Alternate Reality Games (ARG) have been one of the first and most prominent viral marketing tools. In a dynamic marketing world, where new practices appear every other day and seemingly ‘old’ practices lose their appeal very quickly, Blizzard Entertainment – a leading video game developer – gained much attention regarding its marketing strategy promoting the release of a new playable hero called ‘Sombra’ for their online game Overwatch, which is the third most-played game in the world with over 20 million unique users. For the campaign, the publisher used in-game hints as well as short clips with further hints (such as ASCII algorithms and hidden QR codes), which had to be decrypted by the users. This virtual scavenger hunt even included seemingly real websites of fictional companies with telephone numbers that could be called leading to further hints. In this paper we take a closer look at this particular campaign that has been praised internationally for its marketing both pre- and post-release. However, parts of the Overwatch community have complained on various online platforms about numerous aspects of the ARG experience. The paper serves two main purposes. Firstly, we explore the ARG participants’ experiences in terms of their customer satisfaction. Secondly, from a theoretical viewpoint, we investigate the applicability of the expectancy disconfirmation theory in this particular case. Thus, this paper may assist future ARG developers in creating engaging content by providing insights concerning the satisfaction of its participants. [... from the introduction]

Alternate Reality Games (ARG) have been one of the first and most prominent viral marketing tools. In a dynamic marketing world, where new practices appear every other day and seemingly ‘old’ practices lose their appeal very quickly, Blizzard Entertainment – a leading video game developer – gained much attention regarding its marketing strategy promoting the release of a new playable hero called ‘Sombra’ for their online game Overwatch, which is the third most-played game in the world with over 20 million unique users. For the campaign, the publisher used in-game hints as well as short clips with further hints (such as ASCII algorithms and hidden QR codes), which had to be decrypted by the users. This virtual scavenger hunt even included seemingly real websites of fictional companies with telephone numbers that could be called leading to further hints. In this paper we take a closer look at this particular campaign that has been praised internationally for its marketing both pre- and post-release. However, parts of the Overwatch community have complained on various online platforms about numerous aspects of the ARG experience. The paper serves two main purposes. Firstly, we explore the ARG participants’ experiences in terms of their customer satisfaction. Secondly, from a theoretical viewpoint, we investigate the applicability of the expectancy disconfirmation theory in this particular case. Thus, this paper may assist future ARG developers in creating engaging content by providing insights concerning the satisfaction of its participants. [... from the introduction]