World Without Oil - ARG Case Study
This is one of the Case Studies we discussed briefly in last weeks workshop.
World Without Oil combined elements of an alternate reality game with those of a serious game. The game sketched out the overarching conditions of a realistic oil shock, then called upon players to imagine and document their lives under those conditions. Compelling player stories and ideas were incorporated into the official narrative, posted daily. Players could choose to post their stories as videos, images or blog entries, or to phone or email them to the WWO gamemasters. The game's central site linked to all the player material, and the game's characters documented their own lives, and commented on player stories, on a community blog and individual blogs, plus via IM, chat, Twitter and other media... A countdown site appeared approximately 2 weeks before the game start on April 30, 2007. The game concluded 32 days later, on June 1, 2007 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Without_Oil
Although this ARG is a terrific example of a Multi-platform event created with great intentions for a good cause... it could also be argued that it naively overlooks much of the complexities of the issues raised. Is this a case of passive idealism being performed from within the comfortable confines of the very system it deems to problematize and criticize?
In the past we have had radical reactions to social-political issues... even the surrealists ‘used chaos and variety of urban experience to sabotage tradition and order… disrupting meaning, but also recovering it’ (Savage 2000, 42). The participants of WWO, seem far more polite and well meaning, dutifully carrying out instructions from the WWO website, never really subverting, changing or challenging anything. Yes they are being thoughtful, reflective and communicative with each other... but is this really empowering anybody?
I have posted this video here before with more information... when I was clearly more convinced of the socio-political value of this project.
