Crowdsourcing to Victory

The Making of World Without Oil

The team discovered the game's collaborative nature presented some unique challenges for the puppet masters (ARGs' version of game masters), who traditionally attempt to be as invisible as possible. "We had the idea that via our characters, we could pose challenges to WWO players: call for them to pose a picture that included a WWO sign, for example," he says. However, the team discovered because the game was so good at engaging new players, not everyone was accustomed to throwing himself into the experience as veteran ARG players were - at least not without a little gentle nudge from behind the scenes first. "Players were happy to do stuff if our characters did it first. By the time we realized this simple truth, however, it was too late for some challenges. One of my characters was a 15-year-old girl, for example, so to show her with a WWO sign I needed to hire an actor, and I just couldn't arrange for an actor to play her in time."

Players and puppet masters alike felt emotional as the game drew to a conclusion. "The last week was an agony of sorts - no one wanted the game to end, but I had to end it. It was really hard," Eklund says. But everyone involved in WWO learned something. "Through the game, I learned that withdrawal from cheap oil is going to be much worse than I thought. Without adequate preparation, there's no way that the burden of energy deprivation is going to fall equally or fairly, and that sort of inequality will result in terrible suffering that could tear this country apart." WWO's motto, "play it before you live it," barely managed to stay a few steps ahead of reality, as gas prices are beginning to mirror those in-game. By looking at the problem of an increasing demand for petroleum now, WWO aimed to help people think about the future and leave behind a vast repository of ideas to help citizens, policy makers and educators anticipate the problems that could come up and prevent undesirable outcomes.

Eklund learned several things from a game design standpoint, and in the process helped create a new genre. "I would describe WWO as a serious alternate reality game, a 'SARG,' if you will," he says. "'Serious,' because at heart, it's all about confronting a real-world problem, and 'alternate reality' because the problem is in the future. ... It's different from many other serious games, because it does not put forth a worldview or prescribe a course of action, and it's different from many other ARGs because it has no preset narrative, but instead asks the players to collaborate on creating and telling the story.

"I remember in the pre-game seeing a number of ARG lurkers come forward. What drew them out seemed to be the serious subject or the freedom from puzzles or just the open democratic tone. I was really happy to be presenting a game for them."

WWO has helped expand the ARG genre into a more serious and educational realm, but is the field ready to move more in this direction, or will it remain a niche genre, kept alive by marketing stunts? Recent commercial efforts in the field such as Iris (Halo 3) and the The Ultimate Search for Bourne have failed to take off like ilovebees did, but the ARG field hasn't lost any steam in its progressive efforts.

As more and more designers are showing interest in the genre, posting on ARG-specific forums and blogs, Eklund believes ARGs will share a trajectory similar to the serious games genre. "WWO has opened up a whole new dimension to ARGs, which will bring a whole new field of potential sponsors to the table and exciting subject matter, too," he says. "The traditional field will continue as before, and that will be where the bulk of the money is. But now there's the potential for exciting hybrids, where a commercial sponsor links with a non-profit organization to put on a SARG. The commercial sponsor brings money, and the non-profit brings gravitas to the game. Such games could be both powerful learning [tools] and wonderful entertainment."

Nova Barlow is the Research Manager for The Escapist and Tap Interactive. She is also a regular contributor to WarCry.