transmedia storytelling and alternate reality games

Transmedia Storytellingand

Alternate Reality Games

Jeff WatsonUSC PhD Researcher

http://remotedevice.net/

March, 2009

Context…wherein we discuss the social, cultural and technological moment.

Three Dynamics

Three Dynamics

Narrative

Three Dynamics

Narrative

Play

Three Dynamics

Narrative

Play

Public Space

Three Dynamics

Narrative

Play

Public Space

You are here

Three Dynamics

Narrative

Play

Public Space

Communications Paradigms

Local Culture


Local Culture

BroadcastCulture


Local Culture

BroadcastCulture

Network Culture


Local Culture

BroadcastCulture

Network Culture


•Letter writing•Oral traditions•Classical theatre

•Printing press•Radio & TV•Cinema

•Bittorrent•Wikipedia•Web 2.0

A tangled spectrum: Narrative in the 21st Century

A tangled spectrum: Narrative in the 21st Century

•Novels

•Films•TV series

•Flame wars•Fan Fiction

•Comic books •“Sock puppets”

•Performance Art

•Flash mobs

Three Dynamics

Narrative

Play

Public Space

The Magic Circle

A magic circle is circle or sphere of space marked out by practitioners of many branches of ritual magic, either to contain energy and form a sacred space, or as a form of magical protection, or both. It may be marked physically, drawn in salt or chalk, for example, or merely visualized. (wikipedia)

All play moves and has its being within a play-ground marked off beforehand either materially or ideally, deliberately or as a matter of course. Just as there is no formal difference between play and ritual, so the ‘consecrated spot’ cannot be formally distinguished from the play-ground. The arena, the card-table, the magic circle, the temple, the stage, the screen, the tennis court, the court of justice, etc, are all in form and function play-grounds, i.e. forbidden spots, isolated, hedged round, hallowed, within which special rules obtain. All are temporary worlds within the ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an act apart.

Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1955), 10.

... the membrane between synthetic worlds and daily life is definitely there but also definitely porous, and this is by choice of the users. What we have is an almost-magic circle, which seems to have the objective of retaining all that is good about the fantasy atmosphere of the synthetic world, while giving users the maximum amount of freedom to manipulate their involvement with them.

Edward Castronova, Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2005), 147

What is the Virtual?

Immersion

Transmedia

Transmedia means “across multiple mediums.”

Henry Jenkins, a pioneer in the field and director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies program, defines Transmedia Storytelling as “...a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience.”

The Story World

The Traditional Model(approximation; not to scale)

The Story World

MediaArtifact


The Story World

MediaArtifact

story


MediaArtifact

story


The singular media artifact bears full responsibility for revealing the story world.

The Story World

The Transmedia Model(approximation; definitely not to scale)

The Story World


User-generated content


There is no “ur-text” that tells the whole story; rather, the story world is revealed as the aggregate effect of multiple texts/media artifacts.

User-generated content

While the notion of using Transmedia to create fiction is relatively new, the practice of consuming Transmedia stories is deeply ingrained in all of us. Indeed, although we may not have ever thought about it in these terms, each of us is in fact a lifelong consumer and interpreter of Transmedia.

Alternate Reality Games(ARGs)

Nobody’s happy with this term, but let’s run with it anyway.

Wikipedia says…

An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions.

“If you listen to a Velvet Underground album from the late '60s, leaving aside the individual tracks, there is a sound to that record. There's a sound to a mid-stage Bowie album, there's a sound to the record. ARGs are the sound of the twenty-first century. They sound like what today feels like. You're sitting here with a mini- tape recorder on one hand and a Blackberry on the other... you're talking to us... you emailed me yesterday... that's life. And the key thing about an ARG is the way it jumps off all those platforms. It's a game that's social and comes at you across all the different ways that you connect to the world around you.”

