ARGs and Utopian Dreams

Ron Meiners contributes an essay about the social possibilities in alternate reality - from Burning Man to Last Call Poker.  A selection: "The ARG creates a median space between the two poles: participatory but guided. Social, but driven by the need for collaboration and the self-selection of the participants and the underlying knowledge that the space is ultimately a protected one...which creates very strong social ties and consistently transformative personal experiences that she [Jane McGonigal] described as “pronoia” – the irrational conviction that the world is conspiring to your benefit in subtle and consistent ways..."

There seems to be a very curious and consistent dichotomy in social spaces, online and in realspace. One end of the spectrum are the systems where the social dynamics are moderated from on high, with the result of creating a very predictable, “safe”, normative social experience. MOO’s, or There (http://www.There.com) , or Disneyland (http://www.Disneyland.com) (or, arguably most competitive games) have well defined and enforced social rules, and thus become a chance for participants to interact without the fear of the “other”: social expectations are explicit, or, even more, the social norm is overtly friendly and accepting, even with individuals that might otherwise be seen as outside of one’s social group (it is a small world, after all). In contrast, at the other end of the spectrum are experiences where the social experience can more generally be seen as driven from the bottom up- ie., much less sense of social norm (though this can create a very strong social dynamic driven by an explicit cultural value on accepting others regardless of superficial appearance). MUSH’s, Second Life (http://secondlife.com), or Burning Man (http://www.BurningMan.com) have much less superficial social homogeneity, but this too can foster a greater sense of connection for members of the culture, as the acceptance of explicit diversity becomes an identification in itself and this creates a connection.  

The next piece of this is the element of creative collaboration as a social norm- at Burning Man it’s quite common to join in serious work (and remember we’re talking the desert in late August here) to help the art project of total strangers. At Disneyland even the notion of individuals creating something is seen as subversive (reasonably, the whole value is created by a sense of security and conformity – and by contrast subversion is a good part of the aesthetic of spaces like Burning Man). And, of course, the element of “professionalism” or the availability of resources and production values are appropriate to these two production methods. With the exception of the fireworks displays, the greater resources and moderated production processes of places like Disneyland or Las Vegas can create an aesthetic driven by sheer technique that’s a lot harder to find in the desert. Both experiences are driven by wonder, but the cultural perspectives that define that wonder can be worlds apart. One is driven by participation while the other is driven by a sense of luxury , a sense of holiday from responsibility or challenge. And, of course, these are huge generalizations: there is certainly a social world in Second Life, and collaborative creativity in There. But I think the general character of these worlds fit the model.

Yet there’s a third piece to this system, a cultural and social experience that combines elements of both ends of this spectrum to create an enhanced effect for participants. I’m going to draw heavily from the analysis of the Alternate Reality Game (ARG) presented by Jane McGonigal (http://avantgame.com/index.html) (she’s currently working on the lastcallpoker (http://lastcallpoker.com) ARG) at the Austin Game Conference (http://www.gameconference.com/), which presented the ARG as a combination of game and social experience that had profound effects on its participants, even transformative ones.  

Jane’s discussion of the ARG is worth exploring in depth (and hopefully will be online soon) but I want to highlight one element that struck me as very insightful, and that fits in with the taxonomy of social and cultural experiences described above. ARG’s blend elements of both types of experiences to create an enhanced social and personal experience for participants. The general space is moderated – but only remotely, and most of the social interaction is freely built by the participants. The experience is collaborative, but is part of an unfolding (sometimes dynamically so) game arc crafted by the designers. The ARG creates a median space between the two poles: participatory but guided. Social, but driven by the need for collaboration and the self-selection of the participants and the underlying knowledge that the space is ultimately a protected one.

