Storytelling

One of my favourite quotes about games comes from Roger Caillois, the French philosopher who wrote a little book about play and games.

The persistence of games, he says, is remarkable. Empires and institutions may disappear, but games survive with the same rules and sometimes even the same paraphernalia. And the reason for this is that they are not important.

I doubt he actually believes this himself, considering the book he devotes to this unimportant subject. But it's still an interesting point -games are not serious, not real, not part of everyday life, they are somehow outside of all that.

It's exactly that idea Alternate Reality Games try their best to mess with. They exist in that shadowy place between play and real life, between make-believe and really believe. And to me, that's what makes them so compelling. They spill over the edge, off the board and out of the computer. Sometimes, they even get you to that stage where you have to suddenly stop and ask yourself, hang on, could this be real?

Games might have existed alongside the 'real' world for millennia, but we want to drag them out of their comfort zone and onto the streets, the cities, into your living room and your inbox.

And although Éireann is right that we have technology now that gives us the opportunity to play in ways never thought possible even twenty years ago, that we're networked, social, and interactive, he forgets one point. It often gets lost in all the talk about new media, synthesis and interactive technology.

Really, we're just telling stories. Always have.

The rest is simply about finding new ways to tell them. Hopefully you'll join us!