[arg_discuss] A Meta-ARG Website Idea

[John Evans]

So, I had an idea about an ARG-related website, and I thought I'd run it by
all the sharp minds here to see if it had any merit. (Or to see if it had been
done already and I simply wasn't aware of it...)

The idea is basically to have an in-character news site. In other words, you
have a news site or blog that chronicles strange events in the world. Only
these events are all fictional; often the kind of nonsense you'd find in
supermarket tabloids. Predictions of disasters, prophecies, sightings of weird
creatures, and so on. But every now and then there would be an article that
described an event that was real *within the context of an ARG*. Let's say,
for example, that there's an ARG called Lucian's Academy, featuring teenagers
at a strange boarding school. The news site could mention that there are
strange events turning up in the students' blogs.

The idea here is to have a sort of clearinghouse of information and trailheads
about ARGs, all from an in-character perspective. We imagine that every ARG
shares the same "alternate reality", so all the events can be written about on
the news site. Of course, I'd want this to happen by PMs sending in
information to be published. I believe that if you wrote an article that
talked about an IG website as if it were real...That's probably fair use.
(But maybe it's bad manners?)

The reason I thought of this news site was so that there could be a
clearinghouse of information from an IG perspective. Players could learn that
there were interesting tidbits here, and it would make it easy for PMs to
disseminate information to them in a new and interesting way. And it would be
good for trailheads, especially for indie-grassroots developers.
(Not everyone knows SpaceBass' address, after all...)

--John