ENGL 376MM:
New Media Studies

A Fall 2008 course at the University of Mary Washington exploring the discourses of counter-factual world building in new media culture.

ARG: game or story?

One of the questions that Dave Szulborski discusses in the beginning of his book is the whether ARG's are a story or a game. I thought this was very interesting. I have not played many ARG's, in fact I have only played the one my group is working on for the project. We are following the ARG from "My Own Worst Enemy." The game is about a girl who is a psychology student and worked with a man named Oliver. Her patient disappeared, after telling her some interesting stories about a company called Janus. There are several webisodes of this girl, Emily, and in the latest one she is attacked. From my experience, which is limited to just this ARG, i think that ARG's are something in between a story and a game. The premise of the game is a story, the player is trying to help this girl. However, it is different than just reading a book because the player/reader has to get involved. The player can apply for a job and access websites about a company called AJ Sun. The player has control over the story.

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