The Minds Behind the ARG Movement

Gamasutra has up an interview with Elan Lee, vice president of 42 Entertainment. As a highly placed individual within one of the most successful alternate reality gaming (ARG) companies, Lee has his name on credits for titles like The Beast and I Love Bees . Lee goes into some background on the process of creating an ARG, what the folks who work at 42 do, exactly, and a little bit about the present and future of the medium. From the article: "GS: Yesterday, during your talk, you also mentioned the Michael Douglas movie The Game as an inspiration. Where does that fit in? EL: That movie completely twisted my mind. I have this terrible lack of ability to predict the end of any movie. I sit there, completely gullible and taken in by the movie makers. Anyway, I got to the end of that movie, and I was blown away, because I didn't see it coming, at all. And I thought, there's something magical here in the ability to take someone's life and transform it into an entertainment platform. The movie got really scary and creepy; we wouldn't actually want to do that, but on a much smaller scale there are some really fun things there."

Finite and Infinite Games

[xappax]

For those with a philosophical bent, I recommend Finite and Infinite Games [worldtrans.org]. A very thought provoking exploration of what constitutes a game, and how they blend with reality.

I'll admit, I'm biased

[DorkusMasterus]

as I write for them occasionally, but I'd reccomend ARGNet [argn.com] and UnFiction [unforums.com] (a site I DON'T write for) for those who are interested in this unique game genre. It's growing daily, and there are more games to suit more tastes than ever. Definitely cool stuff.

EA game

[nacturation]

Anyone remember that game Majestic based on the movie The Game? They tried to do this but, unfortunately, having everything automated removes a lot of the surprise factor.
 

Re:

[lidocaineus]

Well, if you read TFA, they go ia bit nto what made Majestic not work.

Re:

[nacturation]

I hadn't, but now that I've read it their sole comment was that it didn't work because it had a subscription. That's it. I think it's a bit simplistic and they're possibly ignoring other things that would make it not work because those are things that they can't avoid either. Anyhoo, I was just waxing nostalgic about Majestic a bit.
 

Re:

[slackmaster2000]

Pirates say "yarrr", Charlie Brown says "argh." :)

Re:

[billsoxs]

Yes you are correct they do say 'YARR' but they also say 'ARRRGH' - more R's then Charlie Brown.

I just lost the game

[InsaneLampshade]

Yeah... thanks for mentioning "The Game" in the summary... i just lost.

Re:

[DorkusMasterus]

Actually, I don't know why your post got modded as flamebait. I think it's a valid question. I love these games (although I have less time to play them lately), and I can tell you that the answer lies in this situation:

Advertising is a reality. It is really all around us in an ever-increasing way. So, you can either have it force-fed to you in banner ads, commercials, and mass marketers, or you can choose how it is delivered to you.

First of all, these games, even those as promotions for companies or pro

THE GAME

[the phantom]

Are these ARGs anything like THE GAME? (which I just lost, by the way)

The ARG movement is for morons...

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

... choose the PARAM movement!