Alternate Reality Gaming and the uneasy relationship between business and the New Web

J.P. AllenUniversity of San Franciscoblog.jpedia.org

Summary(if you don’t enjoy surprise endings)

1. ARGs are interesting because they:

• are large, temporary, task-focused online communities(unlike most...see Preece, 2000; Allen, 2008)

• show the power of self-organization and open technology (see Benkler, 2006; von Hippel, 2005)

2. but ARGs are but one small example of the depth and power of the New Web...and its uneasy relationship with business as we know it

If this presentation were an Alternate Reality Game...

The “rabbit hole”

Who is the JP?

Initial story and clues

Setting up player resources

Collective puzzle solving

ADMIT OURSUITOR

COMMUNITY

AAPLTCSCOGOOGHPQINTCIBMMSFTORCLVZ

TECHNOLOGYKNOWLEDGE

Regular story releases (multiple media)

Dean Duffington,University of San Andreas Business School

Professor Soyrizo,University of San Andreas Business School

Conclusion: Story ends with live events

and “puppetmasters” revealed

The two ARGs that started it all...

The Beast - set in A.I. movie world

ilovebees - set in Halo 2 videogame world

(cloudmakers.org)

(dorkclub.com)

Self-organization extraordinaire -the cloudmakers’ trail

(argn.com)

(argn.com)

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The Artifact

Jersey Morelli Jason Morelli

Janissary James

James James (Lee)SPARTAN I PROGRAM

SPARTAN II PROGRAM

McKaskill

Kamal

YasmineDurga (AI)

Melissa (AI)

Apocalypso

"Castaway"?

Gilly

Gladys Wilson

Sophie

Hiro

Aiden MakiCoral Colony

(Glassed in Oct)

Reach Base (Glassed in Sept)

Pious Flea (TSR)

(AI) Sleeping Princess

Dana

Aunt MargaretFarnsworth

SPDR (process)

WWW.ILOVEBEES.COM

Cpt. Greene

OFFICE OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE

(ONI) Standish

Rani

HerzogADMIRAL, UNSC

Mr. F

Thin Kinkle

UNSC WAR WITH THE ALIEN

COVENANT

COVENANT DESTROY COLONIES, WILL REACH

EARTH NOV 9

HALO

The depth and power of the New Web

• The participatory web

• The social web

• User-generated content

• “Web 2.0”

• Collective intelligence

(rojo.com)

The New Web - not your mama’s dot.com internet...

Three major changes, 2001 to 2007: • Consolidation of Search: In 2001, people apparently had a really

hard time finding stuff. In the top 25 sites, 10 were some form of search engine or portal. With the exception of the MSN, Yahoo and Google, the rest have fallen out of the picture.

• Shift toward socialization: The top sites in 2001 were predominately focused on delivering one-way information, whether it be through search, professional produced media, or ecommerce. In 2007, the top 50 are skewed heavily towards social sites, so much so, in fact, that MySpace, Youtube, and Facebook account for a collective 14% of all time spent online.

• Increasing entertainment: With broadband speed comes broadband media and games. Pogo.com, runescape.com, and neopets.com all live in the top 25 sites on the web.

(compete.com)

Largest gainsUnique visitors, 9/06-9/07

1. youtube.com2. flickr.com3. fling.com4. wikipedia.org5. digg.com6. google.com7. att.com8. facebook.com9. turn.com10.yahoo.com

The New Web as an independent force

For less than $100/year...

1,500 Gb storage15 Tb transfer/monthPayment processingTargeted adsFull web analyticsWorld-class software for:

web server and databasecontent managementwikis and forumsCRMonline education and training...and tens of thousands more apps

(3mpub.com)

For “free”Groups, forums, wikis, blogs, file/photo/video sharing, FAQs, opinion/review sharing, social networks, auctions, real-time collaboration...

CommunityTechnology

Knowledge

The New WebFreely available knowledge

Online communityOpen technology

CommunityTechnology

Knowledge What to do with the New Web?

Ignore it?Advertise to it?React to it?Interact with it?Participate in it?Control it?Use it?Subcontract to it?Compete with it?Destroy it?

Reactions to the New Web:the next generation of Alternate Reality Games

ARGs as marketing - Audi’s Art of the Heist

ARGs as stand-alone business - Perplex City

ARGs as point of view - World Without Oil

Amateur ARGs - OpAphid ARG for lonelygirl15

Summary(in case you got lost along the way)

1. ARGs are interesting because they:

• are large, temporary, task-focused online communities(unlike most...see Preece, 2000; Allen, 2008)

• show the power of self-organization and open technology (see Benkler, 2006; von Hippel, 2005)

2. but ARGs are but one small example of the depth and power of the New Web...and its uneasy relationship with business as we know it

What are my plans?• Knowledge

“How Web 2.0 solves the knowledge sharing problem” - IEEE ISTAS conference

• Community

“Online communities that break the rules”

• Technology

“Six Web 2.0 capabilities that changed knowledge sharing”

ABA National Institute on CyberLaw, Virtual Reality panel

• The New Web

New Web mini-case collection

“Web Renaissance” book proposal

prosper 450k loans

facebook 1% US internet

digg 1m daily visitors

plentyoffish 1.2m users

craigslist 10m new ads/m

linkedin 25 new u/minute

argn 420k posts

yelp 1m reviews

tripadvisor 10m reviews

wikipedia 8.3m articles

wordpress 78k posts/day

What are your plans?I cannot imagine an area of business that will not be touched by the new online world.