Ornebring, H. (2007). Alternate Reality Gaming and convergence culture: The case of Alias. International Journal of Cultural Studies 10(4), 445-462.
· ARGs are an internet game in which consumers are placed in a fictional world and engage in collective problem solving.
· ARGs are games which use seemingly real world links to create an expanded narrative for a central story, such as seen with the TV series Alias where fans went to related external websites which contained clues to a developing background narrative to the TV program which cascaded across many websites, and the TV show itself, to give users a trail of clues to build the story. As McGonigal describes they are “interactive dramas played out in online spaces” that can take place over a number of weeks or months and require social networks to collectively solve the problems and move the narrative forwards. I have not heard or participated in these before so this was an interesting gaming genre and something that I would probably want to become a part of in the future as I would find it extremely engaging.
· There are also grassroots ARGs develop by fan groups that would only be possible through the social networks capabilities of the internet. These seem to me a fan fiction remediation as discussed my Helen Merrick earlier in Med104.
· ARGs are an example of media convergence, cross media entertainment and transmedia story telling. It is clear they are indicative of a wider media convergence facilitated by participatory culture and collective intelligence.
· Jenkins says ARGs are indicative of a “convergence culture” and that the internet has created a media centrality for circulation of tests across many media platforms, and that participants are important in the convergence as it is they who interact, share and remediate this content with different cultural contexts as seen in vidding culture and in this case grassroots ARGS.
· Films such as the Matrix formed narratives across many different medias such as games, short films, comics to build a larger richer narrative that that possible in the media of film. These pieces of media help build the overall narrative but also stand in the I own right as pieces of meaningful media. The matrix is thus a transmedia text where each part builds to overall narrative.
· I agree with point Ornebring next makes about transmediation being a marketing tool used to promote other saleable media. From my point of view I see media such as the clone wars cartoon series from Star Wars as an example of this, as to be the associated star wars novels and computer games which are all designed to build back ground narratives and frameworks to the star wars universe. Star wars also much fan created content intended to build these background narratives in the form of artwork, videos and the collaborative ‘wookiepedia’.
· Do ARGs blur the line between producer and consumer in a participatory culture? Ornebring seems to concede the positives present in ARGs such as socialized collective intelligences but argues that to ignore the marketing aspects present in ARGs is a mistake. I think these marketing concerns Ornebring has are over stated as I think most media is designed to grab consumer attention and in trying to achieve this is using marketing strategies. It is what effective media creations need to do to attract audience attention in an era of media abundance and thus the monetizing of this is a natural process in a competitive attention economy where viral marketing acts a recommendation system.
· These thus also allow for hacktivism and culture jamming using these same attention grabbing strategies to remediate effective online media to tell another point of view which is why I do not agree with Orbebrings marketing angle.
· Fan culture (grassroots) exists between commercial and non-commercial concerns as it is both creative and derivative, celebrating consumerism whilst also being a non-official method of consumption striving to hold true to the original source material as a way of paying homage to the creators whilst building a recognizable sub-culture.
· This is why media is now made with specially design gaps in narrative for Fan culture to interact and develop new narrative ideas and why fan-produced and industry produced ARGs seem to form the same cultural function of build the narrative of an existing media brand.
· Fan based ARGs actually are representative of genuine user driven creativity as they rely on a bare minimum of content from the original due to IP restraints that drive them to develop new characters and narratives that are faithful to, and relate back to, the original. This remediation of a industry created media theme seem akin to the re-telling of folk stories in past, passing along cultural information – this is due to the strong sense of owner ship over the content the consume and produce.
· Overall I think the conclusions made can be questioned as they a drawn from an examination of too few ARGs which makes the information slightly less useful as an indicative examination of the subject. The paper focus almost solely on the ARGs derived from the Television show Alias. Thus the subject obviously warrants more study. The other issue I have with the analysis within this paper is that I think it would have been better to act as a participant observer within an active ARG rather than use analyzes ARGS retrospectively where some data is missing so it is impossible to get a clear picture of the ARG experience.
· In reflection I think ARGs extend the narrative beyond that of the original source material to maintain brand integrity and acts as pleasurable forms of media that sit in-between game and film in the case of alias, which act to engages fans more deeply through active participation within online fan communities.
