ARGs are an increadibly powerful force for good, and charities and educational institutions are quickly realising their potential for teaching and fundraising. Throw those two rapidly developing areas together with broadcasters, who are quickly realising that the internet isn’t just for streaming TV and you get some very interesting discussion.
The Let’s Change The Game Conference, organised by Adrian Hon and Law37 saw a meeting of lots of individuals interested in ARGs as serious games and I must admit, I was really surprised with how many people there are working behind the scenes at bringing this emerging medium to attention.
Having been asked to develop an induction ARG myself (unfortunately I was too busy to say yes), I can see how fun and interesting it could make the boring process of teaching people how to use a University Library and familiarising them with the area. I wasn’t aware however, that there are already a handful of people around the country doing exactly that as reasearch for Higher Education institutions.
Katie Piatt spoke about 3 projects and their mixed results. What really interested me are her engagement statistics relating to the three projects, and interestingly that the least interactive had the highest take up. This definately highlights some of the problems with ARGs; they’re hard to get into and even the people who are involved need a lot of persuading to do really wild things.
Nicola Whitton talked about developing a reuseable framework for ARG building (for orientation, socialisation and induction) for educational institutions. I find this very interesting and an ARG-in-a-box is something that I think could prove to be very cheap and valuable in the long run. My only concern is how we go about ensuring teachers understand the concept of an ARG and ensuring the story and gameplay are well thought out. I’m sure Nicola’s probably got some ideas.
Alex Moseley is also doing some interesting work in the field. I’m very interested in the completely transparent assessment that was mentioned (by playing the game which was graded, players / students could see as they progress what their mark for the course is, and if they’re on track for passing it).
I was also particularly interested in hearing what the broadcasters had to say. Phillip Trippenbach detailed some interesting ways in which journalists and the BBC in particular are moving away from more traditional forms of journalism and more to user generated content. The example he used was the Mumbai and how the BBC incorperated tweets from witnesses twitter feeds into their live blog. I think this is a great example of the same sort of collaborative power that ARGs can cause and the effect: a quicker, more flexible, more robust community. Though such forms of collaboration have their problems. Phillip also noted that it’s very hard to sort through the amount of content in terms of editing, and suggested that communities could self edit and check errors and that this is much more effective.
Alice Taylor talked about some upcoming projects being created for Channel 4 that will be used as educational tools for teens. I was very interested to hear how commissioning is changing within broadcasters, and how online content can exist without having a Television series to back-up. Nicola Smyth emphasised what Alice said and gave an interesting talk about the thinking behind some of the BBC’s latest experimental projects.
I’m really glad I went to the conference and took part in the Operation:Sleeper Cell panel (which raised some interesting questions about what ARGs need to do to be more effective for charities). I learnt lots about the other side of ARGs that I’ve not really seen before (education) and met some interesting people. Lets hope the discussion continues.
Tags: ARG, BBC, broadcasters, Channel 4, charities, education, Twitter
Yesterday, I attended a talk given by Malcolm Gladwell, the author of ‘The Tipping Point’ and ‘Blink’. I became a huge fan of his work after Laura reccomended his books to me. The Tipping point was quite an inspirational read: motivating in the sense that it shows how something very small can spark something very big, and full of numbers and facts to back up the odd social theories. It’s definately something I’m greatly interested in with a lot of what I’m thinking about being on the border or viral marketing.
To be honest, I had no idea what Malcolm Gladwell would talk about when I turned up at the Lyceum Theatre. Would it be within the kind of area I’m interested in? or something very very different. One thing I was sure of was that it’d be very interesting…and I was definately right on that one.
Obviously, Gladwell was in London to promote his new book: Outliers: The Story of Success
He gave some shocking accounts of plane crashes over the last 20 years, and how they’d nearly all been a result of a series of human errors. One particular example, he showed stemmed from a difference in culture which lead to mitigation… a definate no no amongst the airline industry. His argument was that by understanding where people come from historically and the culture that surrounds them we can understand why they behave the way they do. I’ve just ordered his book and can’t wait to dive in. I’m guessing it’s going to be explaining how we can show that high achievers are the product of their culture and surroundings. The chain of events which help a successful person suceed are the same as those which led to a Columbian aircraft crashing and I guess after he’s shown us how to identify the stimuli… it’s up to us to work out how to nurture them.
If you get a chance, go and see one of Gladwell’s talks, even if it is about Freud. Although the subject matter might not be interesting, there’s a whole wealth of background to be absorbed.
Tags: London, Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers, Talk, Tipping Point
Apparently I won the Apple Prize.
“Congratulations, you have been selected to receive the Apple Prize from the School of Engineering and Design.”
Which is nice and unexpected. I’m looking forward to graduation on the 17th July, where I’ll be able to join with friends and colleague to celebrate our successes.
Tags: apple prize, Graduation, Marc McGinley, Multimedia
My Degree results came out on Friday (13th) in a spooky coincidence. As some of you will know, the number 13 featured heavily in the Project Ophiuchus ARG that I ran as my dissertation project. At the start, I slipped the number in wherever I could intentionally but towards the end of the game it kept popping up everywhere; my dissertation hand in date and the results date were two of the more coincidental occurings.
I’m not really supestitious, and that’s probably a good thing, since the number 13 has been quite the opposite to unlucky for me. I guess the months of hard work might’ve slightly lead to the obsession of the number, and more importantly the hard work seems to have paid off - I got a First Class Honours!
Thanks go to everybody involved with my dissertation. It wouldn’t have been possible without both the volume and participation of the players.
Expect to see some more ARGs soon! Oh and watch out for the number 13. It might be an important part of the seque!
Tags: BSc, degree, first class, Marc McGinley
I’ll be exhibiting my final year Alternate Reality Game based project at two seperate shows, so come and chat about games, multimedia or whatever…
Made In Brunel 10th-12th June (Stand E2)
New Designers 10th-13th July (Stand G14)
Hope to see you there!
Tags: ARG, exhibition, made in brunel, Marc McGinley, new designers, project, project ophiuchus