unforum

[BubbleBoy]

ARG Web-site Looking for Volunteers

[RobMagus]

This has been attempted before, with interesting results. See http://www.smirkbox.com/ to see what it was like, and perhaps, learn from it.

[BubbleBoy]

Yeah, I know about smirkbox, I believe Mr. Waite was a part of that (I could be wrong, but I could have sworn I heard him say something about it in one of the NetCasts)? This idea is like that but with a little bit more too it. For instance, not everything on the site will be humor-based. The articles and "News Center" Videos hopefully will, but such things as PM Chats, talking to leaders within the Industry (ARGN still hasn't gotten back to me) and probably our "Forum Focus" (where we take a game that has just launched and talk about it) won't. Okay, "Forum Focus" might be humorous every now and then, but that's only if the game implodes before we get our hands on it.

We are hoping that it will be the "News Center" Videos that will do most of the work of bringing people too the site where we will try to entertain and educate them about something that they may not know anything about. All of the videos will be hosted on YouTube which will help with our marketing.

The purpose is to expose people to something that they know nothing about, or have heard about but really haven't paid too much attention to, more then it is to make fun of ourselves or what goes on in the world of "alternate reality gaming" (mainly because people can get a little touchy if it's done incorrectly - something that we will try very hard not to do).

So basically it's: 1) get people too the site, 2) introduce them too the people who make this genre happen, but entertain them in the process.

Hopefully you will get an opportunity to see what I mean at the end of July.

We want to make it accessible to as broad a range of people as possible. The thing about smirkbox was that it leaned more towards the ARG Community (or at least that market), not those who don't know a lot about ARGs to begin with. I think that is the main difference between this site and smirkbox, we hope that both the ARG community and people who are unfamiliar with the genre will be able to enjoy it. That's our goal, at least.

[SirQuady]

If you are trying to open it up so that it's not just for the ARG community, have you considering loosening your topic so that it covers stuff beyond ARGs? All realms of Chaotic Fiction, at least, but, say, viral marketing and various uses of new media could be a nice area to cover.

RIP Smirkbox