· ARGs are an internet game in which consumers are placed in a fictional world and engage in collective problem solving.
· ARGs are games which use seemingly real world links to create an expanded narrative for a central story, such as seen with the TV series Alias where fans went to related external websites which contained clues to a developing background narrative to the TV program which cascaded across many websites, and the TV show itself, to give users a trail of clues to build the story. As McGonigal describes they are “interactive dramas played out in online spaces” that can take place over a number of weeks or months and require social networks to collectively solve the problems and move the narrative forwards. I have not heard or participated in these before so this was an interesting gaming genre and something that I would probably want to become a part of in the future as I would find it extremely engaging.
· There are also grassroots ARGs develop by fan groups that would only be possible through the social networks capabilities of the internet. These seem to me a fan fiction remediation as discussed my Helen Merrick earlier in Med104.
· ARGs are an example of media convergence, cross media entertainment and transmedia story telling. It is clear they are indicative of a wider media convergence facilitated by participatory culture and collective intelligence.
· Jenkins says ARGs are indicative of a “convergence culture” and that the internet has created a media centrality for circulation of tests across many media platforms, and that participants are important in the convergence as it is they who interact, share and remediate this content with different cultural contexts as seen in vidding culture and in this case grassroots ARGS.
· Films such as the Matrix formed narratives across many different medias such as games, short films, comics to build a larger richer narrative that that possible in the media of film. These pieces of media help build the overall narrative but also stand in the I own right as pieces of meaningful media. The matrix is thus a transmedia text where each part builds to overall narrative.
· I agree with point Ornebring next makes about transmediation being a marketing tool used to promote other saleable media. From my point of view I see media such as the clone wars cartoon series from Star Wars as an example of this, as to be the associated star wars novels and computer games which are all designed to build back ground narratives and frameworks to the star wars universe. Star wars also much fan created content intended to build these background narratives in the form of artwork, videos and the collaborative ‘wookiepedia’.
· Do ARGs blur the line between producer and consumer in a participatory culture? Ornebring seems to concede the positives present in ARGs such as socialized collective intelligences but argues that to ignore the marketing aspects present in ARGs is a mistake. I think these marketing concerns Ornebring has are over stated as I think most media is designed to grab consumer attention and in trying to achieve this is using marketing strategies. It is what effective media creations need to do to attract audience attention in an era of media abundance and thus the monetizing of this is a natural process in a competitive attention economy where viral marketing acts a recommendation system.
· These thus also allow for hacktivism and culture jamming using these same attention grabbing strategies to remediate effective online media to tell another point of view which is why I do not agree with Orbebrings marketing angle.
· Fan culture (grassroots) exists between commercial and non-commercial concerns as it is both creative and derivative, celebrating consumerism whilst also being a non-official method of consumption striving to hold true to the original source material as a way of paying homage to the creators whilst building a recognizable sub-culture.
· This is why media is now made with specially design gaps in narrative for Fan culture to interact and develop new narrative ideas and why fan-produced and industry produced ARGs seem to form the same cultural function of build the narrative of an existing media brand.
· Fan based ARGs actually are representative of genuine user driven creativity as they rely on a bare minimum of content from the original due to IP restraints that drive them to develop new characters and narratives that are faithful to, and relate back to, the original. This remediation of a industry created media theme seem akin to the re-telling of folk stories in past, passing along cultural information – this is due to the strong sense of owner ship over the content the consume and produce.
· Overall I think the conclusions made can be questioned as they a drawn from an examination of too few ARGs which makes the information slightly less useful as an indicative examination of the subject. The paper focus almost solely on the ARGs derived from the Television show Alias. Thus the subject obviously warrants more study. The other issue I have with the analysis within this paper is that I think it would have been better to act as a participant observer within an active ARG rather than use analyzes ARGS retrospectively where some data is missing so it is impossible to get a clear picture of the ARG experience.
· In reflection I think ARGs extend the narrative beyond that of the original source material to maintain brand integrity and acts as pleasurable forms of media that sit in-between game and film in the case of alias, which act to engages fans more deeply through active participation within online fan communities.