Tony Morales stood nervously waiting next to the payphone, repeating the password he would have to give the voice on the other line.
It was late 2004, and security on campus was tight because of the upcoming presidential debates. The last thing Morales wanted was to attract suspicion.
But there was the police officer, quickly striding toward him. He had a lot to explain.
Morales, now a CIS senior, was participating in a groundbreaking game: "I Love Bees," a mash-up of a global scavenger hunt, a serial radio drama and a fictional online world loosely connected to the game "Halo 2."
Microsoft paid a fledgling group of game designers called 42 Entertainment to produce what is popularly called an "alternate reality game," or ARG.
ARGs blend traditional storytelling with the pervasive real-life elements of modern technology — making the game part of the player's everyday life.
Fictional e-mails, Web sites, instant messages and even phone calls from game characters immerse players in an "alternate reality." Players from communities both online and in real life solve puzzles, interact with characters and, in Morales's case, answer payphones.
Jane McGonigal is a veteran designer and games researcher who worked on the "I Love Bees" project. She says ARGs fill a need for the extraordinary among its players. "Real life is not necessarily always designed to help people be superheroes and rock stars and adventurers," she says. "We need an alternate version."
"I Love Bees" had players like Morales all over the world hunting down payphones at preset GPS locations to assist a fictional character from the game. The phones would ring with calls from the character, and players would answer with a secret password to unlock the game's story online.
Needless to say, whispering "Apocalypso" into payphones isn't the safest thing to do on a campus swarming with Secret Service agents. Yet players braved law enforcement, angry business owners and even a hurricane, all in pursuit of a ringing telephone.
ARGs inspire an intense level of dedication that can be incredibly lucrative to advertisers, McGonigal says.
"Having your favorite story or your favorite fictional world be more closely integrated with your real life [makes] you feel a personal connection to the story and the characters," McGonigal says. "The way that it's serving the purpose of the sponsor or the brand is by [giving] people this sort of emotional attachment and relationship."
This is a sharp contrast with traditional viral marketing, which uses word-of-mouth to directly influence consumers to make a particular purchase or see a particular movie, for example. McGonigal says viral marketing can often come off as intrusive or inauthentic when marketers infiltrate online communities and social networks.
"It's seen as having this destructive element," McGonigal says. "Nobody wants to be deceptive or unfair to players by trying to go viral."
Morales says he wouldn't have played the game if he felt like he was being advertised to.
Morales says "I Love Bees" didn't come off that way, and adds it actually made him more excited for "Halo 2" than if he hadn't played it. "Even though you knew it was to promote the game, they weren't shoving it down your throat."
McGonigal's latest project, like many ARGs, is top-secret for now. But she says she loves working on games that affect the way players see the world around them.
"We can sneak story and adventure into the real space that you're walking through," she says.
LINKS:
• ARGN.com: The definitive source for ARG news and the latest games, ARGN is the first stop for enthusiasts and newbies alike.
• CloverfieldClues.com: The online campaign for "Cloverfield" goes far beyond a couple of fake MySpace profiles. Start here to find out the hidden story behind that mysterious monster.
• Find815.com: This interactive game featuring a storyline from the TV show "Lost" is like an ARG for beginners, and is a great place for the casually interested to dive in.
Reach the reporter at: Sam.Gavin@asu.edu.
