A couple weeks ago, I came across the website testsubjectsneeded.com. After taking a psychological examination for “sensory based research,” I was prompted with the offer to sign up for the project. Despite the secrecy of the website and modern day issues with private data, I gave them all my information with no hesitation. Who in their right mind would do such a thing? Me, obviously. Why? Because I’m playing a game.
No, I’m not playing anything on the PS3, Xbox, Wii, or a mobile device. I’m playing what’s called an alternate reality game, or ARG for short. Instead of a controller, people use their wits to play, interacting via various methods such as emails, phone calls, text messages, and websites such as testsubjectsneeded.com to proceed the story of the game to its next part. While not all ARGs are specifically tied to it, the most recent and popular ARGs have served as viral marketing (as well as a narrative enhancement) for content such as movies, video games, and, surprisingly, music. The most popular company behind these ARGs is 42 Entertainment, as their stories are consistently of the highest quality and their level of interaction for the game is varied and heavily involved. I’ve personally followed most of their projects and actively participated in 2007’s Year Zero campaign for Nine Inch Nails (I pretty much had to: Nine Inch Nails is my favorite musical act), which redefined the idea of a concept album by creating an interactive dystopian future that had people discovering flash drives with new NIN songs and media, websites sent from the future, and the band ultimately getting (faux) arrested and detained at a secret show for a resistance movement.
So how does one know the Test Subjects Needed website is an ARG? Sites such as Unfiction are dedicated to the chronicling and discussion of potential and current ARGs, so looking in their threads to find the website in question is a good start. Or, if you’ve participated or followed a previous ARG, you can kind of see the tell-tale signs of something happening. Test Subjects Needed was first discovered in a DC comic book ad as a morse code line towards the bottom of the page. At this year’s E3 convention, envelopes were handed out at random to people, with the website listed on the documentation inside. These mysterious ways of introducing a website are indicators that this isn’t some new start-up company trying to reach a broad audience, or immediate promotion for a product… it’s an ARG about to unfold.
What is Test Subjects Needed for? We still don’t quite know yet. It’s just coming out of its infancy, getting started a few weeks ago via the aforementioned comic book and E3 handouts. After signing up via the website, I received a black envelope in the mail with an interesting little paper helicopter with an LED attached to it, with the message “THE PULSE IS GROWING. CAN YOU FEEL IT?” (funnily enough, participants who had previously participated in 42 Entertainment’s Tron Legacy ARG, Flynn Lives, determined that Test Subjects Needed was also a 42 Entertainment production because the stamps.com postage code on the black envelope matched that of mailouts from the Flynn Lives campaign). These paper helicopters were apparently dropped from a passing plane during the 2011 Bonnaroo Festival. A QR Code was also on the paper, which led to a new website: missionicefly.com. This website had a countdown timer, which, upon reaching zero, required participants in a variety of cities to meet for a dead drop. Lucky participants walked away with new evidence for the campaign: a test tube with the mysterious “icefly” encapsulated. The tube could be plugged into an outlet; one participant cited that his icefly began blinking erratically after a while. It turned out to be morse code, which, when translated, led to yet another website: survivalcode.com (also, upon all iceflies being retrieved, the missionicefly website updated with a video that briefly flashed this survivalcode website). LOST fans like myself got really giddy to see that John Locke himself, actor Terry O’Quinn, narrates and is featured in the introduction video at survivalcode.com. survivalcode.com currently plays host to another countdown timer ending July 15th. Just yesterday (July 4th), my sister purchased a new pack of 5 Gum (we both will attest to how seriously good it is) and noticed the new “limited edition” packaging which features a little icefly-looking insect on the back flap. Opening the pack reveals a QR Code that leads to survivalcode.com and a unique code for entry on the website. [This is an abbreviated summary of the events thus far. For more detail, visit unfiction’s summary thread.]
People initially speculated that the ARG was for 5 Gum, as the initial comic book ad with the morse code was for one of their many flavors of gum. But why would a gum company go all out and airdrop LED paper helicopters, create a story based around a fictional insect such as an icefly with high quality production videos, and bring on Terry O’Quinn to be involved? It’s heavily rumored now that this is merely part of a larger campaign for a movie or TV series, and this is merely the stepping stone to a bigger reveal much later.
TestSubjectsNeeded is shaping up to be an increasingly mysterious campaign; it’s definitely not too late to get caught up and involved with the ARG. Even if you don’t want to participate by giving out information, you can still follow the campaign and its discoveries via the Unfiction forums or the websites themselves. There have already been helicopter drops, city scavenger hunts for dead drops, and Terry O’Quinn… and this is barely from the start. It only stands to get bigger and better from here on out.
