Check it out! It’s going to be active for another couple of weeks.

Can you help a bunch of ghosts wage topological war, one Google Map at a time?

Welcome to Open Space, the Alternate Reality Game hosted by the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF).

An Alternate Reality Game (ARG) is an interactive, multiplayer Web-based exercise in collective storytelling and distributed inquiry. Everyone can play, and participants can shape the actions of the characters and the outcome of the story.

The theme for this year’s FLEFF is Open Space. This ARG is intended to help us explore how exactly space is opened — not just physical space, but conceptual and political space as well.

How the Game Works

• Each month or so, we provide a street-view Google Map, a little window into our modern world.
• Then we ask our rival teams of dead or imaginary characters (including intellectuals like Marshall McLuhan, revolutionaries like Commander Ramona, or even mythical creatures like Jingwei) to explore the myriad forms and meanings of ‘open space.’
• Waging a discursive battle (a high-brow flame war), they fight to defend or liberate the Google Map.
• What does it mean to defend or liberate a Google Map? Well, that’s up to you! Go to our website, get more information, and start playing!

Play the Game

http://openspace.ulisesmejias.com/

More on Alternate Reality Games (ARGS):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_reality_game
http://www.worldwithoutoil.org/

What would you do if you were not able to graduate because of cuts to SUNY Oswego’s budget? Stop panicking…. start acting!

Save Oswego! is an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) developed as a class project for the courses Social Networks and the Web and Videogame Theory and Analysis at SUNY Oswego. It could be called an experiment in collective storytelling, a radical new media project, or an internet ‘hoax’ with a social message! Anyone can play, and the whole Internet is the playground (participants interact with the narrative in real-time using a variety of communication technologies such as email, blogs, SMS, video and audio podcasts, etc.). By framing the experience as an ARG, this project seeks to involve various members of the Oswego community in analyzing a real-life problem, collectively articulating a multitude of realistic and possible responses to it, and examining the ethical question of what form action should take after the game.

This ARG is entirely produced by students and is being coordinated by Prof. Ulises Mejias of the Communication Studies department. The project is not officially affiliated with any SUNY organization, and the content does not reflect the views or opinions of anyone other than the authors. You can play the game by going to saveoswego.wordpress.com from April 7 to April 16, 2009. You can also join us for a wrap-up discussion during Quest on April 22 at 4:00 PM.

‘Stop Gold Farming!’ is an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) developed for the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival. It could be called an experiment in collective storytelling, a radical new media project, or an internet ‘hoax’ with a social message! Anyone can play (participants interact with the narrative in real-time using a variety of communication technologies such as email, blogs, SMS, digital video, podcasts, etc.), and therefore anyone can shape the outcome. The game revolves around a fictional controversy unfolding at Ithaca College related to the issue of gold farming, or the practice of selling virtual goods that can be used in massive multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy. These goods are often produced under sweatshop conditions in developing countries for the consumption of First World clients. ‘Stop Gold Farming!’ is the story of a student organization demanding that an IC student engaged in the distribution of virtual goods be expelled from the college. As part of the ‘Trade’ stream of FLEFF, the goal of this ARG is to engage students and festival participants in an exploration of gold farming as an embodied economic practice in a gaming context characterized by virtuality and disembodiment, and in the context of globalization and trade as a process that reinforces “unequal human relations rather than merely intensifying connectedness” (Biao, 2008). By framing the experience as an ARG, this FLEFF LAB involves various communities in analyzing a real-life problem, collectively articulating a multitude of realistic and possible responses to it, and examining the ethical question of what form action should take after the game. This FLEFF LAB was conceptualized and is being coordinated by Prof. Ulises Mejias from SUNY Oswego, and produced in collaboration with FLEFF interns. You can join the experience by visiting stopgoldfarming.wordpress.com. You can also join us on April 3 from 9:00 to 10:30 AM in the Park soundstage (Ithaca College) for a discussion that will include a gold farming demo and a live conference call with a team of researchers in China.

Attention Economy: The Game

Ulises A. Mejias

How do new bloggers gain recognition? Why are some people in MySpace or Facebook more popular than others? Why does one YouTube video get seen by thousands of people, and another by just a few? What does it mean that “on the internet, everyone is famous to 15 people”? Can the subject matter of the content we post to an online network make us more or less popular?