– Sean Stewart, 42 Entertainment

The whole world is our platform…

Graffiti

Word of mouth

Signs


Movies

Graffiti

Phones & Answering Machines

Instant Messages

Word of mouth Events

Signs


Movies

Postcards

Graffiti

Single player games

Email

Books and comics


Instant Messages


Signs


Theatre Movies

Postcards Techno-toysHoaxes

YouTubeGraffiti

Multi-player games

Single player games

Email

Books and comics


Installation art

Instant Messages

Blogs


Twitter

Signs


Wikipedia(see * above)

Theatre MoviesAdverts History

Letters Postcards Techno-toysHoaxes Software

Story Model ComparisonSingle-platform (movies, non-sandbox video games, books)• Clear boundary (or “magic

circle”) separating story from non-story

• Story contained within a single medium or artifact

• Progression through the narrative orchestrated by authors or algorithms

• Story as channel

Multi-platform (ARGs, transmedia stories)• Blurry boundary separating

story from non-story• Story told across many

media artifacts• Progression through the

narrative negotiated among multiple authors and player-participants

• Story as layer

Origins and Prior Works…wherein we discuss the provenance of the ARG, its first manifestations in popular culture and its emergence as a field of artistic practice.

The Voynich ManuscriptPossible Hoax, 15th-16th century?

"We believe that we are doing a noble work," said Northover warmly. "It has continually struck us that there is no element in modern life that is more lamentable than the fact that the modern man has to seek all artistic existence in a sedentary state. If he wishes to float into fairyland, he reads a book; if he wishes to dash into the thick of battle, he reads a book; if he wishes to soar into heaven, he reads a book; if he wishes to slide down the banisters, he reads a book. We give him these visions, but we give him exercise at the same time, the necessity of leaping from wall to wall, of fighting strange gentlemen, of running down long streets from pursuers—all healthy and pleasant exercises. We give him a glimpse of that great morning world of Robin Hood or the Knights Errant, when one great game was played under the splendid sky. We give him back his childhood, that godlike time when we can act stories, be our own heroes, and at the same instant dance and dream."

The Club of Queer TradesShort Story Collection, 1905

Alternate Reality Games: Origins and Prior Works

The GameFeature Film, 1997


Relational Art, according to critic Nicolas Bourriaud, is “… a set of artistic practices which take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context, rather than an independent and private space.”

Bourriaud, Nicolas, Relational Aesthetics p.113

Relational ArtArt movement/theory, 1990s


Viral and Stealth MarketingAdvertising Practices, 1990s-2000s


Pattern RecognitionNovel, 2003


The Beast and ilovebeesFirst wave of ARGs, 2001-2004


SF0Collaborative Production ARG, 2005-present


YEAR ZEROCase Study

Year ZeroNine Inch Nails concept album ARG


http://www.42entertainment.com/yearzero/

I really wanted to focus on something that was at the forefront of my consciousness which is, as an American, I'm appalled by the behavior of our government, the direction that it has taken and the direction that it's taken everyone else in the world and its arrogance... I decided to write an essay about where the world might be if we continue down the path that we're on with a neo-con-esque government doing whatever it pleases...

Trent Reznor

•[ARGs] are designed experiences with a strong potential for emergent, that is to say unexpectedly complex, group play and performance.•They are distributed experiences: distributed across multiple media, platforms, locations, and times.•They are embedded at least partially in everyday contexts and/or environments, rather than in marked-off gaming contexts and spaces. They prefer to adopt everyday software, services and technologies rather than exclusively gaming-platforms.•They have the effect of sensitizing participants to affordances, real or imagined. That is to say, they increase perception of opportunities for interaction.•Many, if not most, of their distributed elements are not clearly identified as part of the experience. Thus active investigation of, and live interaction with, both in-game and out-of-game elements is a significant component of the experience.•They have the effect of making all data seem connected, or at least plausibly connected.•They make surfaces less convincing. Underlying structures are what matter.•They establish a network of players who are in the know. They intentionally involve or engage others who are, at least temporarily, in the dark.•They inexorably create community.

