From alternate to alternative reality : games as cultural probes / Patrick Jagoda, Melissa Gilliam, Peter McDonald, and Ashlyn Sparrow -- The game did not take place : this is not a game and blurring the lines of fiction / Alan Hook -- Alternate reality games for learning : a frame by frame analysis / Anthony Pellicone, Elizabeth Bonsignore, Kathryn Kaczmarek, Kari Kraus, June Ahn, & Derek Hansen -- Promotional alternate reality games and the TINAG philosophy / Stephanie Janes -- The coachella disaster : how the puppet masters of art of the h3ist pulled a victory from the jaws of defeat / Burcu S. Bakiolu -- Designing and playing peer-produced ARGs in the primary classroom : supporting literacies through play / Angela Colvert -- Games beyond the arg / Jeff Watson -- Methods : studying alternate reality games as virtual worlds / Calvin Johns -- A typology to describe alternate reality games for cultural contexts / Diane Dufort and Federico Tajariol -- Sociability by design in an alternate reality game : the case of the Trail / Roinioti Elina, Pandia Eleana, Skarpelos Yannis -- Ingress : a restructuring of the ARG or a new genre? : an ethnography of enlightened and resistance factions in Brazil / Thaiane Moreira de Oliveira

Using textual analysis, interviews with game designers, audience surveys, and close analysis of player forum discussion, this book examines the unique nature of the producer/consumer relationship within promotional Alternate Reality Games (ARGs). Historically, ARGs are rooted in advertising as much as they are in narrative storytelling. As designers often have to respond to player actions as the game progresses, players can have an impact on the storyline, on character behaviour, and potentially on the final resolution of the narrative. This book explores how both media consumers and producers are responding to this new reconfiguration of the producer/consumer/prosumer dynamic in order to better understand the diverse advertising experiences available to media audiences today. With a focus on participatory culture and the political economy of promotional communications, this in-depth analysis of ARGs will appeal to academics and researchers in the fields of games, film, advertising, and media and cultural studies.

In our unprecedentedly networked world, games have come to occupy an important space in many of our everyday lives. Digital games alone engage an estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide as of 2020, and other forms of gaming, such as board games, role playing, escape rooms, and puzzles, command an ever-expanding audience. At the same time, “gamification”—the application of game mechanics to traditionally nongame spheres, such as personal health and fitness, shopping, habit tracking, and more—has imposed unprecedented levels of competition, repetition, and quantification on daily life. Drawing from his own experience as a game designer, Patrick Jagoda argues that games need not be synonymous with gamification. He studies experimental games that intervene in the neoliberal project from the inside out, examining a broad variety of mainstream and independent games, including StarCraft, Candy Crush Saga, Stardew Valley, Dys4ia, Braid, and Undertale. Beyond a diagnosis of gamification, Jagoda imagines ways that games can be experimental—not only in the sense of problem solving, but also the more nuanced notion of problem making that embraces the complexities of our digital present. The result is a game-changing book on the sociopolitical potential of this form of mass entertainment.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling, ICIDS 2018, held in Dublin, Ireland, in December 2018. The 20 revised full papers and 16 short papers presented together with 17 posters, 11 demos, and 4 workshops were carefully reviewed and selected from 56, respectively 29, submissions. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: the future of the discipline; theory and analysis; practices and games; virtual reality; theater and performance; generative and assistive tools and techniques; development and analysis of authoring tools; and impact in culture and society.

Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) are computer- and Internet-based "games" (sometimes they're not games at all in a traditional competitive sense) that create virtual environments and self-contained, fully elaborated worlds. The games usually feature an interactive, real-time narrative that involves multiple participants directly with characters, and the action unfolds as a result of participants’ responses to challenges and puzzles. Participants often form a community of sorts to play the game, coming to strategic decisions and coordinating their responses and actions in the virtual world through media of the actual world, such as telephone, email, snail mail, and the Internet. This book introduces readers to the dazzlingly elaborate, intricate, and wildly imaginative world of ARGs and shows how a career can be forged out of a form of “play” that is both serious and entertaining, ingenious and imaginative, fun and profitable.

While formal training and communication are a foundational approach to developing employees in the workplace, alternate reality games (ARGs) provide a framework for increased and sustained engagement within business organizations. ARGs are transmedia experiences designed to generate engagement and immersive learning beyond what is achieved in forma

By weaving fictional narratives and problem solving into everyday life, alternate reality games (ARGs) may be able to fill gaps left by traditional studies in the behavioral and social sciences. Researchers are exploring new ways to address concerns such as ecological validity, inconsistent replication, and recruitment of large and diverse sample populations. ARG-based research design, using familiar tools and multimedia venues to engage players in meaningful interaction within complex near‐real‐world environments, offers methods that can make a difference. This book examines the potential strengths of ARG‐based social science research, the challenges that remain to be overcome, and potential starting points for testing these possibilities.