Gamers in London enjoying an afternoon at the Trocadero may have seen a strange sight yesterday: every fifteen minutes, groups of people wearing stickers were escorted by wardens in matching t-shirts towards a DDR, Daytona or Guitar Freaks machine. While some members of the stickered teams competed at these games, others huddled around maps mumbling about Trafalgar Square or the National Gallery, pulling out beeping phones every few minutes and hurriedly composing messages.

This wasn't some strange terrorist activity--instead, it was the live counterpart to a long-running alternate reality game, a day of challenges which saw over two hundred people navigating around London armed with little more than a question sheet and a mobile phone. Alternate reality gaming exists in the overlap between video games, traditional puzzles and live-action roleplay; it reached the attention of gamers in 2004 with the I Love Bees promotional ARG for Halo 2, followed by another for GUN, Last Call Poker.
 

Alternate reality gaming; a niche pastime enjoyed by a minority of gamers? A fiendishly difficult hobby reserved for the most cerebral and dedicated few among us? Not necessarily, say these player numbers collated by Adrian Hon of Mind Candy.

Based on official numbers, the volume of forum posting and the number of hits on Google, these figures are pretty impressive. Two of the better-known ARGs -- The Beast and I Love Bees -- attracted upwards of two million players, according to their designers.

One problem with these numbers is the exact definition of "player"--is it anyone who visits a key website, or only someone following the thread of the story? The volume of buzz on forums and the Internet shows that ARGs can definitely get popular, although the most successful games so far have been run in conjunction with lavishly-funded advertising campaigns.