Entering the labyrinth

GROUPTHINK IS NOT A 4-LETTER WORDAlternate Reality Games & Collective Intelligence

Craig McKenneyTexas Tech UniversityIPCC 2008PROBLEM: ENGAGING GENYDespite a lasting surge in media, business, and academic interest, proven mechanisms via which to harness the wisdom of crowds remain in short supply. The chief obstacle is and always has been: how to properly incentivize the participants in a system, such that they generate meaningful, unbiased input.

James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds

Craig McKenney Texas Tech UniversityCONTENTSDefinitions

Case Study: The World Needs Heroes

Collective Intelligence

Problems & ImplicationsCraig McKenney Texas Tech UniversityWHAT IS AN ALTERNATE REALITY GAME?a player community working together to analyze the story and coordinate real-life and online activities.

Craig McKenney Texas Tech Universityinteractive narrative that takes place in real-time and evolves according to participants' responses.characters that are actively controlled by the game's designers, as opposed to being controlled by artificial intelligence as in a computer or console video game, and that are directly interacted with by the player.Collaborative Narrative/ HyperfictionWHAT IS AN ALTERNATE REALITY GAME?uses the real world as a platform.

often involves multimedia, such as telephones (texting, cell cams, Jott.com, etc), email, and mail, but relies on the Internet (free + ubiquitous) as the central binding medium

Craig McKenney Texas Tech UniversityMulti-modalityWHAT IS AN ALTERNATE REALITY GAME?provides intense player immersion/ involvement

Craig McKenney Texas Tech UniversityVirtual Reality/ Digital RhetoricWHAT IS COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE?the members of a thinking community search, inscribe, connect, consult, exploreNot only does the cosmopedia [the online space, the ARG, etc] make available to the collective intellect all of the pertinent knowledge available to it at a given moment, but it also serves as a site of collective discussion, negotiation, and development. Unanswered questions will create tension within cosmopedic space, indicating regions where invention and innovation are required

Pierre Levy, Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace 217.

Craig McKenney Texas Tech UniversityWHAT IS COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE?On-line fan communities might well be some of the most fully realized versions of Levy's cosmopedia, expansive self-organizing groups focused around the collective production, debate, and circulation of meanings, interpretations, and fantasies in response to various artifacts of contemporary popular culture.

Henry Jenkins, Interactive Audiences?The 'Collective Intelligence' of Media FansCraig McKenney Texas Tech UniversityTHE WORLD NEEDS HEROESCraig McKenney Texas Tech University

http://threshold.monomyth.org/images/MonoMythex.jpgLARPLARPSocial JusticeTHE WORLD NEEDS HEROESSummary of NarrativeThe King of Dust has incapacitated the Community Crusaders and stolen the Bible of Dreams. The leader of the Community Crusaders, The Professor, has called the students into action to save the Bible of Dreams.

Game StructureLetter via USPSVideosLive Action Role PlayCommunity ServiceNarrative Building/ ReflectionCraig McKenney Texas Tech UniversityCraig McKenney Texas Tech University

http://www.heromachine.com/Craig McKenney Texas Tech University

NARRATIVE AS COSMOPEDIADeveloping/ Flexible Narrative

Knowledge Sharing Essential to completion of game

Learning as play

Craig McKenney Texas Tech University?PROBLEMS & IMPLICATIONSCraig McKenney Texas Tech UniversityLevel of engagement

Teamwork & cohort model

Use of non-GenY platforms

Developing Quantitative Measurements for success

E-Mail: craig.mckenney@ttu.eduYahoo! IM: mckenney_craighttp://flightline.highline.edu/cmckenney/final%20project%205369.swf