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Posts Tagged “

Alternate Reality Games

rant

The Argument Against ARGs

If you're making a new piece of pop culture and you expect it to reach a mass audience, or even just a subcultural audience, you'd better have an ARG. What's that, you say? ARG stands for “alternate reality game,” and it describes a wide range of interactive puzzles that generally involve getting you to visit various websites, call phone numbers, and go places in major cities in order to get free shit related to a movie, TV show and even occasionally a book. Why are popular titles like Dark Knight and Lost using ARGs? It's more than just advertising: It's a way to build an instant fan base without working at it for years like Star Trek did. But so far, ARGs have few of the benefits of a fandom, such as a friendly community of like-minded people; and they have all of the bad parts of fannish behavior like pointless obsessiveness and fetishization of dumb swag. More »

lost

Fly the Same Airline Whose Plane Crashed in "Lost"

Fake billboards for Lost's Oceanic Airlines have been popping up all over the globe, touting their return to service and trips to "Places You Never Imagined," like Ames, Iowa and Tustin, California. They also promote their brand-new website at the bottom of each one of these billboards (which probably weren't cheap to rent). Of course, visiting this site takes you deeper into the rabbit hole. Soon you'll find yourself wasting precious hours while you try to unravel the "mystery" of flight 815. More »