WANTED: One black-belt level computer geek to help decipher McDonald's Olympic tie-in promotion. Knowledge of mythology, numerology, and Esperanto essential. Single-minded obsessive streak I'd love to tell you I'm kidding, but I'm not. After several attempts to understand The Lost Ring, the aforementioned McD's promotional video game, I feel like somebody's been beating me on the head with a small pillow for the better part of an afternoon.
The Lost Ring is an "alternate reality game," which means it's an impossibly complicated contest designed for people who actually wish they were stranded on the island from "Lost," running from the Others and the Dharma Initiative. Except this time, instead of plane crash survivors, the characters are (so far as I can tell) ancient Olympic athletes who found themselves blinked into the middle of cornfields dressed in modern athletic gear, with cryptic tattoos on their forearms.
Of course the tattoos are in Esperanto. What were you expecting? And, since mysterious numbers are so important on "Lost," they're a big part of The Lost Ring, too. But this is more than just a "Lost" ripoff, right?
Right. It also rips off "The Amazing Race" and those lonelygirl15 videos from YouTube, with a good dose of mythology, plate tectonics, and of course "parallel multiverses" thrown in as a bonus.
The six main characters in The Lost Ring come from all over the globe, each with some combination of blogs, podcasts, YouTube videos, and Flickr accounts to establish their 21st-century bona fides. You're not supposed to be able to figure out that they're all ancient Greek athletes, but it's pretty obvious, since they all have amnesia and memory of a single Greek word from some sort of vision.
The point of the game is ... actually, I haven't the foggiest idea what the point of the game is. It's one of those annoying postmodern things where they try to convince you the tasks they're involving you in are simple because they can be summed up in two or three words. They only seem simple, though, because no one will give you the information you need to solve the puzzles. This might seem like great fun if you're a student. If you've ever logged any time in a cubicle, the experience is simply redundant.
The Plot: There's this lost Olympic sport, and some sort of secret surrounding the Olympic Rings. I think. I didn't take the time to the read the Codex of the Lost Ring because after grad school, I vowed never to read anything called a "codex" again. It's also got something to do with labyrinths, which in the game are terrifying traps, but in real life are simply twisty walkways in which it is not possible to make a wrong decision about which way to go.
Somehow the destiny of these six characters is to meet someplace (if that someplace isn't Beijing or Athens, I'll eat a Chicken McNugget) and take part in this ancient lost sport. After watching some of the characters' videos and reading large portions of the wiki associated with the game (Ooh! How very Web 2.0!) I found myself hoping that this lost sport involves them trying to catch javelins. Unfortunately, it involves running blindfolded through a labyrinth which, like Soylent Green, is made of people.
The Game: To be fair, The Lost Ring is very beautifully done. I don't know if McDonald's spent a lot of money on it, but it sure looks like someone did. And they did a masterful job of making sure that the game is so complex that no one could possibly solve it on their own, thus ensuring that a virtual community would have to spring up. All of these people from all over the world will be visiting McDonald's-branded websites every day. (The McD's logos are not obvious, but they're there.) From a marketing point of view, they didn't miss a thing.
In the long run, though, there's nothing here for a sports fan, and the connection to the Olympics (both ancient and modern) is iffy. There wasn't a blindfolded labyrinth run in the ancient Olympiad, and even if there had been, the three female characters wouldn't have been allowed to take part in it, unless they were Spartans.
Call me when you bring back the Monopoly game, Ronald.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-03-2008 @ 2:40PM
Mike said...
This Mark Hasty is the heir apparent to Dave Barry!!! Quick, Slate, snatch him up before ...
Well, I don't know before what. Just keep him writing!
Reply
6-10-2008 @ 2:51PM
Bill Chapman said...
It's a pity that McDonald's are making use of Esperanto - for a game.
Esperanto is the international language. It is a planned language which belongs to no one country or group of states. Take a look at www.esperanto.net
Esperanto works! I've used it in speech and writing in a dozen countries over recent years.
Indeed, the language has some remarkable practical benefits. Personally, I've made friends around the world through Esperanto that I would never have been able to communicate with otherwise. And then there's the Pasporta Servo, which provides free lodging and local information to Esperanto-speaking travellers in over 90 countries. In the past year I have had guided tours of Berlin and Milan in the planned language. I have discussed philosophy with a Slovene poet, humour on television with a Bulgarian TV producer. I've discussed what life was like in East Berlin before the wall came down, how to cook perfect spaghetti, the advantages and disadvantages of monarchy, and so on. I recommend it, not just as an ideal but as a very practical way to overcome language barriers.
