“Any way that humankind has invented to lie to each other should be part of your storytelling toolkit.”

Storytelling generations

Bard 1.0 – old dead Greek blind guys
Bard 2.0 – Greek theatre – parallel bards
Bard 3.0 – book – scalable bards
Bard 4.0 – cinema – parallel scalable bards
Bard 5.0 – digital storytelling (not the Hartley type)

Lance describes the order of events in the remixed version of Head Trauma. He talks about how he remixed Head Trauma, added ARG and many other live elements. He calls this “cinema ARG”. But I’m not sure if he mentions the term here.

Then he talks about how the language of storytelling is all new. Of course, certain fundamentals are going to stay the same – like the idea of conflict, for example. But the language of how everything is done is changing A LOT at the moment.

9
Definition-ARG:
“An interactive drama played out online and in real-world spaces, taking place over several weeks or months, in which dozens, hundreds, or thousands of players come together online, form collaborative social networks, and work together to solve a mystery or problem that would be absolutely impossible to solve alone.”

10ff
“6 key terms that describe ARGs”:

• cross-media
• pervasive
• persistent
• collaborative
• constructive
• expressive

Definition “bible”: Transmedia Rollout Strategy (8:40 mins)
“a highly detailed account of all the characters that will be in the story, the heroes and villains, the locations, how the technology works, what the messages and themes of the property are, and how the property will be implemented across multiple media platforms. And we call that the transmedia rollout strategy.”

“Starlight Runner has 5 employees full time and we form the production skeleton of anything that’s going to get done.”
The projects are so varied that they have to mix and match people according to the project.

WorkBook Project (18.05.2010)

Says ARG has become a term used for everything and has therefore lost its meaning.

Definition “ARG”:
“In fact, ARGs are not defined by what they are, but what they are not. ARGs are not videogames or computer games. They are not casual games. They are not traditional sports games, or board games, or playground games. But they are essentially everything else that involves some sort of game-like experience or play, and that is why we are seeing such a confusing collection of things being called ARGs.”

“I think that the term ‘ARG’ is an umbrella term de facto used for the class of games that do not fall under traditional game definitions, and the reason why it is gaining such prominence and momentum is because of a blossoming of non-traditional games.”

“In time, better sub-classifications will crystallise out of our experimentation, and genres of ARGs will emerge, just as the genres of videogames are now well-known. For now, though, we should recognise and savour the happy confusion that exists, and embrace the freedom that this wholly alternate class of games gives us.”

A comment by a developer probably:
“An ARG is a game that requires a greater-than-average intellectual and imaginative wattage from its players if they are to get from the experience as much as the creator hopes they will.
Which doesn’t bode well for the chances of them ever going mainstream…”
I think they CAN go mainstream, but they have to become easier accessible.

mssv.net (11.05.2010)

“When I think about these [story/media] outlets, I think about them in terms of like OK if they have the individual arc and then I have the overall arc in the full story, and it becomes about how I pace it, how I get it to an audience, and how I have them interact with it.”

Definition “story architecture”:
“Story architecture to me is kind of the idea of what effectively is a kind of fluidness of creative, technology in terms of how you actually deliver these things, how do you scale them, how do you get them to these various outlets. How do you make it an experience that somebody is going to be engaged by and want to continue to you know hopefully tell somebody else about. And then, you know, business. The last part is kind of entrepreneurial, you know, how do you actually derive your revenue streams from this. How do you actually look at it in a meaningful way, so it is ?impactful? [5:26 min] for yourself.”

“Once you have the data, and it is the future of everything, you know, if we look and we say search was the future, you know, a number of years back, it really is about discovery, it really is about filtering. And a lot of this discussion throughout the day, throughout this whole thing, you know, this conference, is going to be about how do people discover and find you in a world that is swelling with content.”

