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

[Brooke Thompson]

On Jan 14, 2009, at 11:24 AM, Andrea A. Phillips wrote:


> But myy accusation of wankery really revolves more around the stuff  

> like, "Well, but was (X) an ARG? Should (Y) be considered the first  

> ARG?" Where X and Y are usually things that hit some of those  

> criteria I pulled out of thin air, but not all of them. It reaches a  

> kind of strange reductive point where people can bring out an  

> example of anything that meets one or two of those elements -  

> epistolary novels and MUDs very often -- and say "Well, but then was  

> THIS an ARG?"



As I was the only person to make such statements yesterday, then I  
guess, I'm the wanker. I have no problem with that.

It's an extremely helpful exercise if you look at as more than just  
wankery. It's in those discussions that I learn more about what draws  
people to ARG-like things (whether it's playing them, designing them,  
or producing them) and, as the discussion has occurred regularly for  
about 7 years now, it's really interesting to see how that has changed  
over the years which actually lets me see some trends. Sure, it's a  
small sample size (I only got ~40 responses to my "what was the first  
ARG?" inquiries yesterday) but it's still quite informative. I learned  
of a number projects that I had no awareness of before yesterday - 3  
or 4 of them from the early 1900s which are completely fascinating  
from the subject matter to the intent to the reaction. I had a very  
enjoyable conversation about public play in the 70s and the  
similarities and differences to public play today - it even resulted  
in a potential collaboration as we'd like to explore some of the  
things that were done in the late 60s and early 70s with the added  
influence of some modern technology.

So, yeah, it may be wankery to look at long out of print books or some  
bizarre elementary school playground game and discuss if and how it  
fits into the landscape of ARGs/ARG-like things but is there anything  
wrong with that if it's a fascinating discussion that has the  
potential to make us better designers? I don't think so. Plus, now  
I've got a half a dozen new items on both my to read and to play lists  
that I'm quite eager to get to. So, in my experience, it's been  
anything but reductive. In fact, it's expanded my knowledge and  
understanding considerably over the years.