The concept of an ARG is that instead of playing a game on a computer or gaming system, the game is played in the real world. Well, more less the real world. Often websites are created for the game with clues hidden amongst them for players to come together and solve, being treated as if they were real websites. The puzzles can be quite complex.
Typically, ARGs are used as marketing tools by gaming companies to generate hype about a particular product, which can end up in some disappointing results for people playing them (going through the puzzle only to find out they've been advertsied to.) There are also communities that create their own ARGs, though they tend to suffer either from lack of resources to create an indepth game, or losing interest and not finishing its creation.
For more detailed information on ARGs, Wikipedia provides a good summary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_reality_game
When doing some research on how ARGs are created, I came across an article on how students designed an ARG to be used with their local libraries!
I then decided to see if there were other institutes that used ARGs, and found this list: http://remotedevice.net/blog/args-in-institutions/
Adding an ARG element to our instruction may generate the needed interest and motivation for some of our students to learn the material. I'll keep researching this.
