Alternative reality games (ARGs)

Posted on Contagious a little while ago, this article provides access to a few of the bigger ARGs on at the moment:
McDonald's Olympic - The Lost Ring and The Dark Knight Returns. NB: the Batman wiki give a great overview of the volume of activity going into the game/campaign

The Alternate Reality Game (ARG) is becoming an increasingly mainstream marketing tool, with everyone from Guinness to Warner Bros to P&G getting involved. For the uninitiated, an ARG is a gigantic treasure hunt played out both on and offline in which participants collaborate to solve puzzles and reach the game’s conclusion. This week sees the launch of The Lost Ring, an ARG to neatly remind us that it’s not only the sexy advertisers - the movies, the games - that get to play in this space. In an odd yet intriguing pairing, fast food giant McDonald’s is sponsoring the game in conjunction with the International Olympic Committee.

So far , the action appears to be an effort to highlight the true meaning of the Olympics (apparently it isn’t just there to throw the East-West Cold War and some hefty sponsorship deals into sharp relief). The story begins as follows: ‘Late in February 2008, six people awoke, blindfolded and garbed in athletic attire, in labyrinths scattered across the world. None remembered their past, but all bore a tattoo on their arm reading Trovu la ringon perditan, or "Find the lost ring" in Esperanto.’

It’s compelling stuff. Rumours abound that the puppetmasters in this case are none other than AKQA, which would explain the beautifully produced trailer video designed to get you started:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV2taCwugzk

The video directs you to the campaign website, www.thelostring.com - again, gorgeous to look at and fun to play with. And as with all ARGs, at the centre of the campaign is a part user-generated part professionally steered wiki, here: http://olympics.wikibruce.com/Home.

As many failed attempts at ARGs have shown, the form works best when the game builds towards a definitive conclusion, such as a movie or game release - or the Olympics. We’ve no idea where McDonald’s fits into all this, but it’s going to be intriguing to see how the golden arches will be integrated as the game goes on, if at all. Many ARGs feature real world interaction, and using the company’s retail outfits as meeting points could be a tidy tie-in. Are we all shortly to be found staggering round the Maccy D’s on Oxford Street asking strangers if they know where the ring is in Esperanto?

With the trailer already standing at around half a million views, The Lost Ring is off to a flying start. Points to McDonald’s for some creative leverage of their sponsorship, and to the IOC for embracing the power of the web to engage and inform. Now if only they could convince the Chinese government to do the same...

BONUS NEWS! The activity surrounding The Dark Knight, the next installment of the hugely successful Batman movie franchise, looked set to take the ARG form firmly into the mainstream with its mixture of just-dark-enough subject matter, and digital and real world interaction. Despite a hiatus following actor Heath Ledger’s untimely death, the game is happily still going on, highlighting the form’s flexibility. Check it out here.

http://batman.wikibruce.com/Home