Alternate Reality Games – Community and Competition

Yesterday’s lecture content on Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) left me dwelling on a number of points, largely to do with what I see as their reliance on both community and competition. They’re an interesting phenomenon, arguably grouped as games because of similarities they share with puzzles. Both involve a broad goal in that the player is asked to ‘solve a problem’ and find a point of closure by demonstrating how most/all of the pieces of information link together. ARGs might also include a narrative of some kind, acting as the content to be pieced together as it’s fed to the players.

The intricacy and appeal of these games is most likely what simultaneously draws and requires so many participants, establishing a community through on and offline communication. Kevin highlighted that aspects of these grand puzzles can be so complicated in solving that a large number of people with a collectively broad skill-set is often required. Potential ways to solve problems from the clues provided can be explored, and subsequently eliminated should they prove to meet no end. This is where the value of communication and co-operation comes into it; the whole idea that ‘many hands make light work’. At first I couldn’t get over how cool the idea of hundreds, even thousands of geographically disparate people collaborating to solve a shared problem was.

But then it’s easy to think of the internet, and the emerging network society as ultimately and positively connective, especially when combined with the word ‘community’. It’s a very emotive word for those of us living in Western, Post-Industrial societies that can at times feel like a mass of strangers living right next door to each other. The discourse of community found in descriptions of ARGs carries a lot of idealism I think. This is not to say that co-operation, division of labour and sharing doesn’t take place in the play-out of ARGs, but I think the notion of community does something to hide the fundamental drive of competition within these games.

As Kevin noted participation in ARGs, especially at the higher tiers of engagement, will most likely take up A LOT of your time. Integration of these games into forms of communication that are prevalent in the workplace, University, domestic setting etc. means that one can easily get away with participating in ARGs while those around you would be none the wiser. Vast amounts of time could be discretely spent doing nothing of what you’re supposed to be. Adding to this is the temporal dimension of ARGs, by which I mean that the game doesn’t stop simply because you’re not participating at a particular moment. There’s room for an intense level of competitive paranoia should the individual be so dedicated to the game that they feel unsettled when not pursuing it’s execution. Kevin compared this to the feeling of social exclusion when not logged onto Facebook; the impression that one is missing out, and has no idea what is being missed. In the context of an ARG this feeling has the added pressure of gamer competition.

Sure, not every player in an ARG approaches the task with a competitive attitude. I’m sure the vast majority of players know that they’re not leading the pack in unravelling clues along the way, subsequently relishing in the co-operative side ARGs. However I believe there’s an interesting dichotomy of community and competition present here. While multiple minds are needed to share the workload of potential ways to solve an ARG, a competitive spirit arguable drives this community toward the shared goal.