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Ok, so calling it a flash mob grates on me a bit, but this is a neat example of large-scale collaborative play… a massive crowd performs a choreographed dance at a concert. I expect to see it in loads of presentations over the next year!

Apparently, they hired a director and 20 choreographers. Those 20 taught the dance to 800 and then taught the 20,000 other members of the crowd.

Fun!

Here’s a behind the scenes making of. Somewhat strangely, it contains a  solid definition of a flash mob that completely contradicts what’s to come.

A large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place and perform an unusual action to surprise onlookers.

I’m not sure how this is “assembling suddenly” or “surprising onlookers” – though I gather that since Oprah, herself, was not in on this even if everyone else was, they feel it counts.

Oprah’s staff plots a flash mob for her Kickoff party

(Oprah has no idea)

Me? I’d call it a Oprah’s staff plotting a great & fun surprise for Oprah.

Still, very fun!

As you may know, every year the community at unfiction puts together a pretty fun time. We call it ARGFest-o-Con (or, ARGFest). The first one was held back in 2003 in Las Vegas and since then it’s roamed the country growing bigger and better every year.

The thing is – we don’t know where it’s going to be in 2010 and we need your help to figure it out! A fairly lengthy RFP has been created which will take you through the steps of many of the various considerations we have to make. So, please, if you have an idea of where you want it to be – fill it out! If you know of others in the area who can help you out – get them in on it!

I’ve already received some comments on “Page 3″ which alludes to the fact that we are seriously considering taking ARGFest to another level – more panels, roundtables, events, and games! At this point, I can’t comment much further on that. It is something that we are thinking about and, so, it would only be right to have those proposing locations and considering getting involved “on the ground” thinking about it, too.

I am really crazy excited about some of the ideas and suggestions that have been talked about. I know that ARGFest 2010 is going to be great and wonderful. And it all starts with choosing the location (publicly, at least) so I can’t wait to see the proposals that come in!

One of the greatest things about SXSW is that the people get to pick the panels. Ok, not completely, but the whole internets gets a 30% say on what sort of panels & presentations they would like to see at SXSW. How cool is that? Pretty darned cool!

I have submitted 2 ideas this year that I think would be pretty cool. If you do, too, please vote for them :)

The (R)evolution of Alternate Reality Games

In the search for the mainstream, ARGs have become entwined in PR stunts and companies pimping their stuff. This presentation breaks free of the hype and takes you on a tour of the evolution of Alternate Reality Gaming as seen from someone who’s been standing in the trenches since 2001.

This is me being arrogant and thinking that because I don’t have a company to promote or expecting me to pimp certain games, that I can speak more honestly about the trends. The truth is, I’m coming from the community with the agenda of pimping ARGs as a whole in hopes that we see more great games.  I think that one of the biggest issues that we have, as a community, is how difficult we make it to actually discover what has been done in the space. As of right now, there is no concise resource for this information. Hopefully this presentation will be the start of that. My goal for it is to provide those curious about genre and/or making a game (for whatever reason) a brief understanding of what’s been done  while encouraging them to explore the space and take things further. There is so much potential with Alternate Reality Games. They’re just getting started, so lets see where they can go. To support this panel, go here.

To The Streets: ARGs and Real World Play

From hidden geocaches to flash mobs to all-expense-paid trips to Europe, Alternate Reality Games are pulling players away from their computers and getting them involved in real world play. Join designers, producers, and players who have explored play online and off as they discuss what’s worked, what hasn’t, and why.

I really like the idea of this panel mostly because I want to have people on the panel from every stage of live event planning and participation: the designer, the producer, and the player. The each bring so much to the event and have great insights to share with an audience – whether that audience wants to create live events or participate in them. You can support this panel here.

Other interesting panels or ones that stick out for me…

• Jay Bushman’s Transmedia: It’s The Story, Stupid. I don’t always agree with Jay but I do so love his ideas of story in this connected age and I can relate to his frustrations with ARGs being taken over as advertising vehicles instead of storytelling ones. And while he should have stopped at Transmedia: It’s The Story so we could shorten it to TITS, I can’t imagine that this would be anything other than an outstanding panel.
• I was sold on one question in the description for The Distributed Stream: True Web Native Storytelling… “What is the difference between an interactive and distributed story?” It is not a hard question to answer. In fact, I think it’s fairly obvious. However, over the last few years, ARGs seem to have become more interactive and, at the same time, less distributed. These are not mutually exclusive ideas, but the trajectory is so similar that you’d almost think they were. And, to be honest, I think it’s the distributed story telling in alternate reality gaming that is far more interesting and exciting than the interactive bits. So I am very excited to see that addressed and I wonder if it cause any discussion (I hope so!).
• Say it isn’t so! There’s A Hot Brunette Who Needs Your Help?! It is so frustrating that a genre of entertainment that is so very much about stories, social collaboration and problem solving,  which are not sexist things and areas where men and women excel, is so often about running to the aid of the hot chick. With a number of women in leading positions (designers, producers, community leaders), why is this acceptable? I love that Andrea is not only thinking about this, but getting us to talk about it.
• Another great topic for conversation: Suspending Belief in an Age of Disclosure. This seems to focus on the TruBlood campaign which is a fairly good starting point as far as this topic is concerned – it’s benign enough (vampires are, obviously, fictional) but has had some controversy (how explicit should sponsored content be). There is no way a panel can properly address the topic as a whole – it’s so huge and complex and head-ache inducing that it’s something that can only be hashed out over many many conversations and blog posts and academic articles and so on and so forth. But as long as they aren’t trying to solve any problems or provide solutions but just get people talking about a few of the issues, it’ll be good. Though, the description makes me wonder – would Barnum, Wells, or Irving ever consider marketing cars, movies, or sodas… they weren’t marketers, they were entertainers and storytellers. So, a missing question might be is an audience more or less forgiving of disclaimers if the man eating chicken is just eating chicken and not KFC.
• Playing with Place is probably my biggest competition for the To The Streets panel, but if I totally lost to Catherine Herdlick I’d be totally honored. She is awesome and has done amazing things with Come Out And Play Though, I think it’d be even better if both our panels were selected – they’re slightly different as is, and I’m sure that we could work together to make them complimentary. (on the off chance that she runs across this…it was COAP that inspired me to do Board 2 Street – so, thanks! and yay! you’re inspiring people to make games. awesome!)
• Advertising in the Apocolypse. Ok. He sold me on “Zombie Uprisings”. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that I’m preparing for The Zombie Uprising which is pretty much anything but advertising. I wonder if I could get Brian Cain to advertise my non-advertising arg in his args as advertising panel.
• From Mike Monello, another Campfire partner, is Transmedia Storytelling for Filmmakers.This was hidden over on the film side, so I almost missed it. eep. I’m not a filmmaker and I’ve been around transmedia for a while, so I’m certainly not the target audience but still… looks fantastic.
• We’ve been talking about it for, what, three years now? So I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise that the ARG funeral finally makes it on the list as The ARG is Dead. I’ve got to admit that I’m quite torn on this one. More on this, perhaps, later.

