This Is Not A Game by Dave Szulborski

Author:Dave Szulborski [Szulborski, Dave]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Alternate Reality Games, Alternate Reality Gaming, ARG
ISBN: 1411625951
Publisher: New-Fiction Publishing
Published: 2005-01-08T05:00:00+00:00

The cover of the book Dead Poems, written and published as an in-game item for Urban Hunt. Over one hundred pages long, most of the poems contained within had secret messages or puzzles encrypted into the text.

Chapter 15: The Current and Future State of Alternate Reality Games

Thanks to the overwhelming success of this summer’s promotional alternate reality game I Love Bees, the genre of ARGs is more active now than it has ever been. By using an alternate reality game to help launch the hugely popular and long awaited video game Halo 2, the developers of ILB have helped thrust the genre into the mainstream consciousness in a way it hasn’t been since the promotional game for the A.I. movie, the Beast. Unfortunately, the failure of Majestic right after the Beast dampened the enthusiasm for the genre at the time and certainly went a long way to discourage other professional companies from using ARGs as promotional or revenue-generating projects.

Today, however, not long after the ILB promotion has ended, the world of Alternate Reality Gaming seems poised to sustain the public interest and enthusiasm with several ongoing games and more scheduled for the near future. And it looks like the world of marketing may finally be catching on too, as there are more promotional campaigns going on now in the form of ARGs than ever before.

Alternate Reality Games as Marketing

After years of disappointment and confusion in the field of online advertising, alternate reality games promise to bring new life and potential to Internet marketing. Compared to other forms of currently available web-based advertising, nothing has the power to create and sustain consumer interest in a product like ARGs. The Halo 2 promotion I Love Bees is a great example, as the campaign successfully created and maintained a highly active and motivated online community for over three months, leading up the release of the video game. Not only that, the promotion actually motivated people to take action, by getting them to leave the medium carrying the message (in this case, the Internet) and go out in the world and accomplish something. All in all, the results of ILB were quite remarkable for any advertising campaign, let alone an online promotion. Additionally, by using a new and innovative marketing technique, at least to most people, the alternate reality game also generated a massive amount of free publicity over and above what Microsoft had already budgeted to market the Halo 2 game.

Other companies have apparently noticed the success of ILB too, as there are more and more ARG-like promotional campaigns surfacing all the time. Currently, there are major marketing efforts being conducted by Nintendo, Sharp Televisions, and Stella Artois, and many websites for major motion pictures and television shows that use elements of ARGs in their design. The shows Alias, 24, and Smallville have all incorporated online content into their shows in various ways, with hints that more extensive projects may follow. And finally, there are several companies looking to produce alternate reality games as commercial products in the near future, and probably many more nobody even knows about yet.

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