“What is interesting is, like, normally we started with like a three act structure in a screenplay. In the case of some of the work we have been developing it starts with the build of a universe, bible, game bible, show bible, where we kind of go through and define the world, define the interactions, define the characters, define the rules, and then from there it becomes this amazing kind of depth of information where you know more about the subject than you ever did before.”

xiii
Definition ARG: “[ARGs] are interactive stories in which you, in the audience, are also a crucial character, and your decisions drive the narrative.”

xiv
“In my career as a novelist, at best I have gotten the occasional fan letter. After several of our ARGs, I have been invited to the weddings of people who met and became engaged in the course of the game.”
“The nature of a pervasive game, in all the many varieties discussed in this book, is to make the “magic circle” of a game not a barrier, but a membrane; to let game and life bleed together so that game becomes heavy with the reality of life, and life becomes charged with the meaning of game. As Elan said, “The player’s life should be the game board.” An interviewer, talking to one of the players, asked, “When you are playing one of these games, who are you pretending to be?” To which the player replied, “Basically, you’re playing someone who is exactly the same as you in every way, except they think it’s real.“”

xv
“”Come. Play with us. If you are willing to suspend your disbelief, we will make it worth your while.”"
“To live, this kind of entertainment needs access to your life. Pervasive games, like vampires, can only enter if you let them in.“

Chapter 2 in Montola, M et al ~ Pervasive Games

31ff
Established PG genres (31):

• Treasure Hunts (32)
• Assassination Games (34)
• Pervasive Larps (35)
• Alternate Reality Games (37)

Emergins PG genres (40):

• Smart Street Sports (40)
• Playful Public Performances (41)
• Urban Adventure Games (42)
• Reality Games (44)

35f
“Pervasive larp is a style of pervasive gaming that utilizes live-action role-playing techniques. The central requirement is physical acting with character-based make-believe and pretend play: Role-playing requires the players to pretend and perform being someone else. [...] Live-action role playing (larp, sometimes also called theater style) involves physically acting out as a character in an environment that has been propped to look like the diegetic setting.”

37f
Definition ARG:
“Alternate Reality Games take the substance of everyday life and weave it into narratives that layer additional meaning, depth, and interaction upon the real world. The contents of these narratives constantly intersect with actuality, but play fast and loose with fact, sometimes departing entirely from the actual or grossly warping it – yet remain inescapably interwoven. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, everyone in the country can access these narratives through every available medium – at home, in the office, on the phones; in words, in images, in sound. Modern society contains many managed narratives relating to everything from celebrity marriages to brands to political parties, which are constantly disseminated through all media for our perusal, but ARGs turn these into interactive games. Generally, the enabling condition to is technology, with the internet and modern cheap communication making such interactivity affordable for the game developers. It’s the kind of thing that societies have been doing for thousands of years, but more so. Much more so.” Martin, A et al ~ Introduction to ARG

39
There are 3 business models for ARGs:

• Game as advertisement
• Player-created community efforts
• Cash prizes

44
Are reality games best-suited to combine with film? Or is trying to make it be real the wrong approach?

45
Is “Pervasive Paidia” perhaps what I’m really interested in?
Ludus = formal play
Paidia = informal play
“Paidia, informal play, has always explored strange playgrounds, surprising times, and unbounded social relations. Pervasive paidia is not a genre of pervasive games – as these activities are not games – but they exist in a close relationship with pervasive games.”

They compare the different cultures of the two production companies of The Truth About Marika, SVT (Swedish public service broadcasting) and The Company P.
The difference (and to some degree ignorance) between the two companies led to quite a few problems that ultimately lowered the quality of the consumer experience.

Good overview of The Truth About Marika.

The fact that the project played with consumers’ perception of what is real lead to quite some controversy.

“In the terminology of Cindy Poremba, Sanningen om Marika was a ’brink game’, a game in which the activities are so real that it cannot fully be considered to be just a game. The brink effect was created through the combination of the alternate game aesthetics, the emphasis on ‘pushing your personal boundaries’ inspiring participants to do things they might want to do but never would have done otherwise, and the lack of off-game.”

“The central goal of successful immersive game design is to communicate to players that a cage is in place, while making it as easy and likely as possible for the players to pretend that they don’t see the cage.” Quoting McGonigal.
“Sanningen om Marika did not achieve this effect, and as discussed above we do not believe that the producers intended it to. SVT wanted SOM to be deliberately confusing to television viewers, and P wanted to create a brink game experience.”
“The authors of this report believe that the effect [of not achieving McGonigal's effect] was both unfortunate and unethical. It was unfortunate because it made some potential participants afraid to participate, and created unnecessary conflicts between players and newcomers which in turn harmed the game experience for the players. It was unethical because it made some participants engage in a mission that they believed to be serious, and then made them very disappointed when it was not.”