong's Hat, anyone?
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 6:11 pm
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krystynModerator
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 		omg.

... Allegory of the Cave, anyone?

/me can play this game, too!
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 8:10 pm
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SirQuady
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 		Afternoon. A story. Anyone?

So it's a game of name the ARG predecessor/old ARG, is it? Booyeah!
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 6:50 pm
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imbri
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SirQuady wrote:
Afternoon. A story. Anyone?


Classic. It should be absolutely mandatory for anyone interested in non-linear storytelling. Coincidentally, I was using it as an example for someone just the other day for an arg-related-something-or-other.


(as a side, I'm growing a bit tired of the ARGs are dead meme traveling around some circles... frankly, I see them as just waking up.)

PostPosted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 11:18 pm
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SirQuady
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 		I haven't actually read it, but i've heard alot about it. Gonna see if i can get my hands on it though.

EDIT: And who says ARGs are dead? ARGs ARENT DEAD! If ARGs are dead, then Elvis is alive, and he's leading Yoga classes in Istanbul, with a monkey named Stu, and a bunch of old barflies. It's like a poor sitcom! Wait, what was the question? Confused Screwy
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 12:08 am
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