ARGH
Please join me in welcoming another new addition to the Weekly Geek writing staff, Ryan G. Biv. Ryan blogs from his ice fortress deep under the Siberian permafrost, gibbering unintelligibly at an indentured translator who relays the information best he can. Enjoy! --Chris
Promotional media is fleeting. Compacted revenue streamlined to fill the seats or your grubby little hand with the latest and greatest. Posters spring up like mushrooms after a rain for upcoming films and are left to rot, sure to be covered over as compost for the next flick that blows in to town. Run times dictate, release dates loom, and you better bold-face that font if you want your gig filled to capacity.
Enter viral marketing, the self replicating strain of publicity that I'm certain gets marketing execs all hot and bothered. They have to place but a drop in the pool and the very nature of their target audience whisks it away in a mad fit of dispersion. It's market specific, geek-friendly, and like any other advertisement can go incredibly right or terribly wrong.
But what if there is a more sprawling narrative? What if a parallel story is related to the product but can exist on its own? What if I can participate in the delayed unveiling through a series of either web based or cleverly placed real-world clues? Now we are in the territory of Alternate Reality Gaming (ARG) and they've been around for years, causing a stir and getting targeted audiences talking about the process, not just the product.
ARGs can and have existed without any marketing influence, but currently the bulk of them have promotion in mind at inception. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, as any playable game itself is the product of several types of resources, both creative and financial. The best authors tend to be paid for their work and ARGs are no different, but they have come under criticism now that the pot is simmering at the point of saturation.
Does the feeling of consumerist sleaze pervade? Not in every case. Ask any veteran of the now legendary ILoveBees game whether they cared that Microsoft was at the financial helm as they were running pay phone to pay phone or crawling the supposedly infected blog.
It's daunting to categorize the typical ARG as each varies in execution. The ones I like best involve a combination of watching and doing, not unlike certain aspects of a tabletop gaming encounter. Only instead of checking for traps I'm looking for wi-fi hotspots, reading blogs and running searches on suspicious content instead of talking to every damn NPC in the village. Naturally a compelling story lends to better game play whether you are immersed in a console, pen and paper, or reality.
There are dozens of games going on right now, two of which I've followed actively since launch. One is the third iteration from LOST, the other a brief marketing jab for a show I've honestly never heard of. Each is incredibly different in its tone, back story, and participation. If these are things you want to check out I don't delve too deeply in to spoiler territory.
status: ongoing
Things I liked:
- First exposure was real world. A commercial aired from Octagon Global Recruiting during the season finale of Season 3 . Hardly subtle but clearly targeted to those more in the know than the general public.
- The writers for this game have huge financial backing, and it shows. As with the two previous games the entire experience is stretched over time, likely to maximize the players' involvement and twitching anticipation. Everything exists in the LOST universe but just alongside the goings on of the show proper.
- San Diego Comic-con tie ins. A recruiting booth for potential Dharma Initiative employees was advertised in early e-mails. Talk about your perfect placement for maximum exposure. There was also a video released at the official LOST panel amidst some drama. You can read about it here.
Things I didn't like:
- The actual booth at Comic-con.
As a fan of total immersion the booth failed to please. Yes, there were in-character actors but it was clearly visible that it was an ABC funded spectacle instead of a believable recruitment station.
Thing I liked:
- First exposure I had was a completely unmarked tent in the middle of the San Diego Comic-con show flow first thing opening day of the con. Screamed of ARG without punching me in the face with the URL. Met up with a fellow unfiction poster and we were able to solve the rather easy but satisfying puzzle therein.
Things I didn't like:
- Later on, at the same tent, staff members were wearing the URL on their t-shirts and handing out schwag with a simple overlay to reveal the site address we had gotten earlier from one of the flickering monitors. Went from ARG to straight marketing.
- Skywriting.
The next day while at the San Diego zoo a lone sky writing plane caught everyone's attention as it slowly spelled out SEEK THE SIX. Moderately cool but clearly taking advantage of the massive comic-con crowd to garner page hits. Very blunt.
- The game itself. I won't ruin it if you want to play, but the "game" part of the whole campaign seems an after thought.
I love that a Google search of Oceanic Airlines yields an in-game site. I like that I could choose my own involvement in the frenzy leading up to the Dark Knight's release by either scouring for cakes and cellphones or just viewing the turnouts at each respective stop Harvey Dent's propaganda machine made. Though I was in no way involved in the Year Zero ARG the posts on its depth and breadth of fan interaction are a fun read.
The better ARGs are just that, alternate reality GAMES. Meant to be played and enjoyed as any other game would. Some are criticized for their blatant promotion-centric factors but this is no reason to turn a blind eye to the genre as a whole.
So go out there and crawl around, the Unfiction forums or ARGNet are great places to start and you'll find the majority of the communities fiercely active.
