[arg_discuss] ARG SIG Conference

[Wendy Despain]

I guess I always saw ARGfest as more like the sci-fi (book) con scene.
It's a very vibrant scene - cons put on by fans, for fans, inviting
"pros" (using their terms here) to give panels and generally hang out
with their fans. The pros love to go to those cons, and love to
schmooze with the fen.

Some of these cons are huge - Worldcon (World Science Fiction
Convention) for instance: http://www.anticipationsf.ca/

I guess I just assumed that was the kind of thing ARGfest wanted to
grow into. They have serious parties with live bands, tons of panels,
all kinds of banquets, even awards.

But this is definitely about the fan community. That's where the focus
is.
And I think the fan community completely deserves every minute of it.

In contrast, there's Book Expo America: http://bookweb.org/events/bea
It has a different focus - it's about the business of making books.
Many of the same people attend (authors, agents) but it's a completely
different conference.

I was thinking we would shape the ARG SIG conference (whatever it gets
called) like Book Expo, not Worldcon - inviting the pervasive games
crowd, the book publishers, television producers - every kind of thing
that ARGs touch. A place to talk shop.

I guess I just don't see it changing ARGfest at all. I mean, the
developers I know really love to interact with fans and would continue
going to ARGfest and loving to give presentations and hanging out at
parties.

I'm all for helping ARGfest grow into its full potential. But I don't
want to squash it by making players feel unwelcome because of a
businessy atmosphere.

I hope this makes sense. I'm definitely not going to push this in a
direction nobody else wants to go, I just wanted to make sure I
explained what I was thinking. It's great that we're talking about
options.

I guess I'm just tired of taking the message to other conferences. I
feel like we're already doing that. But that means we're always
talking to some group other than ourselves (the videogame developers,
the indie film group etc.) and I think if we look at all the things
that *could* be included under the ARG-like umbrella, we've got a
large enough trade group we can start talking amongst ourselves.

GDC is scaling back and refocusing this year, so I doubt we'll be able
to convince them to expand. But there are a lot of people (indie film
makers) who just wouldn't even consider going to GDC. ARGs are (pretty
much by definition?) relevant to multiple media practitioners. I think
we could push the state of the art forward to the next level by
getting us all together in one place.

Wendy Despain
quantumcontent.com