[arg_discuss] TOW: almost 8 years after the Beast, which is your favourite ARG and why?

[Mike Monello]

I've been doing a lot of thinking about the Blair Witch experience, as I am going to be rolling out 20+ articles focusing on various aspects of it throughout 2009, but I wasn't offended by the question.

Blair Witch was an interactive transmedia narrative, it had a massive world-wide community (that is still very much active today on fansites around the world since 1998, but (correct me if I am wrong), the term ARG was really coined to describe the specific mixture of puzzles, gameplay, and narrative that made the Beast experience different from BWP, so I understand where Adam was coming from.

In that regard, things like BWP, Masquerade, Tristam Shandy, etc., don't really apply despite coming before The Beast and clearly informing the Beast on some level, the way all earlier works ultimately influence what comes next, right?

I would argue that the $240+ million worldwide gross of Blair Witch proved it could work well before The Beast came along, however, as we didn't have proven box office names like Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick to motivate people to see the film!

Mike

---
Mike Monello
Partner, Campfire
62 White Street, 3E
New York, NY 10013
212-612-9600
http://www.campfirenyc.com



On 1/13/09 3:02 PM, "Adam Martin" <adam.m.s.martin at googlemail.com> wrote:

2009/1/13 Brooke Thompson <brooke at mirlandano.com>:

> There are so many other milestones we could use other than "almost 8 years

> after the Beast..." - what about "with the 10th anniversary of Blair Witch

> upon us..." or "15 years after Publius Enigma...".


I was interested in what people thought of the recent era where we've
seen an especially big proliferation of new ARGs, and the
proliferation of particularly strong communities (i.e. ones that have
persisted beyond the end of the ARG's that inspired them) for playing,
studying, and inventing them.

I do believe it did some unique things - such as inspiring people to
believe that ARGs could work, and showing them how, in a way that
other projects didn't, and at a time when Majestic had freshly crashed
and burned - but I wasn't trying to imply that it was the first or
most important of the ARGs. I'm sorry if it sounded that way.

Adam
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