ARG example - The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight ARG was an alternate reality game created by Warner Bros. and 42 Entertainment to promote The Dark Knight, the second Batman movie directed by Christopher Nolan. Unlike most online games, an ARG includes an immersive storyline the players are characters in; in the case of The Dark Knight, all players are citizens of the fictional Gotham City. An ARG requires searching for clues to continue the story on the Internet, on the phone, and at real-life events. 

Activities in the Dark Knight game included:

Going to bakeries and picking up cakes with cell phones in them

Decoding messages on official theater posters

Submitting images of people wearing Joker makeup

Using clues from other websites to turn in corrupt police officers

Once an objective in the game was completed, all participants were rewarded with new TDK promotional material, such as trailers, pictures from the movie, and posters. Those who participated outside of the Internet received items like newspapers, clown masks and cell phones.

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The game ended when, a week before the movie's release, every single site involved in the ARG was vandalized by the Joker and his mad hacker skills. One final puzzle revealed a website that allowed players to receive free tickets to early IMAX screenings of The Dark Knight on a first come-first served basis, while those with Joker cellphones were personally invited through their emails.
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