Engaging Media - Week Seven

Reading for this week...
Alternate reality gaming and the convergence culture: The case of Alias
Henrik Ornebring



Alternate reality gaming (ARGs) - "a form of internet-based mystery game in which participants are immersed in a fictional world and engage in collective problem-solving". There is a group mentaility to this type of gaming with the puzzle being impossible to solve through solo effort.

ARGs are becoming quite common and started with The Beast released in 2001 to coincide with the release of the film A.I. In this article Ornebring focuses on the game associated with the TV series Alias, of which there have been three.

ARGs are an excellent example of cross-media promotion or media convergence - the game feeds off the TV show/film which then also may feed off the success of the game.

Jenkins highlights The Matrix as signalling a shift to more active participation. Old Hollywood relied on redundancy and did not challenge the viewer. New Hollywood requires a greater attention span from the viewer and even the need for the viewer to do research.

Ornebring argues that convergence culture doesn't necessarily dissolve boundaries between media but "creates new opportunities to market a specific text or set of texts...through other texts".

ARGs blur the boundaries between the roles of producer and consumer, creating the prosumer and a more participatory culture.

Ornebring is however, critical of the little attention given to ARGs as marketing tools and examples of viral marketing or buzz marketing. Those critical of ARGs may see them not as new opportunities for interactivity but just as marketing tools to build a brand.

Fan-cultural production - fan fiction, fan videos etc, otherwise seen as kind of "cultural labour". It is highly active and highly engaged consumer culture.

Alias ARGs are examples of both corporate convergence and grassroots convergence as the first two games were prodcued by the corporate media and the other example was produced by fans.

There are differences between the industry-prodcued and fan-produced Alias ARGs, for example the former gave no additional backstory whereas the latter focused strongly on backstory. However, Ornebring believes that "despite their differences, commercial and non-commercial ARGs based on existing media properties still follow a similar logic of fan consumption". They perform the same cultural function - "extending the narrative of an existing media property in ways that conform to corporate goals of marketing and brand-building
as well as fan audiences’ goals of pleasurable consumption."