This game is an accelerated simulation of the process of gaining attention online (acquiring more readers, friends, hits, etc.). The goal of the game is to collect the most attention. The game tries to condense a process that can take weeks or months into about an hour. It is intended for people who are new to the study of online social networks, but anyone can play. The game can also be used to teach some basic characteristics of networks, such as the role of hubs or connectors in scale-free networks. Players are asked at the end to critically reflect on the values that drive this Attention Economy.

Number of players: around 10-25

Time for activity: 45 minutes to 1.5 hours (depending on number of players)

Background

Attention is “the action that turns raw data into something humans can use” (Lanham, in Lankshear and Knobel, 2003, p. 111). Information is not scarce, attention is. Attention Economics establishes that what information consumes is “the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it” (Simon, in Lankshear and Knobel, 2003, p. 109).

Game Set Up

Goal: Collect the most attention.

Players:

• Newbies: Individuals who just joined the online community. Few people know they exist.

• Oldbies or Hubs: Individuals who have been around the online community for a while. They have established reputations, and people pay attention to what they say.

[Tip: In a group of 20 players, I usually designate 3 oldbies, but this number can be adjusted.]

Materials:

• Attention Credit cards: Used by players to directly award or “pay” attention to another player.
• Recommendation cards: Used by players to try to influence others to award or “pay” attention to someone.

[Tip: The reason section of the Recommendation card can be left blank, but writing something here can make the recommendation more "sticky".]

• Log sheet: Used by players to keep track of how they have allocated their attention and who has awarded them attention, which is translated into points. Note that for every two Recommendations players receive, two points are gained.

DOWNLOAD A PDF WITH CARDS AND LOG SHEET READY TO PRINT!

• Topic Boards: Used by players to identify themselves and the subject matter of their content. Players can change their topic as many times as they want during the game. It might make it easier to limit the topics to a few areas. For instance, I have students choose topics related to Entertainment, Sports, Politics or Religion.

[Tip: Dry-erase boards work best as Topic Boards, but they can be a bit expensive. I purchased the ones I use from The Markerboard People. Twenty boards (with markers, erasers, and display base) cost around $130.00 USD.]

Playing the Game

Different scenarios can be provided. For instance, players can be told that they are part of the blogosphere, and their topics reflect the subject matter of their posts. Or they can pretend to be YouTube users, and their topics reflect the subject matter of their videos, etc.

Game Setup

1. Sit in a circle, so everyone can see each other.
2. Have players write their names (in big letters) in the top section of their Topic Board.
3. Newbies get 15 Attention Credits and 5 Recommendations
4. Oldbies get 15 Recommendations and 5 Attention Credits. Make sure oldbies are clearly identified (attach something to the Topic Board, have them wear a party hat, etc.)

[Tip: The number of cards each player receives can be adjusted to control the duration of the game. The fewer cards, the shorter the game. I usually prepare individual player packs with the corresponding number of cards before the game.]

Playing the Game

1. Choose a starting topic and write it on your Topic Board (remember that you can change your topic as many times as you want).
2. Pay the Oldbie Tax: All newbie players must write their first Attention Credit card to one of the oldbies [Tip: if the game goes on for a long time, you may want to have players pay the Oldbie Tax more than once during the game.]
3. Decide who you are sending your first Attention Credits to, fill out your card, and log your decision.
4. Decide who you are sending your first Recommendation to, and fill out your card.
5. Send Attention Credits and Recommendations by passing them from left to right only along the circle. If something is addressed to you, keep it. If not, pass it along quickly. If it’s a Recommendation, read it before passing it along. Players can send cards to the same person more than once (or even send all their cards to the same person!).
6. Log any received Attention Credits or Recommendations.
7. Continue to send the rest of your Attention Credits and Recommendations until you run out of cards.

Ending the Game

1. The game ends when all cards have been used and received by their intended parties (or you can end the game early by stopping all traffic).
2. Have players calculate their scores and post in on their Topic Board.
3. Discuss the post-game questions.

Post-Game Questions

1. Why did oldbies have less Attention cards but more Recommendation cards than newbies?
2. What strategies did newbies employ to gain attention?
3. How did you decide to allocate recommendations?
4. Was it possible to gain more attention than oldbies?
5. What was your strategy for selecting or changing topics?
6. What was more important in guiding your actions: reciprocity or self-interest?

Reference

Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2003). New literacies: Changing knowledge and classroom learning. Buckingham [England]; Philadelphia, Pa.: Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press.

See also:

• The Attention Economy: The Natural Economy of the Net – Michael H. Goldhaber
• Attention economy – Wikipedia