I have been listing to the Tech weekly podcast from The Guardian. This week Adrian and Dan hong have been interviewed about there ARG Young Bond which is to promote the last book in the series of The Young Bond. Some good information has been said by both developers mentioning technology and what there game does and how it works. There company Six to Start has had a lot of work and is creating ARG's to help advertise books, shows and more. They even helped at advertising Misfits on E4 and got more visitors than the itv x factors forum.
The first thing i would like to mention is how they discussed their issue of time and technology, to make a ARG real its putting you/the player into the story. But they relized that they had a problem, a story that is set in the past. How can they then get players to feel part of this story when they are using modern society technology to simulate being in the past? What they mentioned was instead of usual websites they used creativity to make webpages that looked like billboards so it would be something you would of interacted with back in the set date. This both a problem with technology with ARG's and also a good point with technology of ARGs. "Most if not all Alternate reality games are based in the present or future. You can involve mobile phones, mobile and all these different things and it makes sense to have website and google." They also discussed how this would become repetitive and how it already is in a way. How games are repeating puzzles and hiding information in similar ways.
They next moved on to discuss the freedom in creating a story for a ARG, and how they can have freedom in writing but overall its what the company wants. They are interactive with the main story writers and this allows them to create more purpose built stories to extend onto what they are trying to market. There latest ARG Young Bond plot was written by the write of the books they are advertising so this means there isn't going to be a jump of difference in story or style. Difficulty curves are hard to predict as the mass of players may vary in age, intelligence and how good they are at playing ARGS. Six to Start have mainly focused on easier games and fun.
People today are more used to the internet and using technology, even from a early age. Today ARGs are falling under the marketing title and its harder to get people to pay for games when most are free. 'traditionally people have seen things like alliterative reality games as something that should be free'. Perplex City was a game that shown how ARGs can be self funding.
Perplex City was created by Mind Candy, this game told a story of a aftifact was stolen and buried and a reward would be given if found, the reward £100,000. It funded itself with a optional buy and receive cards. The more cards the better chance of finding out the clues and hints but the game could be won without paying for the cards. This ment they were getting the best out of the community with people willing to spend and players who wouldn't spend, the game got over 45000 registered players.
They briefly mention how there needs to be a cultural change to companies if ARGs are going to be able to produce games for charities and games that have series.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/audio/2008/sep/02/tech.weekly.podcast?popup=true
http://www.sixtostart.com/
http://www.youngbond.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perplex_City
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/audio/2008/sep/02/tech.weekly.podcast
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
Monday, 7 February 2011
History Of ARGs
There is alittle speculation to what was the first ARG. According to many and ARGology.com the first arg was a book created by a writer called Gilbert Keith Chesterson. He was able to write a series of books which all followed a single story line and at points linked due to apparent hidden messages in the books. This has lead people to believe this was the first ARG as it combined elements of interwineing narrative, clue finding and making the story more realistic. The book the The Club of Queer Trades (1905) shows how far back the ideas of bringing stories into the real world began.
The next ARG which was designed to be a non-commercial game was created by San Francisco Chronicle called in Dreatnot in1996. This Game Included the main components of a ARG today with working voice machines, Real people, Phone numbers, Real Locations, clues and different websites. This is what today we class as a ARG, a story that spreads through clues and real life intrustment's bringing story to life. With Technology only getting better the rise of ARGs began as they used these elements more and more to come a part of the gaming industry.
The Beginning of adverstiment through the use of a ARG was created to promote "The Blair Witch Project". A viral campaign that used elements of a ARG helped promote the film. (http://www.blairwitch.com/) The website used different media to help express a backstory to the film and help introduct the film. They created a fake documentary Scifi Channel to bring the story to the real world.
These games and viral ads lead us to the most famous and popular ARGs as the population and popularity grew. "The Beast" is one of the most famous and popular ARGs of all time. Created to market the 2001 Film A.I by Dreamworks and Microsoft. The events of the ARG began after the evnts film itself. The idea was to create a murder mystery with 2 rabbit holes leading players through different events. Hidden information was put into trailers and also this was the first time placement of ARG was created. Posters were sent to companies with information relating to the ARG. This was a good way to target an audience for the ARG. The total duration of the game lasted 3 months over that time there was over 30 game websites, live phonically to players and rallies relating to groups of the game. This game created a mass buzz as people could see the events unfolding as 3 stories got more intwining and people could see the game effecting real life.
This took effort to create the game and keep it running smoothly with weekly updates. A group amerced out of this game calling themselves the Cloudmakers. This was a Yahoogroup who set out to solve the game and reached thousands of players and over 40,000 messages send around the players. This group even influenced the games development and made people feel more apart of the game. This ment top dedication and thought when into looking after the players and the fans knowing they were on the 'Hook'. This game was deemed the first real 'ARG' and earnt its name as the one of the greatest ARG's created.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_alternative_reality_games
http://www.argology.org/history-of-args/
http://metapancakes.com/?p=31
http://www.scribd.com/doc/6470266/The-Beast-ARG-Presentation-10208
The next ARG which was designed to be a non-commercial game was created by San Francisco Chronicle called in Dreatnot in1996. This Game Included the main components of a ARG today with working voice machines, Real people, Phone numbers, Real Locations, clues and different websites. This is what today we class as a ARG, a story that spreads through clues and real life intrustment's bringing story to life. With Technology only getting better the rise of ARGs began as they used these elements more and more to come a part of the gaming industry.
The Beginning of adverstiment through the use of a ARG was created to promote "The Blair Witch Project". A viral campaign that used elements of a ARG helped promote the film. (http://www.blairwitch.com/) The website used different media to help express a backstory to the film and help introduct the film. They created a fake documentary Scifi Channel to bring the story to the real world.
These games and viral ads lead us to the most famous and popular ARGs as the population and popularity grew. "The Beast" is one of the most famous and popular ARGs of all time. Created to market the 2001 Film A.I by Dreamworks and Microsoft. The events of the ARG began after the evnts film itself. The idea was to create a murder mystery with 2 rabbit holes leading players through different events. Hidden information was put into trailers and also this was the first time placement of ARG was created. Posters were sent to companies with information relating to the ARG. This was a good way to target an audience for the ARG. The total duration of the game lasted 3 months over that time there was over 30 game websites, live phonically to players and rallies relating to groups of the game. This game created a mass buzz as people could see the events unfolding as 3 stories got more intwining and people could see the game effecting real life.
This took effort to create the game and keep it running smoothly with weekly updates. A group amerced out of this game calling themselves the Cloudmakers. This was a Yahoogroup who set out to solve the game and reached thousands of players and over 40,000 messages send around the players. This group even influenced the games development and made people feel more apart of the game. This ment top dedication and thought when into looking after the players and the fans knowing they were on the 'Hook'. This game was deemed the first real 'ARG' and earnt its name as the one of the greatest ARG's created.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_alternative_reality_games
http://www.argology.org/history-of-args/
http://metapancakes.com/?p=31
http://www.scribd.com/doc/6470266/The-Beast-ARG-Presentation-10208
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