unforum

[Caspian]

Elan and Jessica on Attack of the Show!

[konamouse]

For those of us who do not get G4, will there be a version available online?

[thebruce]

that was pretty good, phaedra and elan did a good job... well as good a job can be done in a short, rushed segment not much covered on whysoserious, they focused more on args in general, and Elan gave his classic ILB shpiel

phaedra's famous! well, more famous than she already was

[Caspian]

[rose]

Yeah, so nice that ilovebees gets mentioned on Attack of The Show. Kristen Rutherford's (the voice actress we all got to know and love as Melissa during ilb) husband is a producer on that show.

Too bad that jamesi didn't get to appear for his site. He's worked so hard for a long time! I guess maybe it is harder to broadcast from Canada or something. Next time you're in New York jamesi, we'll figure something out.

[Yum-Yum]

Vinny (aka 'The Boy' (TM)) is the Supervising Producer of AOTS, but sadly (in this case), The Loop isn't a segment he oversees. He mentioned to me on Monday night that Elan would be on Tuesday's loop talking about "Are ARGs effective entertainment?" and I asked him, "Who the hell is going to be the con?"

I thought Elan was great, it reminded me of how good the 42 keynote was at ARGfest, but frankly, having Phaedra as the con didn't really work with the question being "Are ARGs effective entertainment?" - I thought she was an odd choice, since that made the debate For vs. For.

If you ask me (and I think that you ARE asking me), the problem was the question- because, as far as I know, and correct me if I am wrong - there aren't a lot of rabidly anti-ARG people out there. There are ARG people and there are "what the hell are you talking about?" people. Maybe they needed a halo fanboy as the con to go "head to head" with Elan to be all hai arg r suX0r 4 looosrs PWND!!

Jamesi could have been on The Loop as well -- it doesn't matter where you are located as far as I know, but the problem with the "debate" would have been the same:

"ARGs are awesome!"
"No, you're WRONG -- they're SUPER awesome!"

[thebruce]

hah, I didn't even realize it was intended to be a pro-con debate...
guess that shows how accurately they chose their guests... or, how effective args are as entertainment... and yeah, that's kind of an odd wording - 'as entertainment'? There might be more of a debate if it were 'effective marketing'...

[rose]

Thanks for the clarification and insights, yum-yum. Sorry for my mistake there.

Maybe the best con to ARGs as entertainment would be the idea that the are just a fancy type of marketing that will never reach the peak obtained by i love bees again. Marketers, like Bungie and Lost, seem to have a very different standard of what a game should be, how players are to be treated, etc.

Not that I agree with that statement. But it is hard to find people who are anti-ARG around here. We have plenty of disgruntled and disappointment players in several of the current games - but I don't think they are anti-ARG as much as down on the specific game they were playing.

[jamesi]

Yeah, I don't think it would have been in my best interests to say "ARGs suck!" on air.

The way this all went down was rushed -- within 35 minutes of getting word from the G4TV people, there were something like 10 emails sent in/out and it was determined by G4 that getting someone from Milwaukee would be ideal. I think Jessica did a good job and hardly looked or sounded nervous.

I'm unsure if they would have been able to connect via satellite to Winnipeg -- we don't have any Comcast stations here, with the only major media conglomerates being CTV Globemedia, Global, Rogers, CHUM/CityTV and the CBC. I can fully understand why they would want someone from the U.S. to be on.

That being said, while it would have been cool to be on (going head-to-head with Kevin Perreira has been a dream of mine since the demise of The Screen Savers ), I spent that time getting drunk on a golf course with my father-in-law, which ended up being a great time. In my world, intoxicated golfing beats rushed media experience anytime.

Video can be found here -- you'll have to click the link that says "The Loop: Do You Play Alternate Reality Games?"

[vpisteve]

[rose]

I don't want to define "peak" because I was using it as a hypothetical example of what the"con"would be - presumably this hypothetical person could define "peak" however he or she wanted to.

Really, I was just making it up. Off the top of my head!

Unlike the brilliant princess yum-yum, I'm not quick with these examples

[Phaedra]

Aw, thanks, Jon. I hope if/when they come to ARGN again, they can get satellite to/from Canada, 'cause you are way more polished than I am. Although as you saw, we didn't exactly get to do much head-to-head with Kevin or each other.

I was assuming that there would be a third panelist, like someone from a consumer organization or something who wasn't keen on companies trying to convince you their marketing is entertainment, so they'd be the con.

I mean, that's the way I would have done it -- had a consumer advocate as a con, a marketing ARG designer as a pro, and someone from ARGN there to explain why, as players, we like these things even when they're used as marketing. (Although, the only other episode of the Loop I've seen was the one with Jordan Weisman, the CEO of break.com and someone from Consumerist, and they all ended up pretty much agreeing on everything, too.)

It was crazy rushed -- they contacted us for a panelist at 8:21 pm the night before it aired! I think I got on mainly because I was the first person to answer the email and say, "Yeah, any of our editors could probably do this...I'm available..."

He pretty much disappeared from the Internet immediately after ascertaining that I was in an area they might be able to get satellite time in (which was before Jon and Marie even had a chance to say whether they were available), and I didn't hear anything definite from him until 3:00 the next day (about 2 1/2 hours before I needed to be at the studio).

It was fun, but it was also sort of bizarre.

When I talked to the producer, he said they wanted it to be sort of a debate, but when it actually got down to it, I wasn't sure what we were supposed to be debating. They were whispering in my ear that I could interrupt Elan and disagree with him, and I was like, "Disagree with what? That ILB had payphones!? That the story was like War of the Worlds? That ARGs make your life a playspace?" (And they were apparently whispering the same thing to Elan -- so he tried to interrupt me but it wasn't exactly to disagree. )

I was going to talk about how there are a lot more entries in the field and there's a lot of great work coming from indie/grassroots developers that are still free to play and aren't being used as marketing, so marketing games are probably going to have to maintain very high fun standards in the future, but there wasn't time.

Ah well. Whether ARGs are effective entertainment and/or marketing is probably a question that's a bit too nuanced for a 5-minute segment anyway.

All in all, it was fun but I think I much prefer netcasts.

[BrianEnigma]

[konamouse]

Thank you Brian

[IronJ146]

I'm glad I got to see this since I haven't had cable for a few months.
Anyway, it's not uncommon for them to have an all pro-topic panal on The Loop. Kevin Peirera, the host, to ask devil's advocate questions to the panel in leu of a proper Con.