Showing posts with label ARG. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ARG. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Jay-Z: Decoded Campaign

Great project from Droga for Jay-Z. Via creativity

Niche focused, technology restricted (Silverlight required) and expecting a lot of effort from participants… all strategically sound based on a clear understanding of the audience and the subject matter.

Provides a really good example how we can integrate digital technology with the offline environment to influence and motivate real people to do real things in the real world. Which in this case are then tied back to further interactions in the online experience, then back offline, then online, etc ,etc … fantastic. Just wish i liked Jay-Z then i'd be into it!





Jay-Z spreads himself all over the map.

Droga5 New York goes all out in its launch of Jay-Z's upcoming memoir Decoded with a massive multiplatform campaign that takes every page of the book and brings it back to its birthplace, literally. The book, published out of Random House imprint Spiegel and Grau, is set to release on November 16. Until then, the campaign will recreate each book page on a traditional outdoor, or not so conventional space—think billboard, the lining of a suit, or bottom of a pool—all of it relevant to where the contents of each page originally took place.

"We've made canvases out of some pretty extraordinary places," says Droga5 Creative Chairman David Droga. "We've turned everything into outdoor—350 pages are outdoor and another 100 and 150 are things that money can't buy." The latter will involve some familiar other big names, which at press time Droga could not disclose. "A lot of other big global brands and icons have stepped up to turn themselves into canvases," he says.

"We're trying to do something that's consistent with the Jay-Z brand," Droga explains. "He does all these incredibly bold things in the music industry. He wants to do the same thing to the publishing industry. What's bolder than putting every single page of your book out in the real world, so if someone wanted to read it or discover it, they don't have to buy the book? He's so confident that the story's compelling, the reader will get so caught up in looking at this that they'll want to buy the book."

But fans need not be as jet-setting as Jay-Z to see each execution. A partnership with Bing maps gives the audience a chance to search for each page online via a scavenger hunt, which will provide daily clues to each of the various page locations. "I'd seen that Bing maps presentation from TED, which was extraordinary, and thought, Imagine if we could lay that over the top and suddenly you've got something that's global," says Droga. "You could be sitting in Arkansas and you could walk in the streets of Brooklyn." The agency had been in talks over the last year and a half with Bing to do a nontraditional promotion and finally found an opportunity when the book project came up.

The thrill of the search and book pages aren't the game's only rewards, however. The First players to find a page get a hard copy of the book with that page signed by the artist himself, and all will get thrown into a draw for the grand prize, a ticket to see Jay-Z and Coldplay in concert on New Year's in Vegas.


Friday, September 11, 2009

Smokescreen - online game / show

Thanks Contagious... love this approach to making content interactive

Smokescreen

08/09/2009
While teens, and the majority of other web users, are aware of threats that exist online, they have a tendency to seem relatively seem distant and remote. With this in mind, Channel 4’s web adventure Smokescreen has just launched, challenging teens to increase their awareness of some internet dangers, while taking part in a 13-part web adventure aimed at 14-16 year olds.

Developed by the production company Six to Start in London, which also produced Penguin’s We Tell Stories ARG, the game challenges players to uncover a mystery behind a sinister new game, Rumour Mill, hosted on a fictional social network known as White Smoke. Players must set about uncovering information via chat rooms, IM, widgets, profile pages, emails, voicemails, CCTV footage, twitch games, puzzle games to drive the plot forward.

Alice Taylor, commissioning editor, education, explains: ‘We wanted to help teens learn about data issues through play, while exploring big ideas such as privacy and surveillance, Orwell and CCTV. We focused the plot down to within social networks, where teens spend a large amount of their time, looking at issues such as stalking, fishing, data awareness, privacy settings and policies.’

The various missions can be played over the next eight weeks, after which the game will form a complete three hour playing experience. Taylor adds: ‘We have a presence on social networks because we wanted to turn up in teen’s attention streams, but these spaces are really crowded with a lot of brands searching for attention. Teens love to play games, even if they don’t label themselves as gamers. Therefore, we decided to spend at least half our budget on games.’

She adds: ‘We are building these games to try and be as native to the internet as possible. We are seeding content by behaving like a dandelion, including on US sites, such as www.kongregate.com as well as UK ones, because nine out of ten sites visited by teens are based in the US.’

Adrian Hon, co-founder Six to Start, says: ‘Smokescreen is the world’s first game about life online. Every time you hear about a teenager being hauled up at school because of their Facebook profile, or someone being conned out of their password on Twitter - that's what Smokescreen aims to explore. And because our game puts players in a simulation situation, we can give them an experience that is far more powerful and immersive than any other media.’

www.smokescreengame.com
www.sixtostart.com




Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Monday, May 11, 2009

Thanks Games Alfresco for this (slightly older post) of some great AR demos from the gaming space.

Top 10 augmented reality demos that will revolutionize video games

Augmented Reality (AR) has the potential to do something parents can’t: free gamers from their couches and usher them into the real world, to play.

