Jamie Kane

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Jamie Kane is an alternative reality game created by the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), aimed primarily at teens and mixes mystery and drama. The game's titular character is a fictional pop star. Outside the official website, the game is noted for 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 online 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.^[1] 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."