Jamie Kane

Jamie Kane was an alternate reality game created by the British Broadcasting Corporation, aimed primarily at teens, aged 14 years to 18 years, appealing to both sexes due to its mix of mystery and drama. The game is named after the main character in it, a fictional pop star named "Jamie Kane". In addition to a primary web site, the game is noted for involving interspersing fictional content related to the game in many of the BBC's web sites, including fictional interviews between BBC Radio 1 presenters and "Jamie Kane", fake Top of the Pops appearances by the character, and fake BBC News reports of the character's death. The aim of the game was for players to unravel the mystery of that death, solving on-line puzzles and following clues that were available from a variety of sources.

Unusually for BBC content, the game involved no links to any broadcast series or other BBC characters. This, along with the fact that the game launched two months behind schedule, caused speculation that this venture by the BBC into alternate reality gaming might prove to be unsuccessful. Sophie Walpole, head of interactive drama and entertainment at the BBC, however, was publicly confident about the game's prospects at its launch, expressing her hope that the game would "go viral", adding that "More than 1 million teenagers visit BBC Online a month, and I'm aiming for in excess of 100,000 players in the first year. It could be just the start of new interactive fiction by the BBC."

The BBC commissioned development of the game in February 2004, shortly before the publication of the independent report by Philip Graf on the BBC's practice in May 2004, which saw the BBC cease its involvement in online fantasy football and surfing stories. The game was initially scheduled for release in early 2005.

For 10 months the BBC worked with outside contractors Preloaded, creator of the various mini-games and puzzles in the game, and Creative Virtual, a specialist in artificial intelligence on-line chat robot technology, to create the game, at a cost of more than £250,000.

On 2005-05-11 the BBC publicly announced that it was calling for beta testers, a move that some alternate reality game commentators considered to be unusually straightforward and open for the world of alternate reality gaming. According to a Preloaded spokesman, this call for testers engendered a response and the game was "tested on hundreds of teenagers".

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