Here is my countdown of the top 10 best AR demos poised to revolutionize video games:

10. Human Pac Man

When Dr. Adrian David Cheok (NUS) wanted to create an exciting augmented reality game, he chose to remake the first video game to ever introduce a character – the legendary Pac Man. Cheok literally stepped into Pacman’s shoes in this first-person-shooter-like real world game.
    

9. Come Out & Play

In 2006 the Come Out & Play Festival turned New York City into a playground for a weekend, then did the same for the city of Amsterdam in 2007. Hundreds of players gathered to play dozens different Big Games across each city.

None of the games played in the festival made it to my top ten list – individually. They fell short of stretching the interactivity between real and virtual. But as a group – they reminded us that playing games outdoors can be fun, and technology can make it even funner.

8. Second Life Avatar Enters the Real World

Tobias Lang and Blair MacIntyre (GA Tech) give us an extraordinary glance at what happens when the virtual world “leaks” into the real world. No, they didn’t use a green screen as you can see behind the scenes. Is it a hint for some of us to ditch Second Life and augment our First…?
    

7. WIFI ARMY FPS

The world is the battlefield, your phone is your weapon. Players organize in 2 teams armed with cell phones with the goal to locate and take pictures of their opponents. The phone compares captured pictures against a database of player faces and awards points for correct hits. Peter Whatanitch of W2Pi (creator of the game) explains how it will work. It could become quite an experience as staged in the Lumix Battle commercial.
    

6. Shadow Monsters

Phil Worthington is an artist that injects coolness into augmented reality.

“Magical monsters appear from shadows cast by the hands of participants, reacting to gestures with sound and animation. Wolf like creatures, birds and a rastafarian are among the characters that speak and squeek as imaginary mouths open and close. Shadow Monsters is an intuitive and magical experience for young and old alike to play with body posture for creating crazy narratives.”

    

5. AR Grafitti by DAIM

Artist DAIM creates virtual 3D graffiti floating in space in his latest art project “Tagged in Motion” of NextWall .
What if everyone could overlay reality with their own virtual creation?
    

4. CARCADE: In-Car Video Game

Andreas Nicolas Fischer and team suggest to take advantage of the fast changing scenery experienced by car passengers – and turn it into a video game (remember Gondry’s Star Guitar Video Clip?). Could be a great way to pass time. I’d call it: “Are we there yet..?”
    

3. Total Immersion at Demo ‘07

Probably the most commercially successful company that specializes in augmented reality, Total Immersion delivers the best live demos in this domain – with a French accent. They have also featured in CES 2008 keynote by Intel’s CEO Ottelini.
    

2. Roku’s Reward

This concept* video shows the potential of augmented reality utilizing today’s technology:
  • A handheld camera device,
  • live video overlaid with 3D graphics,
  • computer recognition – identifying real life objects,
  • positioning and acceleration sensors,
  • virtual objects interacting with reality,

…wrapped up in a fantasy narrative make up this yet-to-be-developed game.
*According to Phil Stenton (HP Labs, UK): “Roku remains a demo film. We haven’t signed up with anyone to create the game yet.”

    

…And the top demo is…

1. Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge

Though delivered in words only, this “demo” paints the farthest vision for augmented reality so far. Everything else you’ll see on this topic will look like excuses: “sorry, we don’t have that technology yet…”
Yes, but do you have the imagination?

“There was something familiar about this prey. It was young and clever looking … a newborn from Juan’s own design! And that meant its Mommy would be nearby. Juan said, “You know, I don’t think –”
“The Problem Is, None Of You Think Nearly Enough.” The sound was premium external, like sticking your head inside an old-time boom box. Too late, they saw that the tree trunks behind them grew from yard-long claws. Mommy. Drool fell in ten-inch blobs from high above.
This was Juan’s design scaled up to the max.”

Didn’t make the list…
* You may ask how come I left out another classic remake: AR Quake. Well, this remake is indeed played outdoors, but let me ask you this: does it add much to the original experience of that first person shooter?
* How come I am ignoring what some call “the future of books” such as EyeMagic Book or WizQubes? Is it really that different than manipulating 3D characters on the computer screen?
* Daniel Wagner, a major force behind recent AR innovation, may be disappointed that his pioneering handheld AR game the Invisible Train didn’t make it. No hurt feelings; it’s a great proof of concept, but isn’t it more fun to play with the *visible* train?
* Other educational oriented games such as MIT’s Environmental Detective or U-WIS’s MadCity Mystery certainly beat learning in a classroom – but aren’t they indistinguishable from traditional low tech scavenger hunts?

Can you beat this list? I want to hear from you.


Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Penguin's ARG

Thanks Melissa!

Penguin publishing dips their toe in Alternate Reality Gaming (ARG). Every week a story is published with clues leading to the seventh story location
http://wetellstories.co.uk/

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