/ Cory Doctorow / 8:37 am Thu Feb 21, 2008

Collective intelligence spontaneously arises among ARG players -- paper from I Love Bees creator

Jane McGonigal, who helped develop the groundbreaking Alternate Reality Game "I Love Bees," has written a fascinating paper on the way that "collective intelligence" spontaneously arises among collaborative players of games like I Love Bees. There's a real insider's perspective here, the view from the game's cockpit as the players moved all around the complex puzzles, winkling out the creators' secrets and puzzles (even as the creators eavesdropped on them players, changing the puzzles in response to the ingenious theories that the players emerged):
Not all players were familiar with these concepts, however, and so some individuals took the lead in explaining them. One player attempted to explain all of the hive mind references: “You know how an individual bee isn't too intelligent, but the entire hive acting as a whole can display a remarkable cohesiveness -- becoming more than the sum of its parts, so to speak? And you know how an individual silicon computer chip can't do a darn thing, but if you put enough of them together in the right way, whoa, you get the Internet?”43

What is it about scale and complexity that supports inclusive participation? How, in the case of the I Love Bees GPS coordinates, can a single data set support such a vast range of interpretations and yet also directly inspire such a rigorous course of collective analysis? I would argue that the primary puzzle of I Love Bees embodied a meaningful ambiguity. That is, the data set lacked the clarity of formal interactive instructions, yet maintained a distinctively sensical nature. That is, the choice and ordering of the coordinates did not seem nonsensical. Instead, its arrangement was structured and seemingly intentional enough that it promised to mean something, if only approached in the right way. This meaning was implied through the specificity, volume and overtly designed presentation of the data.

PDF Link

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  1. That game was *FUN*

    The next version was ‘meh’ by comparison.

    The tricky part about blindly going into those games is you have to realize there is an irc channel of fanboys (roughly 30-50 deep) that do nothing all day but those ARGs.

    The sad truth is that unless you join them in the conquest you’ll never fruitfully reach any prizes because the ‘hive’ will get there first.

    Twice, I distinctly remember hitting the wiki for the contest (google: halo bruce) and having the answer posted to the wiki 10 minutes after the clue was dropped. Individuals didnt stand a chance.

  2. What’s this? “Collective intelligence” arises from the interactions of a bunch of agents who are all individually intelligent?

  5. greetings Noen-unit, I also concur. Further suggestion is made; all use of the pronoun “I” be eliminated, garb be shapeless grey, cowled robes and hovering required at all times.

  7. I think any emergent Boing Boing intelligence is currently lacking cohesivness. Thank someone’s God for that! The problem with a Borganism is that it MUST lack creativity, because the effect of that much communal agreement means things get buffered down. No one will be allowed to stand out and be unique.

  8. @6 / Takuan: We are the Boing, prepare to be unicorn chased?

    I thought the game was plenty of fun, and I was quite impressed by the facilities that sprung up to massage that data into something useful. I remember a Shockwave/Flash app that would read an xml file of coordinates and then render them on a map, with the geographic imagery taken from Terraserver. I found out where my nearest ‘Axons’ were, and did my duty to pick up the randomly ringing payphone. I never did meet anyone else until the meet-up in NYC. The ARG part was great.

    My only complaint about the final event was that I didn’t actually get to play because there were only 5 Xbox consoles for an entire theater full of people. I and my friend basically got there at exactly the right time to be seated in the middle of the theater and not get to play when the event was over and they kicked people out.

  9. @Jeff-Unit
    We are the Boing. Uniqueness is mandatory. All Boing Units must be alike in individuality. You will be creative.

  10. Takuan, is there something oxymoronic about “alike in individuality?” If this group has a head it’s Doctorow, which would make him the King. I guess when you have a creative person as the head of the group, then the level of creative expectation can go up. The King can spur his collective to be more open-minded, which would be a very un-Borg-like thing to do. But a very Doctorow-esque thing to do.

  12. “The sad truth is that unless you join them in the conquest you’ll never fruitfully reach any prizes because the ‘hive’ will get there first.”

    That’s not entirely true. It all depends on the type of game and the types of clues given. I’m playing one now, and I’ve found more things just popping in once and a while, at opportune times. It also helps to be able to think outside of the box. I have no idea how many people we have playing right now, but there doesn’t seem to be much of a “I got it first” type of mentality going on. I do see where your coming from saying that if your not an insider, you don’t stand a chance. I was an outsider too for a while. The game started in August, and ‘we’ didn’t find out until November (part of the plan!). I haven’t gotten in on any chats yet (aside from a weekly ’roundup’ that didn’t include the ‘regular’ ARG players). But as a collective we’ve pieced together quite a bit

  13. “The sad truth is that unless you join them in the conquest you’ll never fruitfully reach any prizes because the ‘hive’ will get there first.”

    That’s not entirely true. It all depends on the type of game and the types of clues given. I’m playing one now, and I’ve found more things just popping in once and a while, at opportune times. It also helps to be able to think outside of the box. I have no idea how many people we have playing right now, but there doesn’t seem to be much of a “I got it first” type of mentality going on. I do see where your coming from saying that if your not an insider, you don’t stand a chance. I was an outsider too for a while. The game started in August, and ‘we’ didn’t find out until November (part of the plan!). I haven’t gotten in on any chats yet (aside from a weekly ’roundup’ that didn’t include the ‘regular’ ARG players). But as a collective we’ve pieced together quite a bit

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