Alternate Reality Games or Fiction of the Future?
The virtual world of Second Life got a little bit stranger for me this week. I went over to see Destroy Television the other day at the gallery where she’s hanging out at the moment, and my avatar, Walker Spaight, ended up marrying her! (That’s Destroy’s rock at left.) Now, if you know me and you know my Second Life, this is slightly unusual, since for me there’s very little space between myself and my avatar(s) in the virtual world. I use Second Life as simply an extension of my first life; there’s nothing virtual about it. But here I was role-playing the lovestruck journalist to Destroy’s hard-to-get videographizing vixen. Walker even started a Tumblog about his romance. The formal ceremony was yesterday afternoon (Walker was all nerves — though he didn’t show it), and you can view images of the happy couple together on Destroy’s Flickr stream.
It struck me at some point that what I was doing — along with Annie Ok, who was driving Destroy at the time, and Jerry Paffendorf and Christian Westbrook, who conceived Destroy and brought her to life — was creating a little Alternative Virtual Reality Game, in a way. I don’t write a lot about alternate reality games (ARGs) — i.e., narratives that involve audience participation, which usually have some real-world component, and which often feature a prize or reward at the end — mostly because I don’t really roll with them as a genre. Things like Perplex City and World Without Oil are very cool, to be sure, and I’ve been fascinated to see how this stuff is developing, but I’ve always found myself rubbed the wrong way by this “alternate reality” moniker. But it wasn’t until I started getting my alternate reality on, via Walker, that I realized why. What’s going on in all these cases looks to me less like “alternate reality” than it does like fiction, and fiction being formulated on the same level as broadcast media like television — i.e., it’s just the same kind of fiction that’s happening in a TV show like Law & Order, for instance, only with the audience involved in writing the story as it goes along. From some angles, it looks like there isn’t any such thing as an alternate reality game at all — there’s only the fiction / narrative / media of the future.
That’s increasingly what it looks like to me. I’m not sure why I get hung up on the semantics — maybe because labels confuse things as often as they clarify. But I increasingly see games and role-playing in virtual worlds as falling under the media rubric. They’re made-up stories that we experience for ourselves, and which we increasingly tell each other, which I think is the important part.
It’s interesting to me to stop and look at the world of games and role-playing in virtual worlds as something that’s often less personal than we think it is. Destroy Television helps illustrate this, since she’s such a good media machine: everything she does is pumped out to the Web and (at the moment) gets archived on Flickr, turning her life into a constant media stream, just as Justin Kan is doing with his life at Justin.tv.
We usually think of games and role-playing as more or less private pastimes: I may be creating my own story in GTA: San Andreas or EVE Online, but even in the massively multiplayer environment of EVE, my story is usually being shared with only a limited number of people. But with the advent of lifecasting — the kind of constant streaming being done by Destroy and Justin — the story I’m creating is available to many more people. To me, this pushes it away from being a personal experience I’m sharing with a few friends, and more toward a performance of the type we’d recognize as media in any other context. It’s still a bit of both, of course, but it’s interesting to see things shift.
Maybe Andy Warhol was wrong. Maybe in the future, we’ll all be famous all the time.
Feeds
Theater with your software. Might find this interesting, blogged this snippet from a recent interview with filmmaker Werner Herzog:
AVC: Does the prevalence of reality programming make you more wary to stylize and shape your own documentaries?
WH: No, it’s quite the contrary. You see, what cinema verite tried to do was to present just the accountant’s truth. They were too fact-oriented. I have always postulated that we have to find a new way to deal with reality. It’s not so much facts that interest me, but a deeper truth in them—an ecstasy of truth, an ecstatic truth that illuminates us. That’s what I’ve been after. And in order to find it, you have to be imaginative. You have to invent. You have to stylize. There’s absolutely no danger in that. The danger is to stupidly believe that depicting facts gives us much insight. If facts were the only thing that counted, the telephone directory would be the book of books.
well congrats!
The trouble with everbody being famous all the time is that notions of effeective narrative, thoughtful dialoogue, metaphor and subtext go out the window, sacrificed to the Gods of Mediocrity and Illiteracy.
Aleister > The trouble with everbody being famous all the time is that notions of effeective narrative, thoughtful dialoogue, metaphor and subtext go out the window, sacrificed to the Gods of Mediocrity and Illiteracy.
Good! Throw them out the stupid window!
