Here beComes Everybody

ARG! For those of you unfamiliar with this acronym, you may be tempted to read it as “argh,” the sound of frustration often coming from me during the last few weeks of the semester. But “ARG” has a much more positive connotation for fans of Alternate Reality Games. They are a relatively new form of massively multiplayer game that  invite players to seek clues in their everyday lives and through various new media.

Before I get into what they are, let me first discuss what they aren’t. Alternate Reality Games have nothing to do with Virtual Reality, at least, not yet. Nor do they have to do with drug use, though players have reported increased levels of adrenaline and oxytocin. There are no psychotic breaks with reality, no rips in the space-time continuum. However, there is a distinct blurring of the magic circle.

In his 1938 work Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture, Dutch professor Johan Huizinga posited a space for play ” marked off beforehand either materially or ideally, deliberately or as a matter of course,” (10) a sacred playground the actual play of the game occurs, separated from the real world by a “magic circle.” It’s magic because the rules of the “real world” do not apply within its bounds — play takes over, and the game has begun.

In most games, that magic circle is well defined. We know when  stepping onto a basketball court that this is the area of play marked out. If the ball leaves that area, the game stops momentarily. When we turn on a video game, the magic circle envelops both machine and player.  Cut the power, and the magic circle disappears. What ARGs do is to not completely erase the magic circle — for that would be a scary and dangerous proposition — but to blur it a little.

Clues are placed in various media — YouTube videos, podcasts, websites, print publications, flyers around town, television, text messages, strange phone calls — and players decipher each clue to move onto the next. Because of the ubiquity of possible sources of clues, players view the world around them as texts to be read in search of these clues.  Alternate Reality Games operate via an aesthetic of “This is not a game”: the games themselves deny they are games and operate as if they were real life unfolding.

For now, the vast majority of Alternate Reality Games are constructed by commercial interests. These games are used as viral marketing tools, enveloping the players in narratives constructed around a product. Video games seem to have taken the lead in developing this type of marketing strategy, but games have been produced to market blue jeans, music artists, upcoming movies, and web and television series.

A few institutions outside of the commercial sector have already been experimenting with alternate reality games. Trinity University created Blood on the Stacks as an Alternate Reality Game to teach library research skills.World without Oil was a game created in 2007 to simulate a world oil shortage. The game itself is replayable, and provides information for teachers looking to implement it in the classroom.

Alternate Reality Games leverage the power of collective intelligence to solve complex puzzles. No one player can have all of the skills necessary to solve all of the puzzles, so ARGs are particularly adept at creating ad hoc communities. For educators interested in new media technologies and community building in the 21st century, ARGs provide a fun and immersive way to practice these skills of collaboration and problem solving.

The above mentioned games are obviously not exhaustive, so I’d suggest following the trail to the Alternate Reality Gaming Network to explore more.

Works Cited

Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Boston: Beacon P, 1950. Print.

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