unforum

[youcantseeme]

Sorry, i know it's the auto respons from project synergy, just read the thread and was going over some of the pre game looking for things that might have been missed when i came over it, doubt its any sort of subtle clue but i thought id point it out none the less.

[belga]

I my opinion, there are many clues that point to Nintendo as the backer of perplex city :
- the nintendo Revolution on Hon's screen at E3
- the similarity in the marketing spins with the linking of two worlds : (cf thread in Rumors):

[spugmeistress]

[youcantseeme]

nintendo dont have the money to back the £100 000, sony and microsoft do, i could only see it being one of those 2 as the product would have to fit and the company needs to have the money.

[Dorkmaster]

Actually, while I don't see the evidence for a Nintendo/PC convergence, I would argue that if it were the case, Nintendo certainly would indeed have a marketing budget that would WELL allow 200,000USD for this purpose. And beyond. I know they're not doing as well as Sony or MS in the console business, but let us not forget that they are still the hands-down king of the handheld industry (we'll see if that persists with the PSP, but that's besides the point)...

But while I don't want to pop anyone's bubble without knowing for sure, I would reiterate that there is really no evidence at all that Nintendo Corp. is behind anything but Revolution and this new GB Micro they're touting...

www.wired.com Go here for the article on Nintendo's new forays into the gamespace... (While I would normally just link to the article, I instead link to the site, cuz if you don't read Wired News every day, (and get the magazine, cuz it's cheap and awesome) then you really should stop using up so much oxygen and skin and stuff, and give that to someone who really could use it... )

[Mornington]

bait

[rose]

[Mornington]

The Business ARG

[Leeravitz]

Seems like a sensible set of business moves to me as well. MC appear, to all intents and purposes, to be a small group of young committed and enthusiastic members of the traditional RPGing/ARGing community who have pooled together a variety of skills [programming, producing of artwork, writing talents etc.] in order to set up a company (and scenario) which is a unique new venture.

As opposed to encouraging the ARG as an adjunct to a wider promotion, they are delivering Perplex City to us as a genuinely stand - alone ARG, which exists in and for itself...

The fact that they may need to integrate business practices (such as selling the cards via Firebox, setting up chargeable phone lines etc.) in order to recoup some outlay doesn't detract from this basic aim...

Thus far, Perplex City has been a tremendous experiment - an attempt to bind together all the possible technologies/inheritances of something like 20 - 30 years of gaming history, and see whether it can be made to work. Thus, aspects of the game (thus far) take in traditional puzzle games, Internet based searching, card distribution, building of maps, phone line usage, site - specific meets and 'flash mob' variations, the working through of a murder mystery, a possible long term treasure hunt etc.

At times, I suspect that the MC Team are working this out as we do; they may even be taking into account what the message boards are saying and altering strategy accordingly, rather than following a point - by - point foreordained plan...

I imagine that whatever backer they may have is less important to the game than the idea that MC are themselves going to be a new force to be reckoned with in the ARG world... Sure, the backer could be somebody important and/or impressive - if you can get someone with real money interested in bankrolling the project, then it's going to make your ambitious dream seem all the more attainable. And, as anyone who has ever tried to finance some personally ambitious idea will know, the more you can convince the banks etc. that you *really* mean business, the better things go for you. So, having an identifiable backer to name drop is very important for a fledgling company.

I'm not sure that this means that the game will turn out to be a 'front' for someone else's promotion - I think the whole point of Mind Candy is to create an ARG that will get away from what has proved necessary in ARG's thus far. Either that they have had to remain small - scale and limited in scope, or they have been massively successful, but reliant on selling a brand. Mind Candy are trying to branch out, and give us an ARG that is designed for the ARG gamers.

The idea that they head - hunt from, and have close links to those involved in the ARG community, is obvious, too. Why? Because it doesn't sound like MC could have come into partnership in the first place if it hadn't been through mutual links in the RPGing/ARGing world...

I might stop now, as I'm starting to sound like a sales brochure...

[cornflake]

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet in this thread, but the card with the predictive text puzzle has a date of 24th September 2005, and a time of (I think) 14:04.

This is glaringly obvious, so something has to happen then. Does anyone know of any marketing shows or anything on that date? (It's a Saturday).