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Blending Fantasy with Reality Drives Successful Alternate Reality Games
A group of educators gathers at a retreat. They’reintroduced to two high school students and given a mission: Figure out which studentcheated on an exam. Over the next couple of days, the teachers get snippets ofinformation, find clues, solve problems together—and learn a whole lot aboutthe myriad ways their students might be cheating. The original two students?They’re part of a “puppet master” team running an alternate reality game.
Alternate reality games, or ARGs, move simulation into a newdimension, providing real-life experience solving fictional—butrealistic—problems. Some ARGs, like World Without Oil, imagine solutions for real problems, withinthe controlled environment of a game. Unlike a simulation, the playersinfluence the developing story, create content, and solve problems. “Asimulation typically has a predefined outcome, whereas an alternate realitygame often does not. It can, but it is supposed to really mimic real-worldfeelings for the player,” said Jeff Borden, chief innovation officer at St. LeoUniversity in Florida. Players should feel like they are in a real position orrole as they try to achieve tasks or goals, Borden explained.
ARGs differ from augmented reality games
ARGs are often confused with augmented reality (AR) games,like Zombies, Run! or Pokémon Go. Both are based on real-worldenvironments, unlike virtual reality, which brings players into a digitallycreated environment. But there are key differences between alternate andaugmented reality games:
Alternate reality game | Augmented reality game |
Players have a lot of control over content and story development. Game designers prepare the initial content, and they might have an ending in mind, but the players’ actions and responses can change the story. | All content is predetermined and created by the game designers. |
ARGs are based in the existing world but might add a fictional story layer on top of the players’ regular daily existence. Elements might be created for the story—evidence and clues in a murder mystery, for example. | Augmented reality is highly computer-dependent; the game or exercise changes the view that somebody has of the world, usually with a computer-generated overlay of information onto a real environment. |
Story or narrative is critical; it is an integral element of an ARG. Players solve real or realistic problems, conduct research, or act as they would in real-life roles. | The game can exist without a story; it can be action-focused (e.g., capturing Pokémon or shooting a harpoon at sharks). A story or narrative is optional. |
Research indicates that ARGs are extremely effective atgetting participants to hone essential soft skills, such as communication,collaborative problem-solving, critical thinking, and negotiation. They canteach “harder” skills as well, such as digital media literacy orcontext-specific skills. ViolaQuestwas an information literacy game played by incoming students at ManchesterMetropolitan University. Over eight weeks, students worked together to solve aseries of challenges; in the process, they learned to use the universitylibrary, got oriented to university life, became familiar with Manchester—and gotto know one another. Corporate onboarding and training teams could apply thisidea, using an ARG to teach new employees skills and processes while alsobuilding teams and cultivating collaborative relationships among the newcolleagues.
ARGs used in university or high school settings are designedaround existing learning outcomes, Borden said. Instructors do not alter theirlearning goals to accommodate the game. An ARG might be designed to meetlearning outcomes for one course or several, and students participate in lieuof or as part of a course. For example, in a mock trial, law students andcriminal justice students might participate for a full semester instead of amore conventional trial law course, but forensic science students might becalled in as witnesses or to study and evaluate evidence, a short-term role thatis integrated into one of their courses.
Certain elements of the story are “forced,” or required, Bordensaid, while others evolve as the story develops. “While we’re going to forcethem to go to trial, we’re not going to force them to make certain arguments;we’re not going to force them to have certain people be witnesses or not bewitnesses,” he said. “That is up to the defense and that’s up to theprosecution to put on their best possible trial, just like they would have todo in the real world. Afterward, you can certainly say, ‘I think that was amistake.’ The teachable moments are rich, but the students really do guide thedirection.”
Borden described the possibility of using an ARG in acorporate setting. “One thing that a lot of ARG strategists use is the notionthat people start playing a game and they don’t even know they’re playing ituntil they are playing it,” he said. “With corporate training, people that areadopting this notion, they are doing things like sending emails out that arestrange or weird or have some odd consequence. People start reacting to it, andit’s that reaction that pulls them into the game.” The employee is then sentcontent—the game designers will have content for the first two or threeweeks—and the content will send the employees somewhere or have them startworking on a problem, and they will “uncover” something that they may thinkthey were not supposed to find.
The content depends on the learning outcomes and goals ofthe game; it’s all part of the learning exercise. For compliance training, theinitial email might tell an employee that she is out of compliance on someissue, Borden said. She might respond that no, she’s not—and she’s been drawninto a game without knowing it. When she digs into the challenge that she’ssent next, she’ll be learning the ins and outs of compliance in a much moreengaging way than repetitive or text-heavy traditional eLearning courses tendto offer.
While many ARG designers strive for a realistic feeling, “thereis absolutely a fourth wall,” Borden said. The “fourth wall” is the imaginaryline between acting or actors and reality; how completely players buy in mightbe a determining factor in which ARGs succeed. “The fourth wall is the ‘alternate’in ‘alternate reality,’” he said. “In an augmented reality, that is almostexclusively done through a video augmentation. You are showing someone exactlywhat to see. But in alternate reality, a person is defining what it is theychoose to do.”
The blurring or merging of fantasy with reality can beparticularly successful at keeping people engaged in training. According toBorden, a 2012 war games training exercise the US Navy and Marines conducted inSan Diego, a zombie apocalypse ARG, “was so authentic and so real; people were so into it, theygot so excited by it, that it was the most successful experience that they’veever had.”
References
Bakioglu, Burcu S. “Alternate Reality Games – Definition.” The International Encyclopedia of DigitalCommunication and Society. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2015.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2503362
Kim, Jeffrey, Elan Lee, Timothy Thomas, and CarolineDombrowski. “Storytelling in new media: The case of alternate reality games,2001–2009.” First Monday, Vol. 14, No.6. June 2009.
https://128.248.156.56/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2484/2199
Mulrine, Anna. “No prank: On Halloween, US military forcestrain for zombie apocalypse.” ChristianScience Monitor. 31 October 2012.
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2012/1031/No-prank-On-Halloween-US-military-forces-train-for-zombie-apocalypse
https://www.labquest.fr/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/nicola_whitton_alternative-reality1.pdf
