"This Is Not a Game" is a key phrase associated with ARGs and related conceptual works, describing a design stance in which a project is deliberately not acknowledged as a game. In the provided context, The Beast (2001) is presented as the clearest example. Its rules were never publicly disclosed, no prize was promised, and it was not given an official title. Traces identifying the creators were removed from the website source code and WHOIS information, and press inquiries were consistently met with "no comment." According to the source, a brief insertion of the red text "THIS IS NOT A GAME" in a 2001 television commercial for A.I. became a shared slogan between creators and players.
The phrase functions as a device for blurring the boundary between game and reality. Rather than framing the work as a conventional game, it asks participants to treat it as something that exists within the real world and must be pursued, interpreted, and believed in. The context also connects this idea to Jason Rohrer’s conceptual works, especially A Game for Someone, where the work becomes less an object to be played than an object whose existence is to be believed across vast space and time. In that sense, "This Is Not a Game" does not simply deny gamehood; it helps reframe the work as a social and conceptual practice that operates through faith, secrecy, and real-world engagement.