[arg_discuss] ARGs, Game Industry & Story

[Brian Clark]

> But spending a few days with people, chatting in (as you say)

> hottubs, is a great way to evolve ideas. I guess I just find some

> of the location-based events a bit of an obstacle because very

> rarely are they designed to involve people in other geographic

> locations as well.


And that is indeed the challenge, there's a trade-off though because of the
levels of intimacy that be created when you're in the same place at the same
time going through a similar experience. Nothing online has quite created
that level of "retreat" -- it is as much the breaking of your own normal
routines as it is the new routine that makes the cool stuff.


> As for the academics that made you angry. Yeah, there are

> imbeciles in academia....and industry, independent arts &

> gaming, media...everywhere. 


Absolutely, but in this case they weren't imbeciles at all, they just were
working from an entirely different artistic paradigm, one where "art" was
always a derivative of performance rather than media. It was their
vocabulary that was off-putting, but today I make the argument that part of
what makes things like ARGs different than other web media is that it uses
the Internet as performance instead of media. 


> Celebrating entrepreneurialism enables effective activism ...

> Traditional disdain for business by the alternative and

> creative communities just leads to their/our arguments being

> sidelined, and good critical thinkers simply preaching to

> the converted.  


That one takes a lot of unpacking, doesn't it?

Entrepreneurialism is a loaded gun, and many social arguments can be made
without entrepreneurialism. At the same time, too many people in the
creative community think of the "sphere of money" as being something they
don't have access to.

Sadly, in the Web 1.0 era, the celebration of entrepreneurialism had a net
neutral impact on activism -- in many ways, the heart of activism in that
era of the Web continued on despite the enamoring praise of
entrepreneurialism, rather than before it. Somehow, webrepreneurialism was
going to be some aspirational achievement, as if the Web had instantly
raised everyone's awareness. Remember the Cluetrain Manifesto? Corporations
still don't get that. 

Fascinating stuff.