unforum

[Phaedra]

Mainly what I was trying to say was while it's foolish to fall into the We Don't Like It, Therefore It Is Not An ARG mindset, it's just as foolish to fall into the It Is Not An ARG, Therefore We Don't Like It one.

I go back and forth on the whole definition thing. On one hand, I'd like to have a pocket definition, because it would be nice to be able to explain to people What An ARG Is without sparking a META war every time.

On the other hand, our tiny corner of the internet can decree What Is (and Isn't) An ARG until we're all dead from old age, and it's not actually going to matter that much.

Most people who come in contact with ARGs, or ARGish things, are going to do so because of a production put on by one of the big ARG companies. And frankly, I don't think our opinions as to what is and isn't an ARG matter all that much to them. They're going to keep experimenting and trying what seems like good ideas to them, not what we decide is appropriate for an ARG.

What I worry about is the newbie who comes in here looking for an ARG, decides to play the Lost thingie, and then has to listen to people here being negative about it because it doesn't meet their expectations for What An ARG Is.

I mean, take yourselves back for a moment to before you ever discovered ARGs. If you stumbled upon the Lost Experience without ever having played an ARG, without any expectations for level of interaction, without any predetermined rubrics for number of puzzles, and pacing, and complexity, and so on, would you enjoy it?

If not, okay, then it's not a good...whatever. If so, does it really matter if it meets some sort of arbitrary ARG standards?

And, frankly, why would we WANT to be judging any new ARGish thing solely on those merits, rather than on the merits that actually matter, like whether it's well-written, whether it's compelling, whether it gives you that sense of wonder and mystery and delight in having discovered something that goes beyond the ordinary, passive entertainment experience?

Isn't being able to appreciate those merits, without holding everything to some arbitrary standards of what constitutes an ARG, the mindset that will allow us to enjoy the most different types of experiences?

These are entertainment. If we don't like it because it doesn't meet some ARG standards that are likely to change anyway the next time 4orty2wo or MindCandy or GMD does something New And Really Different, aren't we missing the point?

[vpisteve]

Must....Resist....Satan!.....

Ugh, can't. So here goes.

Could the nuances between the various internet/interactive/narrative/cross-media/puzzly thingies we like to call ARG be similar to the differences between a good action movie and, say, a documentary? Or a short film? Or a comedy? Or a claymation short?

I mean, they're all movies, right? Sure, the documentary doesn't necessarily have the compelling character development as something else, but it's still a movie. The drama doesn't have an in-movie justification for that camera crew being in the middle of the 1st century gladiator arena like the documentary about McDonald's does when the one guy's filming the other guy eating a Big Mac in his car, but it's still a movie, right? And some people prefer documentaries to chick-flicks (and you know who you are).

Is this any different?

[Puppy_Zwolle]

[Ehsan]

rant

[ScarpeGrosse]

/me douses the fire

[Mikeyj]

[imbri]

Ok, I cannot believe I'm going to do this in this thread especially after my whole ARE = all the crap you just don't feel like calling an ARG bit, but...

[Phaedra]

[Varin]

[imbri]

[janemcg]

re: the Go Game as ARG

[Puppy_Zwolle]

Re: re: the Go Game as ARG

[Mikeyj]

Sorry, I thought The Go Game would be controversial, but it was in response to ILB not being an ARG (...so what was it then? And please do it without inventing an acronym ).

I'm going to add Pacmanhattan too (and the one created by the fellas at Nottingham Uni, UK, only I forget what it's called...can I push the envelope further and suggest Parkour?). You are creating an alternate reality by imposing a game space over reality. These examples are just better anchored in reality than your average ARG, but the game has simpler rules (well...defined rules; incidentally TINAG is just another rule, but not really the defining one of an ARG if you follow through my hypothesis).

[CreativeEmbassy]

I guess what we're ultimately seeing is that the term "Alternate Reality Game" is very loose and encompasses a lot of things. Not that that's a bad thing, but people like Ehsan and me are looking for a much more stricter definition as to what we used to know as ARGs, since ARG now seems to mean any game that creates its own reality over the existing one.

Or am I waaaay off?

[Varin]