Millions of Us Unveils First ARG
Published on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 by BlairARG - An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants’ ideas or actions.
For several months here at MoU, we’ve been working on a top secret project we’ve been dying to tell you about. We’ve begun developing on a new virtual world platform: real life.
2 weeks before the launch of the new Fox show “The Sarah Connor Chronicles” a website for an unusual company appeared. In their first video they claimed to have developed a tachyon camera that sensed faster-than-light particles and could therefore generate images of the future. Their first blog post generated significant online controversy, with 53 posts suggesting ways of testing the camera’s capabilities. In their second video, the researchers followed the audience’s suggestions, taking photos of mirrors, newspapers, and cityscapes. The images they revealed suggested a dark and apocalyptic future. Soon the audience became directly involved in the story, digging up similar camera devices around the United States. Finally, the researchers found themselves being hunted by a deadly entity seeking to stop their work permanently. The drama built to an explosive conclusion in the Sausalito parking lot of Enitech’s offices.
Now that it’s concluded we’d like to show you a bit of it. If you want to know more, check out Enitechlabs.com.
Links to more press coverage of the Enitech saga here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Special thanks to Evan Jones over at Stitch Media for all his incredible help and expertise on this project.
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March 13th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Wow, looks great.
March 13th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
First time here, but I did write a few blogs about this topic because I thought it was pretty cool.
So this ARG platform, “Real Life”, is this the basis for how you guys did this? I guess I’m a bit confused on what it means…how this Virtual Reality platform helped you do the Enitech stuff. I assume the whole thing was from you guys?
March 13th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Hey Mike, just to clarify, when I said “real life” I was just having a bit of fun. We were primarily discussing how everyday life can be used as a platform for alternate reality stories and games as what happened during the Enitech drama. By the way, I very much appreciated the comprehensive write ups on your site, PopCritics.com.
March 13th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
isn’t “Fight The Future” a trademarked name for the X-Files movie, and I’m certain you didn’t obtain the rights to the Terminator theme. Not that you’ll actually approve this comment.
March 14th, 2008 at 12:35 am
Hey no problem. I think you guys are onto something here, because of all the viral stuff out there, this one had such a “real life” feel to it that I sort of got hooked. Not as much as others, because I just don’t have time, but it was very ingenious.
Keep up the good work, I’d love to know about future ones you guys get into. I’ll be sure to pass them onto our readers.
March 14th, 2008 at 8:35 am
Re. the new ARG platform: We’ve considered using it before but had shied away because “Real Life” has always had a reputation for being a little buggy.
March 15th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
@MEP — the game was done IN COOPERATION with the SCC folks, so permission is assumed.
March 17th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Cool, I did not realize it was you guys doing this one. Of course here in the UK it was a little out of synch as the series has only just started.
ARG’s need a way to cover the timezones
March 24th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
That is just so supercool!
March 25th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
More bugs that SL?