unforum

[keeno_82uk]

viral marketing or not, its definitely working.

[Finch]

Yeah, about 50,000,000 posts speculating about anything and everything and about 15 posts of actual "solving" on here. I'd say this is viral marketing with little tiny things for us to figure out here and there. We got the Tagruato website by doing a little sleuth work, also jamieandteddy.com was found by following clues. Other than that its been looking further into things than necessary. I guess its the couple of things we were 90% handed/10% found that keeps everyone chewing through each new tidbit.

I'll follow this thing through until the movie comes out. I just hope it goes a little quicker the last month or so. As I've said before if this viral marketing doesn't eventualy pick up I'm not going to be all that excited to see the film. I can deal with slow for now and I'm sure they do have some twists up their sleeve closer to the release of the film but you never know. Maybe we won't get jack right up until 1-18-08.

It may be working for now, having all of us come on here quite a bit to discuss the film but think of the massive error in judgement if we don't get anything all that fantastic out of this. Maybe they didn't plan on so many people tearing apart their flash, hacking into their sites and searching pictures pixel by pixel but they got it. What are they going to do with it?

[Arkaham]

It's not an ARG. But this is the kind of things that makes me realize how wise are the powers that be of this place when they changed all mention of ARG for CF. This may be just a marketing plot, but it is a Chaotic Fiction. They are telling us a story that serves as background to the movie.

I'll keep following this for three reasons: first, like someone said, all this speculating is fun and in some ocations informative (Hell, I'm already a fan of water bears and a couple of weeks ago I didn't know the little bastards existed). Second, I'm sure I'll enjoy the movie more after this and I was going to see it anyway, so it's not like they're manipulating me into anything. And Third, I'm very interested in the new ways of storytelling, specially chaotic fiction. And so far this has beed a well crafted story.

[JadedMax]

Well I'm thoroughly convinced it's not an "ARG" I mean the evidence is pretty overwhelming. Virgins on prom nights give quicker payoffs than this as well. I casually observe and even though the interest is nowhere near where it was just a couple months ago I'll probably see this movie. I won't wait in a long line or make it a high priority. Sadly too I've really lost a bit of the esteem I had for Abrams. Can't help it.

I found my sanity though playing lots of Half-Life and Halo.

[dalphx]

[Fehdman_Kassad]

Could someone with a bit more ARG knowledge than me please tell me how this does or does not qualify as ARG-like?

1) There are clues in clips and websites that lead to more clips and websites:

• Trailer leads to Slusho
  
• 1-18-08.com leads to MySpace
  
• MySpace leads to jamieandteddy.com
  
• 1-18-08.com leads to MacDooble leads to Tagruato
  

2) There is interaction from the characters of the film (Rob et al) and fake companies (Tagruato) with us:

• Rob answers riddles
  
• Slusho site posts comments
  
• Slusho7 add people as friends
  
• Tagruato replies to e-mails
  

Do not the above two things constitute an ARG? Please enlighten me, oh wise ones!

Now if this is a viral market campaign, the audience they are playing to is small and getting smaller... most people don't like to work for their rewards (i.e virgin payoffs et al) and not giving them what they want leads to resentment...

[Arkaham]

I'd say the point is in the 'interactivity' of the whole thing. Usually, in an ARG the player discoveries move the story, sometimes it even move the story on certain direction. In here I don't think we have moved the story an inch. The sites had been coming up regardless of our discovery. i.e. the videos on jamieandteddy didn't come up as we discovered the password, and no reaction to our discovery was made on them.

Even the interaction had been sideways to the actual story. If no one had contacted any of them things would be going exactly as they are.

It is true that there are no solid rules. There's no checklist to see if this in an ARG or not. I say is not a 'game' because it's not dependant on our moves. You just find the next page of the book, but you don't get to write on it.

[SpaceBass]

[Arkaham]

As usual, I love the way you organize the chaotic thoughts of many about the genre. Using your terms, I'd say this is not an ARG as it has no Authorship on the players side. It may have R,C and H but no A.

[SpaceBass]

I think a shift in perspective may lend a little to the discussion here. On the one hand, I can agree that there is little Authorship going on here because there is so little response from the other side of the curtain to reinforce what the audience is doing. On the other hand, arguably because there is so little content being provided from the puppetmasters, there is a huge amount of it being produced by the audience, what with all of the fan art, videos, wild leads, story speculation, monster madness, etc. I feel like there is a heck of a lot more Authorship going on here than there is Coherence.

I also don't really depend on puppetmaster reinforcement to provide my measure of value in the play. Sometimes the meta games are more fun that what the producers may have intended their audience to do. This particular fan community seems to be actively mutating it's own Ruleset in order to facilitate its own vision of what the Play should or could be. It will be interesting to see whether the puppetmasters choose to embrace or refute that vision (and more interesting to see the subsequent audience reaction in response).

[matt_the_pale]

I hate to say it, but...

Aw, who am I kidding. I take great pleasure in saying,

Told you so, three months ago. (links)

[rose]

[AfterDystopia]

The "AR" fits - MySpace pages, fictional companies with websites, fake food reviews, other fictional sites...

But the "G"? It's picking up. This is becoming a game, a fair amount of sleuthing got us to the Tagruato homepage, plus the Jamie&Teddy site... Things will get harder and more interactive as the deadline looms.

[Arkaham]

[Euchre]