ILOVEBEES: A new way to game?

  With the release of the highly anticipated 2004 Halo 2 game there was something new that had never been tried before. An Alternative Reality Game (ARG) acting as a world wide interactive treasure hunt that was used to promote and advertise the Bungie release.

  For the hunt to begin small hints were needed to be planted for this revolutionary game to proceed. There were two main hints used. Firstly, through the game's trailers. As they were released  something was discovered that left fans and the gaming community baffled. At the end of the advert was a message or indeed a web link, www.ilovebees.com was shown that flashed over Mircrosoft's own resulting in thousands of fans rushing to their computers to divulge into this mysterious website.

  Secondly, a handful of ARG gamers were secretly selected to receive small jars of honey in the post. Suspended within this honey was a letter and all together spelt 'ILOVEBEES'. With the advert and secret honey pots used; the online community flooded with activity in an attempt to understand what this was all about. The ilovebees website seemed a normal site about a person's avid (but strange) love for bees but later looked as if it were under attack from hackers as messages and codes appeared. Again as time progressed the internet forums erupted into cracking these codes and satellite images until collective knowledge revealed that they were coordinates for specific phone boxes around the US.

A phone box sat image 

A woman answers a designated payphone as
crowding fans show the Master Chief Salute

 These phones rang at stated times releasing a certain part of spoken dialogue. Once all the extracts were put together a story into Halo 2's history was created involving all of the loved characters and those who took part were able to join an exclusive screening and online play of the game before its initial release under a condition that they could recite a codeword released over the payphones.

For a video explanation of the ARG: The ILOVEBEES Phenomenon

  This had never been attempted before, an ARG within another game. It re-mediated not only advertising; but gaming as a whole. In terms of advertising, typically the audience is being bombarded on TV, on computers or even now on mobile phones but with ILOVEBEES the audience were actually chasing after the advertiser and because they want to, not like an unknown number beginning with '02...' ringing you up and leaving a message saying that there have been some 'financial issues' with your bank in which you ring up to question this only to find its an advert for another bank that could offer you better interest - this specific example has happened to me! In terms of  re-mediating gaming it changed the way people interacted with games and the idea of games as a whole. Normally with a new game's release the gamer travels to the store to buy the game and then spends the next few weeks chained to the screen in isolation forgetting the key elements of time, sleep and the natural impulse of hunger. An ARG pulls in all players from around the world to communicate and get on one specific goal together which is similar you may think to how Xbox Live or PSN (Playstation Network) works today but it is not. With the online community on consoles it's more about your personal gain, you 'killing' and American kid named 'XboxAddict' gets you 50XP and a new gun or you reaching a specific point gets you this unlocked. In an ARG it uses the same idea of involving countries together and solving a problem i.e. in ILOVEBEES forums were flooded with comments from all around the world that used information from another forum-er, or forum poster? or is it user? I'm not sure what the term is but you get the idea - I hope. This information sparks another idea and so on and so on until the final objective is achieved, in this case: co-ordinates to a phone box or a piece of audio.

   On the other hand you could argue that ARG's are moving away from the idea of what games are. Games allow you to take control of a character, usually much more powerful and capable of completing tasks than yourself, and wander in an alternative world where you can create the rules and control how the game unfolds. In an ARG you are the character and your not in another world fighting monsters and gaining x amount of gold, credits, chips whatever, you're just you.

  This whole ARG idea has re-mediated gaming, changed how we interact with games and has also converged different media types together. Gaming, email, telephones and the internet are all used to portray the game onto the game-field - the world. by providing hints, obstacles and sometimes other players that have to be overcome by the community.

  So there you have it - ARG's. Are they a new way to game? They are growing in popularity as they provide a different perspective on traditional gaming of just sitting in front of a tv and are more communal. But with the release of the Playstation Move and soon Xbox Kinect will it stay or just become lost in its own alternative reality when technology leaves it behind?