Jane McGonigalThis Might Be a Game, 45

Locative Media…wherein we discuss the practice of using technology to layer narrative on physical space.

AR Toolkit

Visual Codes

Spotcode

QR Code (Japan, China, UK)

Datamatrix(USA DOD, Germany)

D-touch

QR codes placed on walls and other surfaces

Cell phone with camera and QR Code-reading software

Scanning the QR code with the phone camera yields text or a URL linking to a video or other content available online for cell phone playback

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3.

Embedding Media in Public Space with QR codes: The basic model

“Add to Friends” is a Facebook application that enables users to add friends by snapping photos of custom QR codes associated with Facebook profiles.

Facebook app URL: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=21352510322

More info: http://www.etre.com/blog/2008/02/facebook_add_to_friends_qr_code_t_shirt/

Add to FriendsQR Code Facebook mashup

QR Codes: Survey of recent projects

“Think of it as a TinyURL you can wear. The QR Code on the p8tch is a URL. If you scan the code with your iPhone, Mobile Safari will take you directly to that URL. If it's a Google Maps link, your iPhone will take you directly to the map. If it's a YouTube link, you'll see the movie fullscreen. Cool, right?”

More info: http://p8tch.com/

P8TCHVelcro-backed QR-code URL patch


“Our goal is to connect the virtual and physical world by bringing the right information from the internet to the relevant place in physical space.”

More info: http://www.semapedia.org/

Semapedia.orgQR Code Wikipedia mashup


“The QR Code links in the video are a catalogue of online content about issues of civil liberties, as well as links that will give you the opportunity to get involved in campaigning against the erosion of our personal freedom.”

More info: http://www.petshopboys.co.uk/browser.aspx?page=petheads.integral

Pet Shop Boys - IntegralQR Code-enriched music video/activism initiative


Wearing a QR code confers the wearer with mystery and geekitude, signaling social niche position on both sides of the scanning-moment.

More info: http://lendorff.kaywa.com/

Kaywa Pixel ScarfFashion accessory


“Why am I looking at [QR codes]? Well as you can see from the entry above, at the moment they are mostly being used in commercial and advertising scenarios, as yet to my knowledge, no one is utilsing their full capabilities in art. The nice thing about creating artworks is that the process is about experimentation and exploration. Something, that is quite a luxury in the commercial world.

The way a user interacts with a qr code is similar to taking a photograph. Its easy to do, and rewarding for the user. Not like trying to type a url on a mobile phone…I'm talking about playfulness that results in delight and a smile.”

More info: http://elusivesprite.squarespace.com/phd_journal/

Simone O’CallaghanPhD researcher blending printmaking and QR Codes


“The 3D mobile interactive experience is delivered via QR code stickers.

The Ford Ka stickers have a WAP link that allows people to download an application.When the camera phone is pointed at the marker on Wunderman’s QR code stickers, it projects a 3D image of the Ka onto the screen.

Developed in conjunction with technology experts HIT Lab NZ and Ford’s CGi specialists Burrows, the 3D Ka is viewable on Nokia camera phones released within the last two years, plus most camera phones which use a Windows Mobile operating system.”

More info: http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/2260.html

gofindit.netFord “Ka” marketing campaign (QR Code-activated mobile AR)

Related tagging/mobile/ubicomp projects

“Scottish researchers are turning to camera phones to help bridge the virtual and real worlds.

Using image-matching algorithms the researchers have found a way to adorn the real world with digital content.

The technology has already been used to create a guide of Edinburgh that allows people to find virtual artworks placed around the city using their mobile.”

More info: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6938244.stm

Project page:http://blue.caad.ed.ac.uk/branded/stageone/

SpellbinderImage-recognition tagging/mobile AR “invisible grafitti”

Related tagging/mobile/ubicomp projects

transmedia storytelling and alternate reality games

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