Very respectfully, of course. :) Mark’s move reminds me to watch Ken Kesey’s short Edge.org video again. “What’s the job of the writer?” Mark is struggling with the traditional writer Gods in the Gonzoverse. You go, Mark/Walker.
“From some angles, it looks like there isn’t any such thing as an alternate reality game at all — there’s only the fiction / narrative / media of the future.”
Mr Wallace, if you will permit me to add some commentary from my own experience: I gave up all idea of setting different areas of behaviour very soon after I entered Second Life. I have been accused of being a “permanent RPer” - I really don’t quite understand the term, and this is not just a conceit, I simply do not differentiate between different modes of living in that way. Everything that I experienced in SL became part of a single narrative, and this gradually extends outside of it as well.
There are huge practical advantages of this as one never has to worry about one’s world being shattered by inappropriate references. I could be involved in some sort of “ARG” and if elements dropped in from another setting or flying penises started to appear, it would all be just a continuation of the same thing; there would be no jarring effect, though aesthetically it might be inappropriate. One constructs one’s own reality from all of the things one experiences rather than taking on someone else’s wholesale - be that the “RL” reality or a “game” reality - and thus it is infinitely robust.
Of course it might result in one not ever fully appreciating the art inherent in a setting which someone else has provided, though I like to think that one can pick up the details and incorporate them into my own. I will likely not ever be able to fully share it with others, either. It is a choice, though, and one so far with which I am quite happy.
Great post. You and Jerry are on to something. The world is becoming a canvas and our lives the paint.
“They’re made-up stories that we experience for ourselves, and which we increasingly tell each other, which I think is the important part.”
To continue a bit - they always were. Pencil-and-paper roleplay was always a continual process of negotiation between the people who were there as to the nature of reality. There was an acceptance that the GM or DM or whoever had ultimate control, but with a proper group it was always made up in concert with everyone else and constantly altered. It can’t help but be otherwise if the actions of other players can affect what you can then do, which they always could. An MMO provides a neutral world-ordering GM in the system, but you are living a collaboration when you’re there unless you can instance yourself out of everything (in which case why play an MMO?)
Hmm. Generally speaking, the ARG genre is specifically about experiences where the action happens in the real world, as opposed to occurring solely in the virtual. So I would term what yo udid old-school online roleplaying. :)
ah, but you see, Raph, I don’t find there’s such a hard line between “the real world” (i.e., the physical world) and who I am and what I do in Second Life. SL for me is an online extension of my real-world self. I only ever log onto SL to work. Getting married in SL is just as much an “alternate reality” as acting out a fictional marriage in the physical world would be.
@Ordinal: I agree that the RP component has always been more or less this way. One of the differences I’m trying to get at in the post is the fact that it’s not longer an activity with a necessarily limited audience. Access to broadband connections and increasing penetration of the Internet means the audience is potentially much larger now than it ever has been, which imo changes the nature of what’s going on here.
Also, there’s no way I want to throw out “effeective narrative, thoughtful dialoogue, metaphor and subtext,” sorry, Jerry. I don’t grapple with the role of the writer at all. The role of the writer — and a few other people — is to filter for those things, to create those things from whole cloth, to nurture those things. That doesn’t mean the crowd can’t occasionally create those things as well. The crowd’s not going to have a good track record at it, but it will happen. And in the meantime, new forms will be created. When the audience is doing the creating and the thing being created is more experiential than one-way narrative (by which I mean, something created here and consumed there), I think different standards of “art” or “worthiness” will have to pertain. But both things — one-way narrative, and the more experiential tekki-wikki whatever you want to call it — fall under the rubric of narrative and media. We don’t always let the latter into that august camp. We’d too often rather call it “games.”
Mark > Also, there’s no way I want to throw out “effeective narrative, thoughtful dialoogue, metaphor and subtext,” sorry, Jerry.
Alls I mean is that if there’s a hypothetical sticking point like fear that we’ll lose precious effective narrative, thoughtful dialog etc. if we do something different, you’ve just got to chuck that stuff, if only to find it all again on the other side in the different form you mention. Different standards for judging it, yes. Eternal recurrence of artifacts and forms necessary for communication to happen and meaning to take place, but of course.
