I Love Bees Anthology DVD Legally Available Online 36
celerityfm writes "In case you missed some or all of the I Love Bees alternate reality game promoting Halo 2, Elan Lee (one of the creators of I Love Bees) recently announced the approval of electronic distribution of the I Love Bees anthology DVD that was originally given away to the most hard-core I Love Bees game players at the end of the game! The DVD contains very interesting stuff for any I Love Bees or Halo fans out there as it contains the entire 5+ hour audio story plus behind the scenes looks and other extras. So with that in mind: Gentlemen, start your bittorrents!"
What is Gabbo? (Score:1)
Re:Not wishing to sound niggardly.... (Score:2)
Re:Not wishing to sound niggardly.... (Score:1)
Guess it is.
Re:Not wishing to sound niggardly.... (Score:5, Insightful)
> This "I love bees" garbage is the new era of advertsing.
Garbage?
For those who participated in it, "I Love Bees" was great fun. You got to solve puzzles, run around answering pay phones to open up more of the story, occasionally talk to the live actors themselves in-charachter, and work with other people piecing the plot together. In the end, ILB was a 5-6 hour drama taking place in the Halo universe, all leading up to the events of Halo 2. If you didn't care about Halo, you probably still could have enjoyed the fun of the game. And if you had any interest in Halo, then it really got you interested in Halo 2.
Was it marketing? Of course! No-one was blind to that. But if you think that should immediately disqualify the game from being any fun, let me ask you this:
Have you ever downloaded a game demo? Did you enjoy playing the 1 or 2 levels they provided for free? Did it make you interested in buying the game?
Well, guess what? You were the victim of marketing! You poor fool - you didn't realize that you were just a pawn of the cynical megagame corporations! You may have thought you were having fun playing a little 1-2 level game, but in reality, you were being used!!!!
Or not. Maybe you were just taking advantage of a freebie given out by a company hoping you'd like it and would then buy the full game.
That's exactly what happened with "I Love Bees". Some of us who played will buy Halo 2. Others who don't really care about computer gaming won't. But everyone had fun. And in the end, it doesn't matter if Microsoft was behind it, or Bungie, or just a couple of guys in a basement. It was fun. That is all.
Re:Not wishing to sound niggardly.... (Score:2)
I Love Bees is not marketing garbage. In fact, of all the ways of marketing a game, ILB seems to be the best I've seen. Not only did you have puzzles, hidden puzzles, live character interaction, and a story about it, but you also had an in-depth, ongoing radio drama that was, on the whole, separate from the puzzles, and separate from the game ILB was supposedly shilling for.
ILB
Re:Not wishing to sound niggardly.... (Score:2)
Re:Not wishing to sound niggardly.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly! Nobody who played "I Love Bees" for any length of time was unaware of its Halo 2 association. And nobody was scandalized to learn that Microsoft/Bungie were behind it.
So what? Microsoft and Bungie put out Halo 1, and I actually paid money to play it! Does that make me a_pawn of faceless corporate overlords? No, it just means they put out a fun game, and I agreed to give them money so I could play it.
So if that was a reasonable transaction, how much better a deal was it to play "I Love Bees" for $0.00 ? I had fun, they got publicity for Halo 2 - everybody wins!
Re:Not wishing to sound niggardly.... (Score:2)
Huh? (Score:2, Informative)
The torrent link [66.90.75.92]
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
NO! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:NO! (Score:3)
Re:How much did this ad cost? (Score:3, Interesting)
I was just surprised that this hadn't been posted to
The bigger news is that this is, to my knowledge, the first time a mass produced DVD has been allowed to be distributed electronically in its entirety. The fact that the creators endo
Re:ihatebees.com (Score:2)
legally? (Score:1)
I have to chuckle to myself when I read article titles like this. The times we live in....
A credit to the editors-- (Score:2)
I guess the editors actually DO edit story submissions, despite the volume of comments suggesting otherwise
Is there any way... (Score:2)
Re:Is there any way... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Is there any way... (Score:2)
Or are they blocking the port for outgoing traffic to an external IP?
Re:Is there any way... (Score:1, Informative)
if you use linux you need to locate a file called download.py, it's generally located at file:/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/BitTorrent do a search for minport or maxport and change the number there to something else.
if you use macs...well... it's easier than the last two, just go to the preferences and change the ports.
Re:Is there any way... (Score:1)
Re:Is there any way... (Score:1)
How about a Slashdot Ilovebees category? (Score:2)
Re:Ok so I'm stupid (Score:2)
But basically yes its a culmination of all the audio files, in order, and includes screenshots of webpages and other relevant stuff. I'm still DLing the DVD (on hour 25 now, but I've uploaded 3.5gb to the cause atleast).
Hope that webpage helps you on your decision to invest the time to dl this thing. Get it while its hot and seeded!
I recommend it, but... (Score:2)
Once the Axons went hot, that all changed. The few puzzles that remained were complicated for a single person, but for the ARG community they were solved before most people knew they existed. There wasn't much left to the game except people who had the time/inclination/gas money to go answer pay phones.
Eventually live conversations were
Does ARG have to = puzzles? (Score:2)
Obviously something needs to engage and challenge the individual audience member, and hard, abstract, barely-justified-by-the-story braintwisters are of course the first thing that would occur to, well, game developers... but are there any other possibilities?
Is there any way to attach game progress or story progress to, say, having to interact with and figure
Re:Does ARG have to = puzzles? (Score:2)
I don't think an ARS is such a bad thing, I think ILB was a very good ARS.