An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform to tell a story through multiple media. I Love Bees was a seminal ARG from 2004 that involved over 100,000 players solving puzzles related to the video game Halo through websites, phone calls, and online discussions. Players had to work together to understand the narrative and help an artificial intelligence trapped on the internet. Developers responded to player actions, adapting the story based on their ideas and progress, in a demonstration of collective intelligence.

1. Why I love bees
Alternate Reality Gaming
Taken From:
Why I Love Bees: A Case Study in Collective
Intelligence Gaming, Jane McGonigal, 2007
Alternate Reality Gaming, Kim, Allen & Lee, 2008
Jordan Weisman, Edge Interview, 2009

2. ARG
An alternate reality game (ARG) is an
interactive narrative that uses the real world
as a platform, often involving multiple media
and game elements, to tell a story that may
be affected by participants' ideas or actions.
(Wikipedia, emphasis mine)

3. The Hidden Game
“A typical ARG would not even acknowledge or
promote the fact that it is a game, yet every
Web site or discussion group may contain and
reveal a potential clue”, Kim et al.

4. Features
• Compelling Narrative
• Collaborative Gameplay
• Multiple communication channels:
– Web pages, email, phone calls, print media, ...
• Game players create own channels
– Discussion boards, email, meetings, ...
• Developers can respond to players actions
– Performance not product

5. I Love Bees
• First major successful ARG was The Beast – a
game tied to the Spielberg film AI, and seeded
through clues in movie posters
• Second was I Love Bees – a game tied to the
release of Halo 2
– Seeded initially with jars of promotional honey
sent to journalists
– ilovebees.com URL shown at end of Halo 2 cinema
trailer

7. Ilovebees.com
• An apparently hacked bee lover’s web-site
– Mysterious meaningless messages
– Ominous count-down timer
– Message from the amateur web-site admin asking
for help
• Goes into hiding after exchanging around 100 emails
with players
• No stated goals or rules

9. Backstory
• From the Halo universe, a ship controlled by a
sentient ‘good’ AI has crash landed on Earth
– Hiding on the internet
– Web admin deletes part of the AI memory
• Other sentient AI programs and one Covenant
AI are also on Earth
• Players have to work out what is happening
first – before they can help

10. Collective Intelligence (CI)
• Challenge: “To create puzzles and challenges
that no single person could solve on their
own” (Elan Lee, director)
• Solved by approx 100,000 active players over
4 months (3 million players in total)
– One million message board posts
– 33,000 chat messages/day

11. Responding to Players
• Community discussion boards, fan pages and
IRC channels were monitored
• Story adapted to respond to player actions
– E.g. When the good AI’s hiding place was given
away by some players
– Can also push more clues as needed, or add extra
puzzles if players progress is too rapid
• Key sections planned ahead, but adapted as
needed

13. Participatory Design
“Players assumed that the ILB design team
knew exactly how the game would unfold and
therefore would always be a step ahead of the
players. When the game concluded in
November 2004, ILB gamers were genuinely
surprised to hear the design team say the
gamers themselves had control over how the
plot unfolded.” Kim et al.

14. Building CI
• Collective problem solving of gamers in ARGs
is a key feature
• Serious applications?
– As a teaching tool
– Large scale role play (“real play”) problem solving:
generating novel solutions for real problems

17. Future of ARG

18. References
• Weisman, J. (2009, December). Traveller: Interview
with Jordan Weisman. Edge, (208), 78-83.
• Kim, J. Y., Allen, J. P., & Lee, E. (2008). Alternate reality
gaming. Commun. ACM, 51(2), 36-42.
doi:10.1145/1314215.1314222
• McGonigal, J. (2007). Why I Love Bees: A Case Study in
Collective Intelligence Gaming. The John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital
Media and Learning, (The Ecology of Games:
Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning), 199-227.
doi:10.1162/dmal.9780262693646.199
• ARGOSI, http://argosi.playthinklearn.net/index.htm