Ben Drowned began in 2010 when a user claimed that a secondhand cartridge of The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask was haunted by the ghost of a dead boy named "Ben." In-game characters behaved abnormally, the screen distorted, and scenes that seemed to address the author directly were revealed in stages through text and video.
What makes this tale important is that it pioneered expansion beyond text into video and an alternate reality game (ARG). Rather than a simple scary story, it unfolded as a participatory, cross-media mystery — leaving a precedent for live, full-format horror in which the reader chases clues and intervenes directly.