Kotaku: args

Red Cross Offers Traces Of Hope

Stuart Houghton — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 20:00:00 MDT

The Red Cross has launched a charity Alternate Reality Game called Traces Of Hope. Set in Uganda, the game lets you use real-world internet resources like email, Facebook and search engines to help guide a sixteen year old refugee - Joseph - back to his mother.

“We’ve pulled out all the stops to create an experience where players will feel they are really interacting with Joseph’s world – by communicating directly with Joseph, players find themselves caught up in a hunt across the internet to reunite him with his mother,” said Dorothea Arndt, British Red Cross, New Media Manager.

One slightly unfortunate side-effect of the game's quest realism became apparent when I realised I had missed four of the email messages from Joseph because I wasn't expectng them and they they triggered my mental Spam/Scam filter. Top tip guys, starting a seemingly unsolicited email with either "Hello! It is me Joseph... I am near Hopetown, Uganda!" or "Thanks for your email the other day" is going to set off alarm bells...

My idiocy aside, Traces Of Hope is worth a look. The Red Cross are a great cause and they are genuinely trying something new here.

[Traces Of Hope]

'Performative Play': Games and the 'Real World'

Maggie Greene — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 14:00:00 MDT

Ian Bogost has an interesting essay up on Gamasutra, this one on the performative aspects of video games. The beloved word of anthropologists and linguists the world over, the concept of something being 'performative' is when something has the ability to do something itself when it is thrown out in the big bad world. So, what does this have to do with games?:

Video games often face a challenge: what does playing a game do to people in the world? In the case of entertainment games, such a question asks about the effects of violence on players, or about how players find and evaluate meaning in games.

In training, advertising, and learning games, the question asks how players take knowledge they learned in a game and apply it in their daily lives. The motivational (and compulsive) aspects of games suggest other ways gameplay can influence behavior. But such matters cover only part of the intersection between our game lives and our ordinary lives ....

Performativity in discourse produces action. Performativity in video games couple gameplay to real-world action. Performative gameplay describes mechanics that change the state of the world through play actions themselves, rather than by inspiring possible future actions through coersion or reflection.

The performative aspects of games go far beyond 'serious' games, and Bogost has a number of interesting examples — good reading for a lazy weekend.

Persuasive Games: Performative Play [Gamasutra]

Building Another World - The Year Zero ARG

Mike Fahey — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 14:00:09 MST

Wired's Frank Rose takes an interesting look at the world of alternate reality games, tracking Trent Reznor's Year Zero ARG, in which he creates a future world ruled by Christian dictatorship, besieged by terrorists and wracked by climate change. The article explores the work that goes into creating a successful ARG and tracks the Nine Inch Nails game from start to finish. He speaks to 42 Entertainment's Jordan Weisman, who neatly sums up the appeal of games that go beyond the consoles and computers into the real world.

"Games are about engaging with the most entertaining thing on the planet," he says, sipping coffee in his guesthouse, "which is other people."

How much fun is it to pull off a good April Fools prank? Now imagine doing that to thousands of people at once. Seems pretty damn entertaining to me.

Secret Websites, Coded Messages: The New World of Immersive Games [Wired Magazine]

Weird ARG Mail Not Welcome

bogost — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 13:00:00 MST

Alice at Wonderland reports on some weird mail she got recently.

Yesterday, I received a package at work, addressed to me. My assistant opened it - a standard brown-paper photographs envelope - and looked worried. The contents were weird and scary-looking: a photocopied military report of some sort with a small brown envelope stapled to it. She looked at me: "ugh! What's in the envelope!? Anthrax?" ... I'm not going to find out: it's going straight in the bin. Nearly gave poor Carys a heart attack, and we both felt compelled to wash our hands after handling this stupid thing.

Having heard from another colleague who got a similar package, she suspects it might be parts of an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) — and one of the comments on Wonderland suggests it might be an ARG for the forthcoming EA title Crysis. As a still-fledgling genre of "big game" with only a few examples that are not promotions (mostly for other videogames!), is this the best way to spread interest in the form?

A strange thing in the post... [Wonderland]