ARGs (Augmented Reality Games) are a popular way of engaging fans of a show or video game by having them solve puzzles both online and in real life, with the best revolving around the likes ofLOST,Junko Junsui, andPetscop. There are also ARGs that aren’t tied to any particular media, although these are mostly horror-focused. While not all ARGs end up fondly remembered or seen as culturally significant as the media they are attached to, there are a few that stand out above the rest.
Perhaps one of the best-known ARGs is theLOST Experience, which coincided with the release of the famous show’s third season. While there are plenty ofamazing horror ARGs, theLOSTARG managed to completely immerse fans in its fascinating world thanks to the sheer amount of effort put into it.TheLOST Experiencewas a wild ride for fansand nothing has come even remotely close to exceeding it since it ended.
The LOST ARG Brought The Show To Life
The Lost Experience Connected Seasons 2 And 3
TheLOSTARG, also known as theLOST Experience, took place in 2006 between the second and third seasons of the show. It was created by Channel 4 in the UK, ABC in America, Channel Seven in Australia, and the design agency Hi-ReS!. The intention of the ARG was to build interest in the show andflesh out the lore that had been building up across the first two seasons, specifically with the mysterious Dharma Initiative. The ARG took place both online and offline, with it being made up of podcasts, websites, in-person events, chocolate bars, and a novel.
This was one of themost ambitious ARGsof all time, especially as it also had real companies, such as Sprite, and evenJimmy Kimmel Live!taking part. While not all of the ARG’s storyline was incorporated into the full show, there areplenty of elements of it that ended up becoming canon. Its exploration of the fictional company, the Hanso Foundation - which was the parent company of the Dharma Initiative - was the main aspect that was eventually folded into the show’s mythos and lore.
The LOST ARG Was A One-Of-A-Kind Experience
It Was Hugely Ambitious For The Time
TheLOST Experiencewas an ambitious ARG that was ahead of its time. Of course, video game and TV fans are aware of ARGs now, with horror games likeResident Evilgetting ARGs. However, while there have been many large scale ARGs before and since theLOST Experience,the sheer scale of it all far exceeded anyone’s expectations.For example, a novel calledBad Twin, which was written by an in-universe character named Gary Troup, was published. Additionally, the iconic Apollo chocolate bars that are eaten throughout the show were produced and handed out in UK comic book stores.
Gary Troup is famously one of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 inLOST, although he is tragically sucked into the turbine during the events of the first episode, meaning fans never actually get to see much of him or learn about his backstory.
There were the aforementioned real-life adverts for the Hanso Foundation that were aired on ABC, references to it onJimmy Kimmel Live!and various fictional podcasts. A website for the Hanso Foundation was created which was then hacked by the fictional character Rachel Blake, who was at the center of the entire ARG. She even appeared in character during the 2006 San Diego Comic-Con to question the show’s creators about the Hanso Foundation before telling fans to check out a website exposing them.
There were several stages to the ARG, with each one continuing the narrative about the nefarious deeds of the Hanso Foundationand Rachel Blake’s efforts to take them down. One stage involved players attempting to uncover 70 glyphs which, when pieced together, would reveal a hidden video. Some of these glyphs were found on Damon Lindelof’s - one of the show’s creators - and Jorge Garcia’s Comic Con bracelets. There were also several glyphs that were scattered across real-life locations for fans to find.
The LOST ARG Fleshed Out The Show’s Most Interesting Lore
It Delved Into The Backstory Of The Dharma Initiative
The story of theLOSTARG rivals even those of themost unique ARGsasit explored the seedy underbelly of the mysterious organization known as the Hanso Foundation led by Alvar Hanso. The plot revolved around Rachel Blake, a young woman who decided to investigate the Hanso Foundation after discovering it had mysteriously paid for her expensive education. This started with the first stage of the ARG, which saw Blake hacking the Hanso Foundation website and leaving clues behind for others to follow.
Eventually, the Hanso Foundation website was shut down after it uncovered the hacking. However, Blake left behind a link to her blog, which covered all of their secret operations led by the ARG’s villain, Thomas Werner Mittelwerk. He was essentially the right-hand man to Alvar before he mysteriously took over the Foundation and began using it to pursue his nefarious agenda. He got into organ harvesting and planned to unleash a virus on a village in Sri Lanka to test its deadly effects on the people living there.
This was all in pursuit of the Valenzetti Equation, which the Hanso Foundation was attempting to solve. It predicted how long humanity had left to live, with the iconic numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42 being the numerical values of the human and environmental factors that would lead to humanity’s extinction. The Dharma Initiative was founded to solve this equation, but Mittelwerk believed they had failed, and took it upon himself to save the world. Blake revealed all of this through the most crucial piece ofLOSTworldbuilding that came out of the ARG, the Sri Lanka video.
TheLOSTARG ended with Alvar revealing to Blake that he is her father and Mittelwerk going on the run after the authorities caught onto his actions. Alvar then promised to reorganize the Hanso Foundation and use it for good. Once the ARG had finished,theLOSTshowrunners confirmed that all the details surrounding the Hanso Foundation, its ties to the Dharma Initiative, and the Valenzetti Equation were canon, but that Blake, her relationship to Alvar, and the more specific narrative details of the ARG likely weren’t.
Why Haven’t We Seen Anything Like It Since?
It Is Too Hard To Pull Off Now
It’s surprising that an ARG like theLOST Experiencehasn’t been done since for a show or game. While there are still ARGs to promote some popular releases, they’re never quite as extensive as theLOSTARG and occasionallyend in controversy. While it didn’t last for very long,a significant amount of effort was put into theLOSTARG, including all the aforementioned physical products that were produced and the hours of footage and podcasts that were recorded. It was, for all intents and purposes, another season of the show, albeit one fans engaged with in a different way.
, especially as the amount of effort that would need to go into making it challenging to solve would need to be exponentially greater. People are far more interest savvy now than ever before, which means that hiding blog posts in the source code of a website won’t cut it for most ARGs like it did for theLOSTExperience.
Ultimately, putting something like theLOSTARG together is just too expensive and too time-consuming to be worthwhile for the majority of companies.
Ultimately, putting something like theLOSTARG together is just too expensive and too time-consuming to be worthwhile for the majority of companies. That’s not to say that ARGs don’t exist anymore, as they absolutely do, but that they don’t often to the same scale or for the same types of media. Smaller ARGs done through social media channels are now more of the norm. While it is a shame, it’s always fun to reflect on theLOSTARG and its subsequent smaller ARGs and remember just how much of a phenomenon that TV show really was.
