ARGs, world-of-concern and fun

I do not know anything about alternative reality games or augmented reality games until the last lecture. It is definitely interesting to learn how ARGs are played and how actually players play as if everything is real. It is an interest phenomenon that players playing the game are trying to participate in the game and to play the game properly by not revealing the puppet master even if they accidentally or coincidentally found out it is 'just a game' or when searching the WHOIS registrant of the website. The fun is the process of people participating, bringing in findings and evidence and discussing what is missing in the puzzle on the Internet, which is extremely suitable for people who like problem-solving or who like to be private detectives. On the other hand, some games allow players to not play properly or play in a way that is not what the game originally intends, for instance, Team Fortress 2 in which players in rival teams cooperate together. These again tie down to the world-of-concern and the desire of having fun out of these games.

It is also interesting many ARGs claim their stories as real when it is not. Films like The Blair Witch Project and Forgotten Silver have some elements of being real. Yet some people may not realise that and presumes everything presented to them is real, but disappointed and turned angry later when they found out they were faked. I think ARGs have similar kind of problems when the boundary between real and fiction becomes blurred. However, ARGs have got quite a decent community that game companies could utilise it as part of the advertisement campaign of certain games, such as Dark Knight and Lost. To link back to the second last lecture on storytelling, ARGs do have a fixed plot for which the players explore, but things could go slightly different or veering away from the original storyline. The game companies could of course change the plot according to circumstances which would make the game experience entirely different.