A few days ago I published a post highlighting one possible reason why alternate reality games are perceived as hoaxes by some, and posited one strategy to circumvent the problem. The point seemed to caused a little confusion, as some thought I was saying that all the content and marketing should be targeted to the ARG community only. [Steve was right, this would be quicker over a beer at a conference.] To be clear, that is not how I see a launch operates in any scenario. Launches require putting lots of content out into different communities of interest. My point was that a work that looks indistinguishable from real content would benefit from having a community that identifies it as fiction early in the launch process. That is: to target the ARG community in the first wave. Whether other communities are targeted at the same time or slightly after is a design approach relative to the creator — but the point is to include an ARG community early.
But, since focusing on one strategy in isolation is evidently not the most effective approach, I will step back and look at the bigger picture. One of the issues with ARGs is that they are often referred to as hoaxes, and sometimes (rarely) experienced as hoaxes. So my questions have been:
1) Are ARGs hoaxes?
2) Why are ARGs referred to hoaxes?
3) Why are some ARGs experienced as a hoax?
4) Why is it most ARGs not experienced as hoaxes?
Last year DIY filmmaking pioneers Lance Weiler (The Last Broadcast, Head Trauma, WorkBookProject), Arin Crumley (Four Eyed Monsters) and M dot Strange (We Are The Strange) got together and came up with the idea for a film festival in which audiences can watch films they choose in theatres, in their living room, online and via mobile phones. Not only does this give audiences choice and the filmmakers a global audience, all filmmakers are welcome to submit, they retain their rights, pay no fees AND get revenue directly from the distribution outlets. They’ll also be running virtual panels. Here is some more info about their goals:
The festival’s goal is to create a direct connection between filmmaker and audience. There are no submission fees for filmmakers. FHTA attempts to create multiple revenue opportunities for the festival filmmakers by providing a platform that enables distribution across multiple outlets – mobile, online, living rooms and theaters. Filmmakers retain all their rights and choose how to price their work.
In an interesting twist we’ve decided to put the programming of the festival directly in the hands of the audience. By harnessing the power of social tools, audience members will be able to discover, share and assist in programming the festival.
FROM HERE TO AWESOME consists of four main parts.
1. Discovery – filmmakers and audience members use core features and functions of youTube and myspace to submit and select projects that will be showcased in FHTA.
2. Education – audience members learn filmmaking in an engaging and fun way that has them interacting with their peers and directly with showcased filmmakers.
3. Sharing – audience members enjoy interesting feature length and
short form entertainment which they have helped to program.
4. New Models – the goal of FHTA is to experiment with new distribution models for filmmakers that give them realistic options for reaching global audiences and seeing a return for their creative efforts.
In their generous style, they’re already sharing tips and tricks:
In 1997, academic and designer Janet Murray published a book called Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. It not only gave voice to the dreams of technologists, fans and universe creators, but also inspired more. The thematic thread of Murray’s excellent book is the notion of the holodeck:
First introduced on Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987, the holodeck consists of an empty black cue covered in white gridlines upon which a computer can project elaborate simulations by combining holography with magnetic “force fields” and energy-to-matter conversions. The result is an illusory world than can be stopped, started, or turned off at will but that looks and behaves like the actual world and includes parlor fires, drinkable tea, and characters, like Lord Burleigh and his household, who can be touched, conversed with, and even kissed. The Star Trek holodeck is a universal fantasy machine, open to individual programming: a vision of the computer as a kind of storytelling genie in a lamp. (Murray, 2000 [1997], 15)
Murray (and others) hold up the holodeck as the ultimate storytelling machine. What can be more exciting than entering an fictional space that is indistinguishable from reality? There are many that are working hard to create technologies and content that will manifest this vision: sensory devices (both sensing us and enabling us to sense it), realistic graphics and artificial intelligence programs smart enough to do anything. All these efforts aim to make a work of fiction seem real, but they do not attempt to bring the fiction into real life. The holodeck is a separate space, in a magic-circle that one enters. What of a work of fiction that operates in your own life?
While this experience of fiction is not everyone’s cup of tea, it is very exciting to others. It is one of the attractions to ”alternate reality games”, as ARG designer Dave Szulborski explains:
In an alternate reality game, the goal is not to immerse the player in the artificial world of the game; instead, a successful game immerses the world of the game into the everyday existence and life of the player. (Szulborski, 2005, 31)
An alternate reality game is anything that takes your life and converts it into an entertainment space. (Lee in Ruberg)
ARGs are not the only format this desire towards a real world immersive space has emerged though. Practitioners of many different properties are playing with ”furnishing” their fictional world with creations that look real and exist in your own world. What I’m also interested in is what happens when this urge to have fiction enter your real world and ubiquitous computing takes hold. As a background to the idea, here is a short clip from Robert Zemeckis’s 1997 feature film Contact. I have used this in some of my talks over the last couple of years to illustrate the possibilities:
I’m not talking about stalking audiences! No, instead I’m interested in what it would be like to have that film scenario experienced in real life, but with fictional content coming through the various media. Indeed, how this can be experienced within a media integrated home. Well, a short while ago I posted about an an ”Anytime/Anywhere Content Lab” (AACL) being built by the Entertainment Technology Center at the University of Southern California (with big entertainment industry sponsors such as Disney, LucasFilms, NBCUniversal, Fox, Sony, Paramount). It is described as ”a modular, state-of-the-art, research and testing site where the industry can explore how consumers interact with high-quality entertainment in an integrated environment”. Here is their artist’s vision pic:
This lab is a wonderful opportunity for creators to experiment with testing creations that employ ”concurrent” and ”simultaneous” media usage (which I’ve posted about a couple of years ago here, here and here), but also for coming up with (what I think is) exciting media-integrated experiences. Imagine you come home after just getting the latest Alternate Reality Home ModuleTM. You and your partner put the special ”Game in Play” message on your door and then load the special USB drive into your computer or special device. It does a system check to ensure all your household devices are connected either with cables or wireless. It installs any special plugins your toaster or fridge might need, loads all the programs needed, asks if you want to know how long the experience goes for, the verbally-triggered ”STOP” command and whether you’re ready to commence. You look at each other with eyes wide and giggle. Click.
The lights go out. Your TV starts up and so you wander to the loungeroom. On the screen is a news report on an event that happened just a few minutes ago. You watch it, gathering all the details you can, trying to figure out what the events on screen will mean for you. You hear your kettle boil. The game obviously wants one of you in the kitchen while the other finishes watching the news report. You make two cups of tea while your heart pounds. You hear voices upstairs, freeze, then realise that the radio in your bedroom has turned on. You go upstairs, slowly, and enter your bedroom. The radio is another news report, but this time you’re hearing live calls from people at the event. The phone rings. You answer it and get a government recording telling you that you need to evacute your home immediately and go to this location. You run downstairs to your partner who excitedly says he’s found out something but you tell him you’re got to leave immediately. Your partner looks at you with raised eyebrows. Really? Yes! Cool. Your partner quickly prints out what he found while you grab blankets, your mobile and a torch. You both jump into your GPS-enabled car and….
Now, there are a whole lot of other things one can do in the home, and it doesn’t have to be scary-style. Design issues would include working out how much time people would need to figure something out; leaving cues in the peices as to when a player can leave them (so they don’t feel stuck), indeed: encouraging agency; also balancing the joy of discovering against the game revealing everything for you; using devices to create a setting and tone and for narrative information above mere suspense or house-navigation; a system that can discern the spatial location of your devices to ensure the position of participants is utilised to the greatest degree and so on. But I like the possibilities…Do you have any ideas how the media-integrated home can be used for entertainment?
