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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.
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9:00 AM on Wed Jul 23 2008
By Annalee Newitz
2,838 views,
39 comments
Latest by bluewyvern: I only ever dabbled in one ARG, but I liked what I saw. It was a game sponsored by Stella Artois years ago, and I was days in before I even figured that much out. It's very subtle. Cool, edgy more »
