Although ARGs are designed to be as realistic as possible they are not designed to deceive. They are made to be realistic and believable as a potential element in the real world but they should never be taken as a real event. In the case where an ARG is set in a fictional world, it becomes quickly obvious that the story is fictional as well.
There is a real hoax concern with an ARG that has a realistic story set in the real world. It is possible that an audience, without the proper media literacy, will interpret what they are experiencing as a real event. If the ARG is released to the ARG community, there is little question that what they are experiencing is fiction. The risk comes when someone who is unfamiliar with an ARG stumbles across the narrative. In this case, there must be clues about the fictional nature of the account. It is possible to have links to a project blog that documents the progress of the players and the narrative to date. In Electronic Arts ARG Majestic (2001), they had an option when setting up the game to provide game-based cues about the nature of all communications with the player. You could turn on one option that said, “This is a message from the video game Majestic” that would play before the beginning of pre-recorded phone messages being delivered to the player. This was said to prevent any other people living in the household from misinterpreting the messages coming from a real source. It is also possible to allow players to provide links out to their own work on the ARG. It is important to consider all possibilities but at the same time maintain the ability for players to suspend their disbelief and immerse themselves into the narrative.