It’s funny, Mason and I and some of his writer friends had a big conversation about this last night. Somehow everyone got started on this question, “Can a journalist be a genius?” with some of the journalists saying no because of adherence to strict journalistic forms that precluded geniustic activities. Then it turned into a term fest of “forms” and “practices” which was only untangled the same way it always is, “Well, I guess someone’s just going to have to go and do it.” :)
Mark > I don’t grapple with the role of the writer at all.
Interesting, I’m surprised to hear you say that. I don’t mean you’re grappling with the role of being a writer in a bad way like you don’t have a grip on writing words. But let’s call a Spaight a Spaight (thanks, folks, I’ll be here all night). Thematically you’re sandwiched between reporting on the strange truth of what happens inside virtual worlds while being a real person and an avatar and reporting on the real people and companies and social and business and technology environments that create them, and media-wise you’re not just dealing with traditional text and an illustrative picture or two, you have recourse to an entire graphical hyper world of machinima and SLURLS and automagical metadata bot news gatherers that offer incredible new opportunities to create and nurture that whole cloth thinger: to tell compelling and ecstatically truthful stories about the metaverse on its own terms.
She’s an alpha woman with bugs only a mother could love, but by marrying Destroy you just married into the future of your craft. A wise move, young man! :D If you don’t grapple her she’ll grapple you. And like any relationship, you’re going to have to listen to and learn from each other, make sacrifices, and figure it out together. :D
Raph > So I would term what you did old-school online roleplaying. :)
Haha, of course you would, you MUD scamp. But I still trust you to bring the past into the future. ;)
future of your craft?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_Lion
past…
and hopefully full of lessons…..
paper sheep…;)
Oh, I’m glad you finally got what *I’ve* been talking about for about 10 years. I call it Living Soap Opera sometimes, or just The Story, or lately I started calling it Novotar, that is, “The Avatar as Novelist”. He just logs on and the story roles. It’s not role-playing, it’s roll-playing. I don’t have some stock “role” or set of affected speech, where I’m donning a fake British accent and doing Harry Potter wizard stuff or affecting some intricate steampunk contraption interaction in Caledon. It’s just an extension, an alternate, but a rolling thing that just goes on. That’s how I’ve always felt about Dyerbrook, Prokofy, Flamingo Court/Motel of Last Resort — all of it. It’s just a never-ending story.
Some games help me tell the story, then they go stale or they crash or something happens. Some worlds help tell the story but they have their crashes and patches. So the story moves to other areas and medias. It just flows on different channels.
Remember when Walker and Henry Hutchence went on the excellent adventure with the Bathysphere in Cub?
I don’t think “alternative reality” is the right name for it due to Raph’s comment and “old-fashioned online role-playing” isn’t right either. It’s just Novotar, and it’s going to work exactly as you say, in the future, we’re all going to be famous all the time, but what will happen, on account of everybody being famous, we’ll all be actually less famous than we thought…
Mark, I’d like to note that the days you came by were a welcome and interesting deviance from what we have been doing the majority of the time with this project, fueled by our friendship and playful dynamic, resulting in the theatre of the absurd/RP aspect.
A part of me is stoked that we could all revel in a ludicrous respite from Destroy’s non-stop documentation of SL but a part of me is also regretful that your personal interaction with this project was not indicative of the progression of it thus far.
To me, the exemplary moment of Destroy’s potential educational/informative application has been the happy accident of running into Keystone Bouchard and him immediately TP-ing in Theory Shaw and the ensuing tour they gave to destroy of architecture island and the wikitecture project.
http://tinyurl.com/2hap93
There has never been such a single comprehensive tour like that documenting their projects. the amazing thing was that they were both looking at the destroytv.com site to be able to see what i was camscanning and were giving blow by blow descriptions of it all, something which is not currently possible via use of SL alone. it was a magical metaversal moment for all concerned.
Consider how indispensable a tool like Destroy could be when you need to go and report on any story in SL. You only need invite her along (with her driver of course) and she will record/document the entire interview/reportage perfectly, as well as allow your readership (now viewership!) to watch along as it happens, live, and as be able to interact by posing comments/questions as they arise. They will no longer have to be limited to those who are already signed into SL, but to anyone who tunes into destroytv.com or the 3pointD *channel*. Not only that, they will be able to go back and search her flickr for a perfect transcript of the whole story and see all the pics whenever they want. The potential applications are astounding and limitless.
