World Without Oil Launches

Last night at midnight, the alternate reality game (ARG for short) World Without Oil launched. In the game, the world has hit peak oil and there are news reports of crises from around the world. The goal of the game is to get real people around the world to start thinking about life without oil. To get them to answer questions like: How will they cope? What will they have to sacrifice? What can they do to help the world?

They are using content scattered throughout the web to create this new reality. Youtube videos that tour the oil fields of Texas, blogs and a LiveJournal Community are attributed to fictional characters like RedHatty, Gwen McGinnis, txchuckles, and Gala Teah. The puppetmasters use these characters to pull real people into the game and get them to start contributing. The characters have been posting for a while, dropping hints about an impending crisis. Now that he game has launched, posts like gala_teah’s provide more details about their situation and direct actions for potential players to take:


So it was not a rumor. The oil shock is real. And it’s our new reality for several years at least, if Nico is to be believed (and he’s been right on so far).

We have been preparing for months. But to be honest, I think I always held back a little – hoping we were wrong. Now that it is beginning, and it is real, I am daunted by the task before us. Lots of people are wondering, what do we do now?

The first step for many people is to create an account at LiveJournal. It’s free. By creating an account, you create an identity so you can participate in the growing community here. Exchange of ideas and support is so important.

The center of this world is the World Without Oil website. It contains pointers to most of the content out there. It produces the facts of the world via news briefs that paint a bleak picture. Here’s the backdrop of news for the first week:

Fuel prices jumped this week, led by gasoline which gained over a dollar a gallon on average. Oil distributors pointed to several “renegotiated” delivery contracts as proof that a long-rumored shortfall in the supply of U.S. oil has finally arrived. Oil producers were tight-lipped about the adjusted contracts, and as I write this it’s still unclear how extensive the shortfall will turn out to be.

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