48‐JLS‐0064 ARG Relevance as a Marketing Strategy in a Museum Interactive Qualifying Project Proposal Submitted to the Faculty of the WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE In partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation By ___________________________ ___________________________ Tyler Berg Adam Pastorello ____________________________ Riley Brown April 19, 2010 ____________________________________ Professor Jeffrey L. Forgeng. Major Advisor Keywords: ARG, Alternate Reality Game, Museums, Higgins Armory 1 Abstract This project explored the use of alternate reality games as a marketing strategy in a museum environment. An alternate reality game is a largely web‐based virtual scavenger hunt where the players find information and solve puzzles to uncover a story. The setting for the game was the Higgins Armory Museum. The project created and ran an ARG, analyzing what tactics worked or did poorly in stirring interest in the museum. 2 Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... 2 Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 5 Chapter 1 ‐ Digital Media .............................................................................................................................. 7 Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 7 Virtual Digital Media ................................................................................................................................. 7 Examples of Non‐Virtual Digital Media ................................................................................................... 13 Media and Museums .............................................................................................................................. 16 Possible Paths for ARG Media ................................................................................................................. 20 Implementation and types of puzzles ..................................................................................................... 24 Chapter 2 ‐ Story ......................................................................................................................................... 30 Mythology ............................................................................................................................................... 30 Archeology .............................................................................................................................................. 42 Exploration .............................................................................................................................................. 48 Professor Bell .......................................................................................................................................... 53 Chapter 3 ‐ Alternate Reality Games .......................................................................................................... 59 ARGs and Marketing ............................................................................................................................... 59 ARG Structure ......................................................................................................................................... 66 Materials Organization of ARGs .............................................................................................................. 79 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 82 Team Bios .................................................................................................................................................... 87 Works Cited ................................................................................................................................................. 89 Appendices .................................................................................................................................................. 93 Appendix A –Design Document .............................................................................................................. 93 Game Overview ................................................................................................................................... 93 3 Appendix B ‐ ARG Content ...................................................................................................................... 99 Critias Research Bio ............................................................................................................................. 99 Staffing Paragraphs ............................................................................................................................. 99 Journal Entries ................................................................................................................................... 104 Appendix C ‐ Professor Bell’s Website .................................................................................................. 121 Appendix D – Atlantis ............................................................................................................................ 128 Appendix E – Mayan Calendar .............................................................................................................. 129 4 Introduction This project created an ARG or alternate reality game for the Higgins Armory and studied its effectiveness as a marketing tool. An ARG is a virtual scavenger hunt where the players find information and solve puzzles to uncover a story. In some cases, ARGs traverse into the real world, constructing for the player, an augmented reality from what the player knows and believes to be true. Typically ARGs are used to advertise movies and games before their release, but in this case, the ARG would advertise an existing exhibit in the museum, something which had not been done previous to the project. Players usually begin the game by finding something called a “Rabbit Hole” which is an entrance to the world the game is set in. Rabbit holes are generally things that link the player to a website or bring them to some sort of installment in the real world specifically made for the game. Once inside the world the players will find puzzles and other sorts of hurdles that they must overcome in order to uncover more of the story associated with the game. Missing Poster “Rabbit Hole” 5 Our rabbit hole leads players into the world of Rufus Excalibur Bell. Professor Bell is a fictional character playing the role of Curator of Curiosities at the Higgins Armory. His job is to bring back artifacts representing the mythical and unbelievable of our world. Such artifacts include Medusa’s head, and the wings of Daedalus. The temporary exhibit “Beyond Belief” located at the Higgins Armory exemplifies who Professor Bell is, and what he has been doing over the past several years. The exhibit consists of two rooms full of Professor Bells “findings.” Professor Bell Business Card In the following research document, we broke up the information into three sections. The first section talks about digital media used in today’s highly technological world and how those uses are sometimes not the original intended purpose including the possibility of being used in an ARG. The second section talks about the story of Professor Bell as well as several myths and legends including information about the Mayan calendar. The last portion goes into further depth on the construction and inner workings of an alternate reality game. 6 Chapter 1 ­ Digital Media Researched and Written by Tyler Berg Introduction Digital media is a vast pool of devices and virtual ideas that concatenate to form a culture. This culture creates a piece of our society today that not only affects the world around us and how we interact with it, but also affects our future, and, technologically, where our planet is headed. If we can understand the digital media of today, maybe we can track where it is headed, and find other possible benefits and uses for digital media. Virtual Digital Media Instant Messaging Instant messaging is usually a free online service that allows for users to send text based messages to other users. Instant messaging was actually born before the internet and used on multi users operating systems, but today, instant messaging is associated with the internet. Some instant messaging applications include Pidgin, and America Online Instant Messenger, as well as the aforementioned Skype. Blogs Web logs, commonly referred to as blogs, are websites that function usually as online journals or diaries. Blogs are not limited to what information they can contain, and as such, while many blogs a doors into someone else’s life many more blogs a sources of information on a certain subject. Blogs tend to follow a similar type format, and usually contain a common theme between the other logs created by the same person. 7 Microblogging Microblogging would be considered the succinct version of blogging. Microblogs tend to also be more focused on the most recent post or entry, while blogs apart from microblogs tend to be a continuation of a previous post or idea. Microblog posts are also shorter in comparison