(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
more media coverage. In the prelaunch period, renowned billionaires Bill Gates and Nathan
Mhyrvold began taking an keen interest in geoengineering. In the weeks before the games
launch, Iceland's volcano erupted spewing ash and sulphate into the atmosphere naturally
mirroring the effect that was being artificially proposed in the narrative. In the launch week,
flights across Europe were grounded and many newspapers reported on the volcano's effect as
having a positive outcomes against global warming.
The production team watched intently considering ways in which to incorporate these events
into the Bluebird AR story. But as the real world and the game world grew ever closer, it was
also key to maintain a balance; and a transparency, to ensure that the project did not appear too
real, creating a “War Of The Worlds” like panic.
However within the first week, the consensus across the games most reactive gameboard: that of
Twitter, was clear: the protagonist Kyle Vandercamp was a fictional character within the ABC's
experimental game; Bluebird AR. This spoiler debunk was retweeted repeatedly. While a few
people expressed distress at the ABC's wilful deception, the predominant sentiment was
disappointment that the game had so openly revealed its fictionality. The audience was upset that
the game was not more deceptive and in turn more believable. In response, the production team
decided that the character of Kyle Vandercamp should sent out a tweet denying his fictionality.
This contradiction in messages created a feedback loop as while the evidence against this
statement was overwhelming, the denial was enough of a wink for many in the audience to
recognise the nature of the interaction being invited; to participate in the narrative “as if” it were
real.
By the second week and into the third, several participants were not only playing along with the
narrative as though it were real, but were were actually contributing to the story's verisimilitude
by uploading content that enforced the fictional narrative. Photos emerged of supposed in-game
events that had not been created by the ABC. One industrious participant submitted an image of
a “Stop Bluebird” banner being hung over the Sydney Opera House. This created an peculiar
situation in which the ABC staff themselves briefly lost sight of the line separating the games
reality from fiction. Staff questioned eachother over who had made the image and wondered if a
players had themselves created it either in Photoshop or by actually scaling the Sydney icon, a
possibility which raised yet new concerns. Eventually Greenpeace approached the ABC
requesting that the image be taken of the website as it was adapted form one of their own
interventions at the Sydney Opera House. The event was one of several in which the line
between reality and fiction became blurred for the producers as well as the audience.
In-game communication predominantly revolved around participation in the story: what clues
meant? how to crack passwords revealing new clues? what were characters motivations? At a
deeper level, an in-depth discussion of philanthrocapitalism and the pros and cons of
geoengineering solutions were heavily researched and evenly debated. In additional, several
robust meta game discussions broke out in which the game itself, the extent and nature of its
fiction, and the project within the broader field of Alternate Reality Games and even the role
ABC were addressed. While the story and interaction continued, it was in this manufactured
town-square context that Bluebird AR achieved its goal. That of raising awareness and
facilitating discussion of the subjects of philanthrocapitalism, geoengineering and Alternate
Reality Gaming.
Conclusion
Ultimately there was no insurmountable challenges in creating and presenting the game. The
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