Dave Szulborski

In we discussed some of the reasons Szulborski gives as to why Alternate Reality Games (ARG's) are not real games. One of the reasons was because there was no imaginary playing space, no "magic circle". The "magic circle" is a concept we've obviously discussed earlier this semester, which is pretty much a nickname given to the defined playing space of a game. According to Szulborski, ARG's do not have these circles. However, I would argue that in fact they do only the playing space has expanded much wider and not so defined. Someone could argue that the gaming space is so vague that it really doesn't exist at all but I think that there are limits.  read more »

Is Cathy's Book an ARG or not? I say yes! Using Dave Szulborski's explanation of Alternate Reality Gaming, I would definitely say so. Szulborski's introduction to defining ARG's is the fact that its main goal is to deny and disguise the fact that it's even a game. When I picked up my copy of Cathy's Book earlier in the semester, I was excited because I thought that it was some sort of mystery book and that the pouch of articles was some sort of pouch of clues to help us along the story. They have helped us through the story, but in so many more ways than just by looking at each item at face value. While reading Cathy's journal, without even knowing it, we are being pulled into this ARG. Some of us choose to engage ourselves within the story: calling phone numbers, figuring out pass codes, and visiting web-sites, all the while immersing ourselves more and more into this game that isn't a game, or rather having the game immerse itself into our realities. Szulborski states that most successful ARG's are really about relationships between characters, entities in the game and the players, I think Cathy's Book covers these relationships quite well.  read more »