When the ring is found, I hope that people will turn to what Esperanto really has to offer.
Reply
6-03-2008 @ 4:38PM
Harper said...
interesting review, but having played the game for awhile now I have to disagree with you on one point. yes the game is complex if you want to unravel the whole story. but actually, a sports fan might just want to show up at one of the live sport events that characters and players are organizing. you know you can actually learn the lost sport and play it, right? it's a little geeky sure but also a lot of fun to play a secret sport and know that people are training with you in places like brazil and argentina and japan and new zealand. search lost sport on youtube to see what i mean. there are tons of videos. i'm in one of them in fact, but hard to recognize. i'm blindfolded ;)
Reply
6-03-2008 @ 6:09PM
Ariock said...
I'm another current player of this game, and I'm a little disappointed by the characterization of myself and the other players by this writer. I'll let them go though, since I'm going to be pointing out some inaccuracies in your opinion piece.
Where you're wrong: The 6 people who woke up in the labyrinths aren't from ancient Greece. They're from this time period, though from different parallel worlds. Some of your conclusions end up being wrong since they are based on this original error.
There is a wiki set up for the game where you can get caught up, which is linked to from the main game site.
Also, the connection to the real Olympics is "iffy" because it's been made up. This is generally called an Alternate Reality Game or Chaotic Fiction. None of these people have really traveled from alternate worlds either. But it's fun to play along and pretend that they are.
Um, and there are four women who traveled here to help save the multiverse: Ariadne, Lucie, Meihui, and Noriko. There are two men: Markus, and Diego.
Finally, I think you do sports fans a disservice by saying this game isn't for them. Is that because you think a complex storyline is too much for them? Or because learning to run a labyrinth blindfolded is too challenging for them? ;) I mean, in New Zealand they're running a three-circuit in under 15 seconds. On Saturday, we'll be running more, and coordinating with other players around the world. There's a subsite on yahoo called "upcoming" where you can find out about them and join in. I won't link to it out of respect, but if there's one near you, why don't you drop by and try it out?
It's fun, it's outside, it's running around. Kind of like a sport. And you don't even have to know the storyline to play.
Reply
6-03-2008 @ 10:53PM
nc fiend said...
I guess simple minds require only simple diversions. Go back to your McNopoly.
Reply
6-04-2008 @ 3:46AM
Merzmensch said...
You pointed out some important ARG aspects, but you know - they cannot be epigonic, because there is no original singularity in ARG.
If you visit unfiction, you will discover miriads of worlds - and they could have technical similiarities like vlogs a lá lonelygirl15, like mythologic references, like all that web 2.0 productive and effective possibilities of new mediae. But these aren't plagiats of each other, they are technics like a rhyme in lyrics: you can use it, you can dispense with it, but if you use it, it doesn't mean you are THE original rhyme-user in the world.
Behind these technics there are hidden alternate realities - and if they are interesting, involving, addicting, if they are masterpieces - in this case it's art, it's cultural delevopement.
And Find the Lost Ring is it. It's a multinational performance. It has achieved something, the politician are dreaming about - globalization without loosing cultural individualities.
So I suppose, with every new and qualitative alternate reality is our reality reacher.
It isn't escapism. It's new reality apperception.
Reply
6-05-2008 @ 1:07PM
Weezel said...
=
And they did a masterful job of making sure that the game is so complex that no one could possibly solve it on their own, thus ensuring that a virtual community would have to spring up.
=
I think that your lack of understanding of what an ARG is, and how the game/community works is clouding your entire review.
There isn't a 'solve'. It isn't meant to be played by one person. It's meant to take place over a period of time by a group of people. In this case, we have a game which is being played across almost 6 months by players around the world.
Real world actions are determining what path the game takes, so it changes as its being played. Ultimately, the designers have a conclusion in mind, but there isn't a solve or single winner in the end.
I would highly recommend that you further your background knowledge on ARGs. Not just ones as grand a scale as this one, but on a small scale as well. This isn't a 'Lost' knockoff as you say. Is it in a similar genre, sure!! But there were plenty of ARGs before Lost as well.
Want a good place to start? Check out some of the writings of Dr. Jane McGonigal (http://www.avantgame.com/writings.htm), specifically the article on collective intelligence and immersive play. Or, check out this interview with New Yorker magazine on solving real world problems with games (http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/conference/2008/mcgonigal)
I think once you have a better understanding of how games and ARGs fit into the current society, you'll see that McDonalds is really visionary in understanding the future and wanting to participate as a sponsor.
Reply