3. SOMEDEFINITIONS
ALTERNATIVE REALITY GAMES
- Alternative realities are the anti
escapist game
- “ARGs are games you play to get
more out of your real life, as
opposed to games you play to
escape it” (Jane McGonigal)
- Designed to make it easier to
generate four intrinsic rewards we
crave:
- 1) more satisfying work
- 2) better hope of success
- 3) stronger social connectivity
- 4) more meaning
4. Benefits according to Jane McGonigal
- Augments reality with motivating feedback systems
- Connects individual activities to a larger social experience
- Offers positive social feedback
- Offers consistent signs of improvement and leveling up
- Helps players participate more fully in the moment (“wholehearted participation”)
- Can change our habits and behaviors in reality:
- Our actions, language, perspectives, moods, relationships, etc.
BENEFITSOFARGS
5. - ARGs are played in real world contexts, instead of virtual spaces
- ARGs take place both within and layered on top of the real world
- ARGs are made by artists, researchers, game devs, nonprofit organizations
- ARGs are also co-created by players and exist only when played
- ARGs give rise to spontaneous citizenship and articulated organized communities
- ARGs are embodied performances of counter-narratives; acts of inscribing players’
bodies along alternative routes
- ARGs are not bound to a singular medium or platform
- ARGs are a transmedia experience that takes place across multiple media, platforms,
formats, and locations.
- ARGs often, but not always, gamify the world and reality into…
- points, mechanics, challenge, competition, creativity, fantasy, narrative
- experience points, leveling up, boss battles, levels, etc.
BLURRINGGAME&REALITY
7. - Life-management ARG - software or service that helps manage your real life like a game
- Organizational ARG - uses game design principles to create new institutions and
inventing new organizational principles
- Concept ARG - uses social media and networking tools to virally spread new game ideas,
missions, rule sets
- Live event ARGs - gather players at physical locations for a game
- Narrative ARGs - use multimedia storytelling (video, text, photographs, audio, etc.) to
weave real-world game missions into a compelling fiction that plays out over chunk of
time.
TYPESOFARG
8. “As such, while definitions have been slippery in this
nascent era of the genre, ARGs can be broadly understood
as digitally- mediated games that transpire within the
“real,” physical world. The layered-fiction of a game’s
premise—an alien invasion, recruitment into a secret
agency—unfolds across the physical landscape of
wherever players may be. In locating ARG gameplay in
specific times and places that are mediated and
delineated through digital interfaces, ARGs are unique in
their design, execution, and meaning for players.”
DEF.OFNARRATIVEARGS
ANTERO GARCIA AND GREG NIEMEYER
9. ANTERO GARCIA AND GREG NIEMEYER
“TOPLAYANARGISTODIVEINTOACOUNTER-
NARRATIVEENMEDIASRES,ANDTOCO-
GENERATESTORY,STRATEGY,AND
COLLABORATIONINREALTIME,INREALPLACES.
ARGSNOTONLYEXPANDWHEREANDHOW
GAMESAREPLAYEDBUTALSOWHO
PARTICIPATESANDTOWHATEXTENT.PERHAPS
MOREIMPORTANTLY,ARGSPUTINTOQUESTION
WHATCOUNTSASGAMEPLAYANDWHAT
COUNTSASAGENCYINTHETWENTY-FIRST
CENTURY.“
10. COMMONTERMS
ALTERNATE REALITY GAMES
- Rabbit holes - developed entry points into
the game
- Puppet masters - designers of the
experience
- Playing community - co-designers of the
experience
- Non-player characters - people or entities
who are part of the game but aren’t players
in the game
- TINAG (“This is not a game”) - a phrase
that is frequently used as a “means to
explicitly deny and purposefully obscure its
nature as a game,” which has “become
increasingly difficult as immersive players
grown more savvy about TINAG
techniques.”
12. “Alternate Reality Games (or ARGs) are built on the idea of
a shared story invading the physical world, and can
include scenarios of invading aliens, impending
apocalypse, or mysteries waiting to be solved. While some
incorporate technology or social media, many ARGs are
built by transforming objects and spaces in the learners’
physical environment. Players collaborate and react to
those ongoing stories through the mediation of the game
designer, and in so doing, build new skills towards the
intended learning objectives.”
EDUCATIONALARGS
ANASTASIA SALTER, THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
13. EDUCATIONALARGS
ANASTASIA SALTER, THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
Take advantage of narrative, collaborative gameplay, and
the combination of physical and digital experiences as part
of a learning experience
Like other ARGs, most include combination of real-world
activities in a physical location and digital media
