unforum

[FifthWall]

Are ARGs dying, or in decline?

[OhWhatProvidence]

I wasn't around for ILB or any of the early stuff, but there's still just as much passion as one can expect in a busy world. You just have to know what games to play- the ones that are actually really good. I know a miniature game I ran had people waiting up all night for tweets and updates, it was actually really cool. We are Earthborne, Biologic- there are still 'real' ARGs out there, but yea, there is a bit of a change in form. But it's not dead. And people come and go all the time. Some people who I didn't even know were a part of this forum still will post in games I follow. People just get busy, I think. Yea, there are a lot more grassroots, but taht just means there's more people that are new to the genre and interested in making ones. Sure, they may implode but once in a while something great may come of it. I don't think it's dead or in decline at all, just that more of a willingness to create, more of a drive to be a part of the community through the creation and playing- just in a somewhat diffirent manner than early on. And a lot of those threads on ethics and PMs and ect have, like you said, already reached pages. Sometime's what's said is said and you can't say much mroe.

If you'd like some discussions on ARGs, it seems like a lot of that has been confined to the Puppetmaster Help section for now. Ethics in Args, Interest in the Player vs Not, a few threads in the Slenderman Mythos section about how to redefine The SM Mythos into something totally new, sorta like what's goin gon with ARGs- sure, there's more interst and more crappy games but that also means more people are creating and making possibly memorable ones. (I'm hoping mine will be, I have a lot of hopes for it and we've got a great team/crew/cast and I'm hoping it can/might be as epic as some of the more memorable ones...)

[catherwood]

Re: Are ARGs dying, or in decline?

[MageSteff]

I still lurk.

Real life stole some of my time for a while, I held a full time job, and it is difficult to work a full day then put in another full day in the ARG universes. I had to have some time for a personal life as well.

I have tried to locate a game or two to get involved in but either I find out about them after they have hundreds of messages, and become difficult for me to catch up easily, or are just starting out, and things are moving a bit slowly then I forget to check on it regularly and ... fall behind.

But I still lurk.

[Crescent]

losing its charm

[zbeeblebrox]

This is a question in a similar vein. Like the OP, I haven't been very active in the core community for a pretty long while, and I'm curious if unforum is still the best place to find new ARGs? Is there some other centralized community that's popped up in the intervening years since the unfiction main site stopped updating, does this remain the most active place, or is everything dispersed now?

[rose]

I don't know the answer to this question. I feel that maybe some of us feel that nothing can be as amazing as ilb or last call poker or the game for the dark knight.

I came back to the forum today because on gaming podcasts I kept hearing people talk, though very briefly, about an ARG for a game. I don't know if the scale is too broad now, or the stories more shallow. But it shocked me that this genre has become such a part of the gaming vocabulary that podcasts like giant bomb and g gamers with jobs would mention ARGs.

I think something happened where the game became more commercial and less artistic story telling. In contrast to ilb, the next halo campaign was a corporate sponsor nightmare, that I personally hated, and then there was the lost game which could have been awesome but seemed to have product placement more than story or community building. ( I may be remembering incorrectly.)

But I'm really excited by new developments of games that tie into the actual.sorry content and game play of video games (like majestic! )and the idea of funding a permanent kind of ARG through crowdsourcing.

I have been back on unifiction for a few hours after years away, so I don't know the exact answer. I do feel that the genre has the potential to still be huge and to draw people together.

I know this thread is old,but I wanted to answer and maybe some other old timers might have more answers.

[Thunderwolf]

I agree that many people just seem to have lost the ability or the desire to really work on solving problems collaboratively. Many "args" these days are simply video horror stories which don't have the same "underground hacker" feeling that many early args did (remember Majestic?).

One of things I loved about ARGs like Orbital Colony and Meigeist was the fact that the puzzles required you to go out and educate yourselves about various aspects of science, or history, or just interesting world facts. Even if you didn't solve the puzzles, you LEARNED something. And the players were great. I met one of my best friends playing Meigeist, and we still have regular movie nights where we reminisce about early ARGs and hacking puzzles.

Traditionally, I always turned to ARGs when something bad was going on in my life. It allowed me to escape the hum drum while not detaching myself from the world. The restless nights and unproductive days as I stewed over puzzles were superb. Recently I've been hoping to recapture some of that magic, but I've not really found anything I can get my teeth into. Everything seems so hollow. Occasionally there are some great games with some awesome puzzles, but the storyline is so far fetched that the TINAG element is lost.

Traditionally, Hollywood have been reluctant to try new things when money has been thin on the ground. Maybe it's the same for the ARGs - why spend money on an ARG campaign which may not drum up the product recognition you're hoping for, when you can just resort to traditional, tried and tested marketing techniques.

It saddens me to think that the best days of ARGs may be in the past. I'm building my own ARG at the moment, with a very old school vibe to it, in terms of storyline and puzzles... Only problem is that I'm just one man with limited funds, so most of the things I'd love to do might not be feasible... and I do have a real job too, which means limited time to work on it. Still I'm hoping to get it finished... I'm just not sure it would have the appeal as it might have had I made it 6 years ago.

[catherwood]

[Thunderwolf]

[Anashel]

Nooooooo

[thebruce]

I think ARGs in the classic sense will never be mainstream again. Not because that type of experience is not popular, but in the classic context, they were 'elite', subversive, beginning as something for those in the know and spread by word of mouth. These days, the type of experience still exists, but it's promoted, it's usually popular right off the bat, and generally they try to appeal to as many people from get go to start with a huge audience. There are aspects to ARGs that have changed from their early days until now, and certain aspects I really think just can't exist (in the mainstream) as they used to.

I don't think classic ARGs will ever go away, but they'll really exist as grassroots type projects, or independent productions that really won't be able to crack into the mainstream crowd. Times have changed and classic ARGs, I don't think, are compatible with the current times - on the mainstream stage.

Today there are some crazy awesome experiences and promotional campaigns that really help to draw the audience in, but our social capabilities, technologies, and preferences have evolved and improved over the years.

ARGs aren't dead. They're just not what and where they used to be.

[BubbleBoy]

There will always be stories to write. There will always be artists willing to experiment with different ways to deliver their message. ARGs are a unique experience, and a fun way to interact with your audience. They offer an artist/writer an opportunity to get that immediate feedback in a way that other delivery methods are not able to do. For those artists who do it for the opportunity to get their work "out there to the masses", no matter the size of the audience, and not for the money, this genre is a real draw. I'm just wondering if the new generation of artists and audience have been introduced to it.

[ryandrew]

I'm purely speaking for myself, but for me ARGs died somewhat at the same time that Perplex City did.
I was well and truly engrossed in the story of PXC, and when the second season was scrapped days before it was due to commence
it just sort of killed most of the joy I had for ARGs.
I'm still an absolute puzzle fiend though,
and have managed to find myself working for a real life room escape game company, but the long term narrative structure is something I find hard to commit to anymore.

[Little Shadow]

As someone who only just became aware that the genre existed when introduced way too late to the ARG revolving around the release of Portal 2, it can certainly seem like there hasn't been much activity. But having a niche audience and being a relatively complicated and elusive form of entertainment from the start, ARGs are always going to seem more dead than they actually are. ARGs will likely never truly die as long as there are still people looking for them, as I'm sure there are plenty of rabbit holes laying around waiting to be discovered. And if there aren't, someone among the people looking for ARGs will create one. Due to the viral nature of the art form, I really wouldn't be surprised if all it took was a couple of really well-made ARGs to inspire a revival.