"Live" interactive game from 2000s?!

[JAy3001]

Ok, little help here..

Sometime in the 2000s I seem to remember that a "Live" interactive game was released in the US. From what I remember you signed up to the game and you would receive emails, calls or texts sent to you which would send you out and about trying to solve something..

For some reason Sony is stuck in my head, however as my memory of this game is pretty vague I wondered if anyone recalls something like this?

 

[Shotgun84]

Spam? Cold calling? Lol

 

[Mikestony]

Geocaching?

 

[JAy3001]

You have to love the idea.. This is the sort of game that would be perfect for the smartphone world.

I'm not sure if this game ever got off the ground or not, but sure remember reading about it.

 

[JAy3001]

Not geocaching @Mikestony although that has peaked my interest in the past, thou not after speaking with some hardcore geocaching bobs. Seems a bit odd to me. Lol

 

[Mikestony]

Hmm, not really coming up with anything with searching
I'm really drawing a blank.

 

[JAy3001]

Yeah that's the problem as I cannot remember enough details to find the correct search term.

 

[psionandy]

For a brief moment in time ARG games (Alternative Reality) were going to be huge..

I remember one, which was written as a really good novel.. which had a murder mystery.. Its probably not the one you were thinking of.. but its a good example.. and at least shows you weren't imagining it all.

http://jchutchins.net/personal-effects-dark-art/

Inside the book though were a collection of documents.. clues, business cards and stuff, which gave clues to a second murder that is alluded to in the main part of the book.. but that serial killer was never caught.

For example.. if you called the number of the physcologist.. and entered the voicemail pin.. you could hear the voicemail messages.. which referred to a art therapy class at a private institute.. if you then googled that.. you got tho the web page and could see some example art.. which would give the name of one of the patients etc....

doing certain things would make you sign up for accounts in places.. and then you would get emails... from characters in the book... it became very imersive, scary.. and damn good

Unfortunately i think the real world components of this are no longer live.. which is a shame.. but the book stands alone by itself... and the documents that came with it were really impressive.

 

[Milo Willamson]

I think Sony and XBOX did a thing, maybe going throughout the archive of G4, or even attack of the show, can really ring a memory of that area, they are always plugged in back then.