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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: General » Old News & Rumors
[Trailhead?] Giants in our midst
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fizzlefest
Greenhorn

Joined: 11 Dec 2005
Posts: 7

He released a new podcast today. (Why are mp3 files now called podcasts? Hmm..) Anyway, he mentions something about some more clues being present in the hidden directory. I'll have to take a look again at the document and take note of those typos you mentioned. I suppose it could mean something, but then this puzzle hasn't really been that difficult. But there's got to be something with that document.

PostPosted: Tue Dec 20, 2005 10:33 pm
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Therum
Boot


Joined: 27 Oct 2005
Posts: 58

Hmm....is that Foreshadowing I spy?

Yes, this is getting intresting. I loved the last part of the newest entry. ".....I kind of don't expect to."

I wonder, though. IS Giantology a part of the Viral campain? Or is that just some veyr convincing TINAG?

PostPosted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 6:19 pm
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tik
Guest


Translation of Boris Phone Call

http://www.giantology.typepad.com/
Quote:
Translation of Boris Phone Call
A Russian-speaking Giantology fan in the UK, by the name of Demitri, emailed me the following translation of Boris Atlasov's outgoing voicemail message:

Arkady, if this is really you, please leave a message and tell me that you are safe and sound. I am with friends, so do not worry about me. The 3D seismic video is in the password protected directory. I will release it only once I am certain you are safe. The password is "polar ice giant".

This leads me to wonder whether we'll ever know what happened to Arkady Simkin - whether he be a real person or, more likely, a made-up character. If captured by Polarneft, we'll never hear from him again. If on the lam, we should eventually expect some kind of message. I'm certainly not holding my breath, especially since I haven't heard from Boris again, since his emailing me the stop-polarneft URL, and I kind of don't expect to.


PostPosted: Fri Dec 23, 2005 8:41 am
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enerbrat
Boot

Joined: 24 Oct 2004
Posts: 23

So we now have access correct? This information is the 3D seisomagram that as taken from Arkady by Polarneft. So where does this bring us in this story? Razz

PostPosted: Fri Dec 23, 2005 9:03 pm
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fizzlefest
Greenhorn

Joined: 11 Dec 2005
Posts: 7

Another update today, 12/26/05. He posted a new pic from a South Africa newspaper which shows cave drawings. In that one pic are 4 giants from the game. Not sure what the 5th thing in the center is tho. Smile

PostPosted: Mon Dec 26, 2005 5:41 pm
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Therum
Boot


Joined: 27 Oct 2005
Posts: 58

It doesn't really look like it, but perhaps it represents the Shrine of Worship? The circle in the middle could represent the hole in which Dormin talks through.

Alternitivley, it might be the Door that you need to pass through to get to the Sixteenth Collosus.

It also may be the pool in the back of the temple.

(For those don't know, Shrine of Worship=Central "Hub" of the game. Dormin=Disembodied voice who gives you your quest.

PostPosted: Tue Dec 27, 2005 11:28 am
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ero_ecchi
Greenhorn

Joined: 22 Nov 2005
Posts: 7

Hmmm.

The 26th (I imagined) was supposed to be a big reveal or something... but it turns out that his 'final note' before getting on a plane seems to have little steam behind it.

Frankly, i'm a little disappointed.

If this is his last post, then the Simkin story seems to have completely fallen off the planet-side.

If this is his last post for a WHILE, then a lot of the build up we've been following seems to have turned limp.

I have a question for all the ARG players out there... does it happen, where a story can get 'dropped' and just suddenly end without explanation?

I'm not saying this one has stopped, but i'm curious as to if there have been incidents where a similar 'Viral Ad gone ARG' just lost it's momentum.

PostPosted: Tue Dec 27, 2005 1:12 pm
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Ehsan
Entrenched

Joined: 09 May 2003
Posts: 992

Re: Hmmm.

ero_ecchi wrote:

I'm not saying this one has stopped, but i'm curious as to if there have been incidents where a similar 'Viral Ad gone ARG' just lost it's momentum.


There have been a lot of cases when unprepared PMs and even unfortunate prepared PMs had to drop the entire game, dissapear, or leave the story where it was for months.

But as far as I'm concerned, this Viral campaign never picked up as an ARG. I just didn't see enough ARG elements to consider it one. So I didn't see any momentum to begin with, just a couple of pages which get updated to keep people talking about it...

