Leveraging ARGs

Alternate reality games have been around for roughly twenty years, but lately have exploded in popularity.  These games overlay information from the real world into the game world, or vice versa.  Players must move from location to location.  While early ARGs revolved around graffiti and calls to pay phones, many now operate by GPS.  ARGs are frequently used to promote movies and video games, but companies like Google have seen value in the metadata generated by these games.  Niantic Labs, an internal startup at Google, created and currently runs Ingress, one of the world’s most popular ARGs.

 

Ingress’s simple setting brilliantly enables Google data mining.  In the universe of Ingress, portals are opening on Earth from an alien world.  Exotic Matter (XM) with mind-altering properties flows from these portals. Two factions, the Resistance and the Enlightened, fight against each other to control XM portals.  While the Enlightened believe XM can be used to guide humanity into a new age, the Resistance is fearful XM will be used for control.

Players use the Ingress client on GPS-equipped iOS and Android devices.  Passing by and hacking portals awards players with XM and other items that can be used to attack enemy controlled portals, or defend one’s own.  Players who have interfaced with two portals controlled by their faction can create a link between the two, providing that they do not cross any existing links.  There are many links crossing the Hudson, and a few that spanning the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.  If three portals are linked together, it creates a control field, awarding the player’s faction points based on the size of the field and estimated population living inside it.

So what’s in this for Google?  The company is able to use the game to acquire data on its users, their homes and travel habits.  The app requires users to log in with a Google account, and for GPS to be enabled for players to scan portals. While many users such as myself balk at checking into locations on Facebook or Foursquare, framing it as a game encourages players to check in everywhere.

Google also receives mapping data from users.  Players are encouraged to create portals by taking a picture of a landmark and sending it, along with GPS data, to Google via the Ingress app.  After the location is verified, the portal appears in-game to all players.  The information sent in Ingress is also used for Google Maps.  A search for William Walker Gymnasium will return the same coordinates as those used in game, and also searches for smaller landmarks, such as Samson Rock in my hometown, work as well.

The public can also learn from Ingress.  Stevens has roughly 50 portals on its campus.  Presently, they are dominated by the Enlightened faction, suggesting that the idea of new technologies carrying mankind into a bright future resonates with most Stevens students.  There are, however, a few local holdouts, most noticeable around the MPK area (the home turf of CAL / Science and Technology students).  Zooming out on the world map, you can see that the United States skews heavily towards the Resistance, while the rest of the world leans slightly towards Enlightenment.