Örnebring, H ~ Alternate reality gaming and convergence culture

Örnebring, Henrik
2007
Alternate reality gaming and convergence culture: The case of Alias

Good review of ARG literature!

He doesn’t see consumers empowered at all. To him, ARGs are in the end just marketing for a media property. -> Of course he’s right, but that’s the point of EA: to change that!

448
I would argue that convergence culture does not work to dissolve the boundaries between texts and create trans-media narratives as much as it creates new opportunities to market a specific text or set of texts (such as a feature film, a computer game or a TV series) through other texts – i.e. there is still a ‘hierarchy of meaning’ among texts, where there is a clearly identifiable ur-text (in this case, the Alias TV series) that is marketed through other texts (books, comics and ARGs). The books, comics and ARGs might well refer to characters and events from the fictional universe of the TV series, but flows in the opposite direction (i.e. the TV series taking up narrative threads or using characters from other media texts based on the same fictional universe) are much rarer.”
“This tendency towards the celebratory is also visible in much of the previous research on ARGs [of Jenkins and others].” Consumer empowerment is a dream.

About the author

Woitek Konzal

Producer, Consultant, Lecturer & Researcher. I love working where technology meets media in novel ways. Once, I even won an Emmy for digital innovation doing that. Be it for a small but exciting campaign about underground electronic music collectives or for a monster project combining two movies, various 360° videos, 72 ARG-like mini puzzles, and a Unity game, all wrapped up in one cross-platform app – I have proven my ability to adapt to what is required. This passion for novel technologies has regularly allowed me to cross paths with tech startups – an industry and philosophy I am all set to engage with more. I intensely enjoy balancing out my practical work with academic research, teaching, and consulting. Also, I have a PhD in Creative Industries, a M.Sc. in Business Administration, and love to kitesurf.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply