Are ARGs Still Effective?

Granted, I have no data or marketing experience on the subject, but I can't help but question the effectiveness of alternate reality games (ARGs) today. There's little doubt that ARGs are masters at generating hype for video games, but I fear that viral marketing is so commonplace today, that most ARGs have little effect intriguing a curious crowd. When the ARG achieved large-scale attention with the successful ilovebees campaign, an ARG promoting Halo 2, more and more publishers began using this alternate form of marketing. From Call of Duty: Black Ops to Mafia II to Bioshock 2, alternate reality games seem to be everywhere now-a-days. Their frequent use by publishers in addition to my personal experience with ARGs makes me curious how effective these viral marketing strategies really are. Should every video game have an ARG?  Have the prerequisites changed for ARGs to succeed? I don't have the necessary data to confidently form a conclusion, but analysing and comparing past and present ARGs may present an answer.

A couple of years ago, when this type of viral marketing was relatively new, ARGs could easily garner mass and even mainstream attention. But as viral marketing becomes a more popular marketing choice, it must be more and more difficult to intrigue an audience. It seems some ARGs have such small audiences, that its followers consist of hardcore fans that would purchase the game regardless of the ARG, negating its purpose. One such example of this redundancy could be Bioshock 2's There's Something's in the Sea (SitS) ARG. SitS' premise was incredible, but -as far as I could tell- was hardly covered by game journalists and had a small clique of followers. It seemed that its followers were already sold on the game regardless of the ARG. If the objective of an ARG is to promote attention, controversy and hype for a product, was Bioshock 2's ARG even necessary (assuming the above is true)?

Although many games have had ARGs recently, there are publishers backing down from this type of marketing. Halo's publisher, Microsoft, promoted Halo 2 and 3 through ARGs among other forms of media. However, Bungie's latest and last Halo title, Halo: Reach, saw a very different approach from its publisher. Instead of using an ARG, Microsoft utilized the power of Facebook to gather attention. Users on the social networking site could choose and name a star and if enough people participated, the accumulation of stars would form a Halo-related picture. The different strategy took me by surprise and left me confused. Why did Microsoft change its approach? I'm not sure, but Facebook's involvement could lead to an answer. Facebook's large range of social connections could result in a high yeild of exposure which, as a result, minimizes risk. Perhaps ARGs just don't gather enough or as much attention anymore. Or perhaps, Microsoft was just experimenting with new marketing techniques. Whatever the case, Microsoft's decision not to include an ARG for Halo: Reach raises some interesting questions.

Today's ARGs don't always attract massive crowds, but one of the most recent ARGs piqued the interest of gamers everywhere. Portal 2's ARG not only achieved mass attention from gaming sites, it also attracted a large audience and its fair share of controversy. Valve's ARG had such an incredible influence, that even I was swept up in it even though I had no intention of buying Portal 2 at release. This success got me to rethink how some of today's ARGs are able succeed. After some thought, it's possible that Portal 2's viral marketing success can be attributed to a few things: Valve's strong influence, the ARG's structure, and Valve's appeal to PC gamers.

Portal and Valve are strong enough names to make headlines in the gaming press for even the slightest of reasons. Valve's large following -especially among PC gamers- most likely supported the ARG to grow in popularity because the internet is the binding force for users to solve ARGs. Valve's influence through Steam also helped spread the ARG's exposure considerably. From indie titles ranging from "The Ball" to "Amnesia The Dark Descent", Portal's alternate reality game spread across many other titles to great effect. Though Valve's ARG did generate considerable hype, it would be interesting to see how effective it actually was.

From Valve successfully using ARGs, to Microsoft moving away from them, it's hard to say how effective they actually are. I do think, however, having too many ARGs will dilute the potential for them to go viral which, in turn, will reduce an ARG's usefulness as a effective marketing strategy. Perhaps the industry needs to find an ARG equilibrium of some sort. This type of viral marketing today is used throughout the industry and I would be very interested to see if ARGs grow or decline in popularity in the future.