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 Forum index » Meta » General META Discussion
ARGs = the top of the entertainment foodchain
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iheathen
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Joined: 17 Feb 2008
Posts: 70

 		ARGs = the top of the entertainment foodchain
So I was going to start a blog to express this, but I'll try posting here as I really would like to discuss with this community about the developing nature of ARGs.

I really want to use Elan Lee's oft-quoted analogy of the airplane as a jumping-off point for the purpose of my post. He says that ARGs are at the point where we just got off the ground for a few seconds, but we're still imagining what full flight will be like.

To me, the ARG is the pinnacle of the entertainment food-chain. In the world of entertainment, the ARG, due to its cross-platform nature sits in a position that can encompass all other forms of entertainment, and utilize any and all existing and non-existing forms of communication, all under the one umbrella of "the ARG."

Because of that fact, I feel that The ARG is more than a game. It is the natural evolution of entertainment. It's beyond a book, a movie, a song, an album, a newspaper, a computer, a cell phone, yet it is all of those things. It's what Garage Band/Myspace is to the music industry, and what Youtube is to television. It's the way the average person can take control of "The Story," in the same way "people" have wrested control of Music and Television and Movies away from the major corporations. A content creators dream… It's the earth-shattering revolution that will re-write the way people consume entertainment.

It is most certainly not a game.

It's also not just "how to build a better marketing campaign" though in my professional career as a marketing manager, I definitely try to include ARG-like tendencies into my plans, because they are so engaging, they have a way to grab an audience and interact with them in a way no other form of marketing can. We are definitely seeing "traditional" marketing methods become increasingly ineffective.

In my job in the entertainment industry, I have created narrative marketing campaigns that involved Myspace pages for characters found in songs, I've orchestrated "protests" at concerts, released fragmented stories released out-of-order and created communities around them to "solve" the story, and created online social awareness communities around politically-conscious artists, built around ARG-like narratives.

That said, I have far too much respect for the ARG to put it simply under the "marketing plan" concept.

It obviously can have worldwide implications (world without oil), it is an experiment in the effectiveness of collective-intelligence, it is wholly immersive entertainment… it is what the creators want it to be, and it's applications are as yet nowhere near fully tapped.

This is exciting.

I love the immersive-entertainment aspect myself, when looking at the ARG as a new method of delivering a story, and allowing the consumer of the ARG to actually BE the hero in the story… it becomes the evolution of the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Novel… the evolution of Dungeons & Dragons, the evolution of Live Action Role-Playing… the evolution of basically anything fun and entertaining!

To be able to completely immerse ones-self into a story or an experience in a way that allows you to be part of the team of heroes, it's like you've joined the Justice League Of America, or the X-Men. Every one in the world has a particular skill set and mental make-up that makes them unique, yet the collective means by which we join together and share our skills for the common goal of solving or furthering an experience is unique to ARGs. No other experience can provide such a 100%-fulfilling immergence into a new world.

The ARG is not a game, the ARG is not a genre... it's something much more. It is a new delivery-method for entertainment. One that is all-encompassing, and all-consuming. One that gives power to its user. And in this day and age, THAT is the single-most exciting thing that can happen.

That said, I would really like to congratulate those people who are on the cutting edge of the process of furthering this new form of entertainment, on its own merit - furthering the ARG as a self-sustaining and commercially viable form of entertainment. This is the true art, and the leaders deserve to be recognized as some of the most forward-thinking content-creators in the entire world.

I look forward to what you come up with next.

PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 7:07 pm
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vpisteve
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Joined: 30 Sep 2002
Posts: 2441
Location: 1987

 		Um, wow. Would you like a job?

Not that I'm the one who hires or anything, just askin'.
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 9:16 pm
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Jas0n
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Joined: 19 Aug 2006
Posts: 244

 		That's an awesome post, and I'd venture to say quite a few of us agree 100% with what you said.
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 11:14 pm
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Will 2.0
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Joined: 22 Jun 2007
Posts: 1431
Location: Burlington, Vermont

 		I know I do.

This IS the new media and businesses everywhere are looking at it.
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 7:31 am
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iheathen
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Joined: 17 Feb 2008
Posts: 70

 		Hah, no, not looking for a job... i'm pretty happy where I am. More looking for a good conversation about the future of entertainment.

What Fourth Wall Studios seems to be endeavoring to do is incredible, and I hope they are successful.

For me personally, while I understand how ARGs can be used for the greater good and solving real-world issues like Ms McGonigal is doing, my own personal passion lies in furthering entertainment. It always seems like the entertainment genres take so long to upgrade their products/services... I mean, the music industry hasn't upgraded their offering since 1983 when they introduced the CD. And every time the film industry tried to introduce a new upgrade, they fight over format issues...beta/VHS, HD/BluRay, etc. And people are taking this problem into their own hands, and taking back control of their entertainment and improving it the way THEY want to. Youtube, MP3, etc all give control back to the user... and the ARG is the natural extension of that... on a much larger scale because the nature of the ARG is such that it can incorporate all other forms of entertainment into it, and the more it does that, the better the ARG becomes... it's really fascinating!

PostPosted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 11:46 am
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riquardo
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Joined: 02 Oct 2007
Posts: 280

 		Agreed 100%.


Also, I'd like a job (for real)! Laughing

PostPosted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 8:09 am
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SirQuady
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Joined: 15 Jan 2006
Posts: 576

 		Awesome Awesome Awesome post.

Though I have to admit, when I saw the phrase "entertainment foodchain" I pictured pac-man eating his way through a pyramid (food pyramid?) shaped course filled with old 8-tracks, BetaMaxes, and Laserdiscs.
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 10:27 pm
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