In class this week, I was curious about what made ARG’s seem so conducive to the practice of critical making. In particular, what is it that makes ARG’s different from something like an escape room or a puzzle solving game that makes the format seem much more suited to critical making? To me, the answer seems to lie in several factors: the fragmented narrative structure, the quasi-realism of the games, and the dialectical interacton between participants and the game developers. These factors culminate to create a game in which formal narrative structure and our relationship to technological apparatuses are challenged by ARGs.
First of all, the fragmentary, non-linear narrative structure of ARGs immediately calls into question the way in which narratives are constructed. For example, as Patrick had noted with S.E.E.D., the culmination of the ARG was the construction of an argument for how the world could be saved, using the fragmented pieces of information distributed across various groups. The narrative thus seems to be not simply a narrative, but an exercise in understanding how narratives are constructed through the organization of fragmented ideas. While this may seem similar to something like an escape room, in which information is collected and used to construct a path to escape, the narrative structure of escape rooms seems rather limited and linear in comparison, allowing for only one possible combination of elements that leads to the goal of escape.
Secondly, the games construct a sense of quasi-realism through the use of technological apparatuses. As Patrick noted in class, part of the goal of his ARGs was to get the participants to believe that there was maybe a 5% chance that what was happening in the game was real. This partial belief in the reality of the game and the integration of transmedia technologies with the material world to just this fact; that our reality is being shaped through these media technologies. The sense of belief in the reality of the game seems to play a unique role here. Players are able to hold in their heads the conflicting ideas that the ARG is “other” than reality, but at the same time that it might be real. There is thus the creation of an “alternate reality” in the players’ heads that is primarily constructed through the integration of the technological and the real. While the belief in the reality of the game allows for the recognition of an alternate reality, the non-belief allows for players to recognize the technology that is structuring this reality, drawing attention to the ways in which we interact with technological apparatuses in our everyday life and how they shape the material world.
Finally, ARGs allow for dimensions of interaction between game designers and players that are not seen in other games. As with the improvised protest in S.E.E.D., players are able to make improvised choices that deviate from planned narratives, putting pressure on the developers to change the game narrative on the spot. This again challenges traditional narrative structures by, in a sense, having a narrative that is inherently contingent. While predetermined narratives are certainly planned, contingencies in the players’ actions will lead to deviations from this narrative. Thus, while narrative is semi-prescribed in ARGs, the structure of ARGs allows for a narrative that is self-purposive, that is, the narrative creates itself through the performance of the narrative. Thus, not only is the concept of linear narrative challenged in ARG’s, but players are also challenged to understand narratives as something that they are producing merely by the fact of participating in these narrative practices.