PostPosted: Tue Dec 27, 2005 4:01 pm
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Falafel
Veteran


Joined: 30 Dec 2005
Posts: 73

I've been looking at the giantology site and related sites since about october, and it never occured to me an ARG. It seemed more of a viral marketing campaign for SOtC than anything else. But reading these posts, I've seen little details that you noticed that I wouldn't think of.

PostPosted: Fri Dec 30, 2005 2:28 pm
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fizzlefest
Greenhorn

Joined: 11 Dec 2005
Posts: 7

So, I guess it's safe to assume that this "ARG" is done? Giantology hasn't been updated since 12/26/05.

PostPosted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 7:52 am
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Rusty didnt log in
Guest


Yeah, I dubt if its still going, last post was IN DECEMBER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bleh. Yeah, it's over. BTW, all mp3s arent called podcasts. Podcasts are MP3 files put onto the internet. Like talk shows and stuff.

PostPosted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 8:00 am
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~furius~
Guest


If anybody still cares

The stop-polarneft domain is registered by a PR company called public creative that has done some work for other sony divisions in the past.
The original arkadysimkin.pl domain, though is registered to a Key-Systems GmbH in germany? Go figure... Anyway, is it possible it wasn't sony's originaly but they jumped onboard and made it their's?

BUMP, i guess Smile

PostPosted: Sun Apr 02, 2006 12:07 am
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Haze
Kilroy

Joined: 13 Jul 2006
Posts: 1

Sorry to bump the topic up again,

But has this been confirmed by Sony as a campaign yet? It seems weird to just leave it as it is, seeing as we have not heard of Arkady for over half a year, is this nothing to worry about or should someone inform Missing Persons...?

PostPosted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 10:45 am
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Arkady Simkin
Kilroy

Joined: 23 Feb 2007
Posts: 1

Still Alive, no thanks to Polarneft

Alright, I think this has been dead long enough that I can post in here without violating the forum's TOS.

I first came across this story on digg.com, and I think the whole thing was still fairly early on into the "game".

http://digg.com/general_sciences/Ice_Giant_found_in_remote_Russia

I read all through the arkadysimkin.pl site, and at the end of it, I tried use the "contact me" link to email them and let them know that I was "in" on their viral marketing campaign, that I thought it was a fun idea, and that I was looking forward to the new Shadow of the Colossus game. The email address linked to from the site was "(something)@gmail.com".

My email bounced back; the email address didn't exist.

It took all of about 15 seconds for it to sink in that I could have some fun with this, and another couple minutes' worth of fast computer work to grab the gmail address for myself. Over the next several hours, I started getting a trickle of messages in, asking about the Taurus Major discovery. I chuckled to myself about how extraordinarily clever I was, and thought about maybe collecting them for some videogame-blog writeup in the future. Then I had a busy weekend, and I kind of forgot about the whole mess.

On Monday (if I remember correctly), I checked back in and saw that there were no new messages coming in. I wondered why, and when I went back to the arkadysimkin webpage, I saw that the mailto address had been changed. Whoever was working at the ad agency must have realized their oversight, and took steps to correct it.

I was a little pissy that my fun had been taken away from me though, which was why I started sending out the email responses, letting folks know that Arkady's site had been compromised, and any information on it could not be trusted from now on.

I had plans of sending out yak hair and maybe bits of frozen pork to people, "proof" of physical evidence from the Siberian Ice Giant. I had plans of starting a trailhead of my own, winding up in the remote Northern Canadian wilderness with a buried SoTC promotional painting or something. I also had a busy life, work schedule, and limited funds at my disposal, so unfortunately that never happened. To all the folks who thought that the "Giant ARG" was finally shaping up into something interesting, I'm sorry that I couldn't sustain the trail. If I'd had more time and money to plan something out, I would have, but I sort of jumped into their ad campaign uninvited.

Lessons learned:

-If you're developing a viral marketing campaign or an ARG, don't have any links to nonexistant (but available) web pages or email addresses. Have all your bases covered.

-If you're a puppetmaster, paid or unpaid, invited or not, be able to go somewhere with the clues you're throwing out.

To forestall any questions about the truthfulness of this post, I registered and activated my account from the original gmail account talked about earlier in this thread.

Happy hunting

PostPosted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 9:37 pm
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