“Conspiracy for Good can best be described as an amalgamation of an alternate reality game, a street theater show, and a social movement”, Wired Magazine writes. In this Alternate Reality Game, the players were charged with bringing down Blackwell Briggs, an evil global security firm. The game was financed by Nokia (an evil global cell phone manufacturer), and free to the players.
– We achieved four newbie but pretty hard-core larplike street-events using prototype image recognition tech, telling a contemporary cyberpunk story about activism, surveillance and corporate greed. The players helped major NGO’s (Doctors of the World, Room to Read, KidsCO and Thames 21) as well as local charities while playing, says Martin Ericsson, previous creative director of Swedish The Company P, one of the organizers of the events.
Creator of the television series Heroes, Tim Kring, created a lot of the background story and scripts. The online ARG lasted for three months. In addition, there were four one day events in London.
- Think of a cell phone based rail roaded larp with SWAT teams in city cruisers, boat chases, and weird corporate expos. At one point in the game, there were even 100 Bollywood dancers, says Ericsson.
The Company P has previously won the International Interactive Emmy Award for Best Interactive TV-service in April 2008 with “The Truth About Marika” and Conspiracy for Good has also received great critical acclaim. Awards include two Banff World Media Awards in Best Cross-platform Project and Best In Interactive, International Digital Emmy Awards 2011 nomination, finalist in SXSW Interactive Award and SXSW Interactive Award and a Webby Award Honoree.
Web: Conspiracy For Good
Article by Ole Peder Giæver
Playground Magazine 