ARG (Alternate Reality Games)

Many ARGs in recent times begin as an innocuous, seemingly misplaced item that piques the interest of several individuals out of thousands. It only takes one curious person to explore the unusual link, advertisement or other medium to discover something that they then share on the web, where it proliferates wildly, pulling in an entire devoted community dedicated to breaking the code. ARGs use various forms of media to communicate with the player, including printed media, telecommunication devices such as the Fax or Telephone, websites, etc.

As one of the core rules, all ARGs do not classify themselves as a game. Although distinctions are made between reality and fictional content, most of these rely on a player’s common sense to distinguish and even then many players often lose their way, although a good ARG will constantly nudge them along the right path. In many cases, a PuppetMaster (PM) similar in role to a GameMaster of a typical classic RPG controls the actions within the game, the characters, and plot development.

A strong narrative is required for a successful ARG, together with the PM’s ability to innovate and adapt according to the arbitrary nature of the game’s players, as a too-rigid storyline would break immersion, while a too-loose storyline would be unsatisfying, confusing, or worse, create backlash for the product meant to be promoted.

A lot of the players are often required to partake actively in various ‘tasks’ assigned to them, or are self-assigned tasks, that help move the story forwards, often adding unexpected twists to the plot. This organic growth of the story is what keeps players interested as it involves a ‘real’ human element that prevents stagnation and is often an indicator of current real-world trends, which means it is relevant and interesting.

Similar to viral marketing, awareness for an ARG relies on a people-to-people network to spread and therefore must have a clearly defined audience to begin with in order to achieve maximum initial market penetration. In fact, many of these games are created as partial Viral Marketing campaigns. In a world connected via the World Wide Web, almost any given phenomenon will find an audience within minutes, making it a perfect place for such marketing efforts.