'Lost' finds deeper reality online

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called "The Beast," made up of hundreds of false Web sites, puzzles and its own complicated storyline.

The creative team behind that work left Microsoft to form their own company called 42 Entertainment, which also ran an ambitious tie-in with Microsoft's "Halo 2," and is currently running an online game promoting the release of Activision's upcoming "Gun" video game.

All three of these landmarks in the young genre have ostensibly been marketing vehicles, advertisements for a separate product. But all have had independent stories and characters that have in some cases been more deeply realized than the games or movies they were promoting--and each time they have helped coalesce a passionate community of thousands of players.

The creative team's ongoing "Last Call Poker," for example, starts out telling the story of a circle of gamblers, gangsters and Hollywood dropouts, all of whom are loosely connected to a valuable gun, and then traces that gun back through history. The core of the game is a free online poker site, where characters from the game periodically appear to give clues that further the plot.

The story itself is told online through video and audio clips, noir-ish segments of text, conversations at the poker table and more. Characters call players' cell phones in the middle of the day with clues. Live events bring players to graveyards around the country, playing a version of poker with tombstones as cards, which in turn typically turns into a scavenger hunt halfway through.

"Our play is spilling into work, too. If work is going to invade every part of life, why not have games do the same?"

-- Kurt Squire, assistant professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The game's creators say they want to make players feel as though they've stumbled into their own version of a "Harry Potter" or "Narnia" novel, by pushing play as far as possible into people's real life.

"We want to keep people in a state of thinking they're just around the corner from finding something amazing," said Sean Stewart, the novelist who is a co-creator of 42 Entertainment's games. "The basic engine of (those fantasy books) is a different world which is mysterious and exciting, which overlaps what (the characters) knew, but transforms what they knew."

"You're a superhero, but you didn't know it yet," added Elan Lee, Stewart's partner, and the director of the games. "That's the feeling we try to capture."

This blend of fantasy into real-life activities--whether it's fictional characters calling on a cell phone or a weekly TV show with new discoveries online--is a natural development in an increasingly wired world, some media researchers say.

"You're seeing more and more with today's communications, with cell phones and e-mail and IMs, that work is spilling into our home life," said Kurt Squire, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies games. "Our play is spilling into work, too. If work is going to invade every part of life, why not have games do the same?"

[leflyman]

Cnet's poor research - Megalotto site fake

If CNet had bothered to check the WHOIS domain records, they
would have realized that the "MegaLottoJackpot" site was actually
not created by ABC, but by a fan who also runs an online forum
(who also just happens to be the first "winner" holding $164 million
Photoshopped check) . The site was intended to be confused for an
"official" one by placing a link to ABC's Terms of Service at the
bottom. Nicely done hoax, Mr. Aire.

[klaxonator]

RE: Cnet's poor research - Megalotto site fake

"Le Flyman" is correct (thank you for pointing this out!). We've updated the story to reflect this, and the mystery continues...

[Earl Benser]

It's too bad....

.... that so many people have no reality of their own such that they
must turn to the well scripted TV reality shows to find a life. It will
be a relief when the reality shows die off. I might even go back to
watching network TV again....

.... or maybe not.