And, of course, it is also perfect for using to simultaneously broadcast and record fiction pieces, such as what we did the 2 days you visited us. As jerry said during the wedding, we can even make a comic book of the whole Destroy hanging out with Walker, getting run over in her lil go-cart by his fancy red racing car, filming him attempting to golf, then the surprise proposal in front of the ghetto fishing shack, to her preparing for the wedding, then the actual wedding itself. In fact, the comic book is already right there in her flickr for anyone to read right now. :P
In my mind’s eye, the marriage of Walker and Destroy can and should be one that is not just limited to goofy RP fun but one which can have far reaching informative/educational potential. I say we rock out 3pointD, the live interactive virtual broadcast channel and put that bitch to work for her man.
1st in the motherf*cking metaverse, yo!
Mainstream Hollywood must be taking notice of the emerging significance of SL and other engaging virtual environments. I see a day when for the right price, you can write yourself into your favorite TV show, or assume the identity of a blockbuster character.
Yeah, it was a lovely Permo-Bond ceremony, and glad I was able to attend.
More photos are posted at http://flickr.com/photos/seesaw8/sets/72157600291936230/
For me, the ‘wedding’ seemed to mean much more having followed Walker’s blog for a good while, and RL seen or perhaps met a handful of the ‘attendees’ or those that I had not RL met, but knew (or knew of). So right, the crossover between RL and VL continues, which is part of my ‘journey’ to understanding (if that is possible).
Destroy Television bouncing around on a pogo stick, now that made this wedding better than any RL one could ever hope to be!
@cube3
“Paper Cube” Fake WELLO Album
ARG’s are very much about fiction unwiding in front of you. It sounds like a very easy thing to build, write a story put a few websites and clues and let people get on with it. However, the mix of controlling a story line of multiple threads, across multiple touch points combined with letting the audience create the story themselves is really interesting.
I really like the anectoes about the Beast ARG. Where the script unravelled and repsonded to the audience over time. Somehow a major character got created that could not be destroyed (in the storyline) it fed off nightmares. The community, with no prompting or planning from the writers, created a wiki of all their worst nightmares. As this in theory contained every nightmare the writers used the wiki as a plot point to capture forever this character.
There are many shades of game, but the blending of real physical life with the many channels we have to communicate now make this an even ore exciting time I think.
I am sorry I missed the wedding, but it was great to pop into the reception, another special moment in my virtual life.
Mark, very interesting post, might use some of it in my work too. Congrats in tying the knot!
Consider how indispensable a tool like Destroy could be when you need to go and report on any story in SL. You only need invite her along (with her driver of course) and she will record/document the entire interview/reportage perfectly, as well as allow your readership (now viewership!) to watch along as it happens, live, and as be able to interact by posing comments/questions as they arise.
I’m troubled by the idea that someone has to play driver and sort of be subsumed — unless, of course, the driver has more say. Can we really of any separate avatar when in fact it must always be driven? Even given the pass-around-pack status?
What I hope is that someday we can flip a switch on an avatar and have ourselves be the TV, have a “tv mode” that broadcasts — or not.
Live (Destroy) Television…
Yossarian and I just gave Destroy Television a bit of a tour both of our public areas in Second Life and the private islands of Hursley and IQ and the giant molecule on Thornebridge town. All this was being broadcast live on destroytv, and also stream…
>”I’m troubled by the idea that someone has to play driver and sort of be subsumed — unless, of course, the driver has more say. Can we really of any separate avatar when in fact it must always be driven? Even given the pass-around-pack status?
What I hope is that someday we can flip a switch on an avatar and have ourselves be the TV, have a “tv mode” that broadcasts — or not.”
In actuality, there is no need for her to come along at all. The brilliance of Destroy Television is not necessarily about Destroy the avatar herself, but rather the lifelogging/lifecasting technology behind her which can be applied to any avatar, you and Walker included. So essentially, your hope has come to fruition.:)
More info about Destroy Television project/exhibition here:
http://virb.com/ghavasl/
Prok,
This was a revival for DTV; a celebration of technology we found under our skink a year ago. Back then, when I said the words, “avatars controlled remotely” at SXSW, I was laughed at (except by Jerry and Mark). I agree wholeheartedly that requiring a driver is a huge limitation — one clearly prohibitive to 24/7 lifelogging Justin.tv style. But unlike Justun.tv, DTV doesn’t have to sleep. Give tekkiwikis just a bit longer and I suspect your concerns may be alleviated…
Cw