First of all, I have realized that I am not only interested in this topic, I am passionate, or even obsessed. When I started looking for some more sources and academic papers, I became totally immersed into the world of ARG. That should be sufficient for all the other arguments for why I have chosen this subject, but there is more. My doubts about a lack of sources and academic papers were premature. The ARG seems to be not only the temporary trend in the ground of gamers. ARG is in the constant process that develops and transfers. From small games made by groups of fans, through to the games designed for global players (The Lost Rings), and even to global activist games aiming to solve the global problems (World Without Oil, or Evoke). ARG is also used as a powerful tool in the world of advertisement, with enormous success (“The Art Of The Heist” – Audi, or “33 Keys” – Mazda), for this reason ARG is sometimes wrongly called a viral marketing tool. ARG is doing great, and as some voices in this field proclaim, it seems to be some alternative for gamers and marketing tools for this century.
For the same reason there are some books fully dedicated to ARG, like the Dave Szulborski book “This is not a game. A guide to Alternate Reality Gaming” (2005), or “Beyond Reality: A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming” by John Gosney (2005). However, as I mentioned also the scholars started to be interested in this field and there are enough journal essays and research to support my dissertation. A guru of the ARG and master of design this games, Jane Evelyn McGonigal is a games researcher, and a future forecaster for games, and also very active Doctor of Philosophy, with the dissertation “This Might Be a Game: Ubiquitous Play and Performance at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century” and many others publications.
However, I still have not decided the exact field or the title for my dissertation. I am considering two main areas: Immersion elements in ARG and how and why they affect players, and Analyzing ARG as a transmedia, interactive story which is read and written by the players, like a hypertext. Next week I will bring more precise answers because I have a couple of meetings with lecturers from our school who are specialist in the field of hypertext, interactive fiction, multimedia and new media in general.
But one is sure: I am in the rabbit hole.
There are few more examples of ARG from the masters and fathers of this gender "42 Entertainment"
42 Entertainment
The Dark Knight
42 Entertainment
Svergies Television; Sweden
The Truth About Marika
(won an International Interactive Emmy Award for Best Interactive TV-service in 2008)
No comments:
Post a Comment