In the ARG, Jane pointed out, much of the core experience revolves around collaborative problem solving, which creates very strong social ties and consistently transformative personal experiences that she described as “pronoia” – the irrational conviction that the world is conspiring to your benefit in subtle and consistent ways. (Her examples of this are very impressive, including the previously uninvolved individual who spontaneously took on a pivotal role in one ARG due to the conviction of the players that he was also in the game.) The consistently transformative experiences of ARG players, the tendency toward pronoia, reflects a cultural system that both involves and guides, that includes and also rewards individual creation. It gives a clear signpost of the kind of “game”/cultural experiences that can have profound personal and social consequences. 

To a large extent, the expectation of powerful experiences in the culture of the participants reinforces this effect, becomes part of the view of themselves shared by members of the culture. In my experience, this is what makes Burning Man still an often profound event: the cultural expectation of transformative experiences and interactions shapes the experiences of the participants, coloring how they interpret events and in how they present themselves to other participants. The expectation is communicated as a defining part of the culture, and events there are therefore often seen through this lens, and become personally meaningful.

And certainly cultural expectations are quite meaningful in online settings: one expects (for example) a different culture in Shadowbane from what one finds in the Myst community. And the expectations in turn influence, or even define, the way participants interpret events and express themselves while participating in that culture. I think people tend to approach online cultures altruistically, a little bit more open to a utopian dream, and that this results in cultures that tend to reinforce those dreams.

--Ron Meiners

Comments

[Betsy Book]

1.

If I recall correctly, pronoia in ARGs was presented by Jane as a relatively unexpected emergent phenomenon, something that the game designers were surprised to see such strong evidence of as the game played out. I suspect there's no secret formula for pronoia in game design but I'd love to hear a bit more from the 4orty 2wo folks about whether they intentionally designed Last Call Poker and i love bees to specifically generate pronoia.

Another interesting thing to consider is that the ARG projects were, at the end of the day, marketing inititiaves and not some kind of academic experiences in the creation of utopias. But I suppose since branding has always been to some extent about creating a sort of utopia for consumers it does make sense that certain carefully constructed experiences of certain brands could be deeply utopian.

[Celia Pearce]

2.

I really enjoyed this post and wanted to add a few additional comments.

I think the comparisions between Disneyland, Las Vegas and Burning Man are apt. The only thing I would add is that there is a dimension of IP ownership to Disneyland which precludes participation. Disney is a brand that specificially forbids any subversion of its IP, while Burning Man specifically promotes it. We've already begun to see inklings of the friction between corporately owned IP vs. player-generated content in the recent Marvel vs. City of Heroes lawsuit tracked here on TerraNova. There.com tacitly avoids these conflicts by screening player-made artifacts for potential IP violations.

It's also interesting to note, vis a vis Betsy's comments, that a related form of 'pervasive branding' is also taking place in the form of Sony's recent PSP graffitti campaign. Sony Draws Ire With PSP Graffitti This is its own kind of inverted ARG. (For a look at an art-based rather than brand-based approach to ARG's, take a look at the British collective Blast Theory). We've also seen this approach to 'experiential marketing' in the form of Wells Fargo's Island in Second Life.

The ARG and these other examples also bring up a subject that I've been tackling in my recent research which is the pourousness of the magic circle. In my sociological studies of inter-game immigration, I'm finding that magic circles are far from the involate boundaries we've imagined them to be. ARG's are of interest because they deliberately bleed the magic circle into real life and create the ambiguity you describe where a person not in the game becames a player 'emergently,' let us say, because 'official players' believe him to be one. This is reminiscent of the comedy The Man Who Knew Too Little, in which Bill Murray believes himself to be playing an ARG of sorts, when in fact, the events happening to and around him are entirely 'real.' In a way it suggests that one might view the entirety of existence through a game lens (I suspect most TN denizens do that in one way or another.)

This leads to my final thought: Anyone up for staging an ARG at Disneyland? We'd probably get arrested (rumor has it there actually is an underground 'security dungeon' at Disneyland) but it would be a hell of a lot of fun.