A model for describing alternate reality games

Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) are a form of transmedia storytelling that are difficult to describe and analyse due to their inherent ephemerality and use of multiple media channels. But critical analyses of ARGs and a deeper understanding of how they work are needed for both improvements in ARG design theory, and to aid in the preservation of ARG content and structure. This paper presents a way to describe and analyse ARGs, the ARG Descriptive Model (ADM), that combines together features from several existing approaches to create a more holistic description of an ARG. The ADM is then applied to two case studies to demonstrate how it can be used to model the media channels, potential navigation routes between these channels, and how these channels evolve over time. The paper shows that this approach can be applied to create a basis for a common methodology for ARG analyses