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