BBC | Access 2.0

Are you ready to believe?

By Paul Crichton
18 Apr 07, 03:59 PM

The band Nine Inch Nails (NIN) have been combining offline and online technologies to create an ‘alternative reality game’ as a companion to their latest album, Year Zero. This is a ‘concept’ album set in a dystopian near future. The game has been used to provide more details about this world for fans.

The game began back in February when t-shirts were sold with highlighted letters in the tour dates printed on the back spelling out the cryptic message, “I’m trying to believe.” By adding ‘.com’ to this message, fans found the first website that contained some teasing information and the game was afoot. Since then, more clues has been released via websites, and offline materials with puzzles hidden in binary code, Morse code and the static in audio files.

The websites themselves look like corrupted pages, and are deliberately difficult to read. Most of them are largely text based, and can be used with screen reader software, and just like the visual experience, it’s a bumpy ride and difficult to follow. But that should be seen as part of the fun.

Fans are also taking advantage of the new web, and are working together to decipher the clues on a wiki. The game is ongoing, and with all the trickery employed by NIN to hide clues to date, it would be brilliant if they could put something together for a screen reader user to discover.

I’ve got to admit, I think this really creative and NIN are a great example a band making technology work for them, rather than seeing them as a threat, something other bands and record labels could learn from. The album itself can be streamed from their MySpace profile, and I wouldn’t mind betting that this leads to more sales, not less. You can even download the component parts of their songs from the official website and remix your own versions.

You may not be a fan of Nine Inch Nails music, but you have to admire the way they have used new technologies to engage their fans.