So, what panels have I missed? What else looks great? What deserves to be shown off? What will elicit strong emotions (and potentially good discussion)?

note: yes. the possibility that people might click on my name on the panel picker and come to the site was the motivation to actually get off my ass and finish the site design. sometimes we need that extra motivation and, I gotta admit, as much as I’d rather be making games than playing with my website, I’m kinda glad to finally get to finishing this. So thank you SXSW! Whether my panels are selected or not, you’ve at least gotten me to update this ol’ site o’ mine

Over the next few days, you’ll be able to watch this site transform from forgotten blog into a dynamic portfolio. I’m quite excited about the new direction – not to mention finally having a fun & pretty place to show off some of my favorite projects. You’ll notice the base copy for a few of them have already been written and linked to under “portfolio” and, by the end of the week, they should even look pretty and include images and files and links to more discussion. Crazy!

Things will break in the process. I have done my best to stop that, but if you notice something broken and it hasn’t been fixed by, say, the end of the week, holler at me. And if the site hasn’t transformed from a dreary dead blog to a vibrant updated portfolio by Friday, August 21, somebody please just take it all away from me.

Last fall I stumbled upon Man Bytes Blog, a good blog with a really great concept – a monthly round table of bloggers talking about the same thing. For the next few months, I found myself really excited to see the different takes on topics from Horror in games to making games out of Christmas carols. I almost participated in the Christmas Carol one but then thought it would make a great holiday diversion – so you might see it one of these Decembers.

That’s when it hit me – there are a ton of ARG bloggers and so few of us write or, if we do, it’s not on ARGs. Why not? Is it a lack of inspiration? A lack of topic? The idea that nobody is reading, so why bother? Are we so busy that by the time we actually write it down, it’s no longer topical? The round table solves those things! It can bring people to your blog and give you a topic to think about and enough time to actually write something on it.

Topics will be posted on the the first day of every month. You will have until the 15th to write your post. The topic will change every month – some you’ll love and some you may hate. You don’t have to participate every month and you’re welcome to jump in at anytime. But the more often you participate, the better this all will be. So, without further rambling on, the very first ARG Round Table….

ARGs are Serious Fun!

A “Serious Game” is one that is more than just fun. It’s a game with a purpose – it may be to teach you something or to get you talking about things. ARGs do that.

In honor of yesterday’s launch of World Without Oil, a game designed from the ground up as a Serious Game – a Game for Change, let’s explore this topic. Keep in mind that the topic is nothing more than a guideline and you don’t have to talk about World Without Oil. Maybe you’d like to see more ARGs as “serious games” or maybe you fear ARGs pushing an agenda. You don’t have to get all stuffy and academic, feel free to reminisce on the things you’ve learned as you’ve played or talk about the ways games have dealt with “serious issues” in the past. Are you feeling a bit more creative? Why not think about a game design that could get people talking about your favorite social concern (electronic voting, aids, Darfur, climate change) or about ways that ARGs can be used in schools. There are so many paths to take here and everyone is as good as the last – so have fun with it.

You have until the 15th to write your post. Once you do, be sure to send me an email or catch me in chat so that I can link to it. It might take me a while to get them all up, so if your blogging software allows trackbacks, be sure to point back to this post and if it doesn’t, put a link to your post in the comments. This way, anyone that stops by and reads this post will be able to find you. It’s not an “elegant process” but it’s temporary. Next month, it will all be smoother.

So, to recap…

Topic: ARGs are Serious Fun!
Step 1: write something by May 15th
Step 2: link or reply to this post
Step 3: Send me an email
Step 4: Come back after the 15th and find links to everyone else that’s participated.

I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with!

Finally, I want to give huge thanks to Corvus at Man Bytes Blog for inspiring me to do this and generously giving me the code he’s been using. I also want to thank Brian Enigma for taking a look at that code and giving his time to make it better for all involved.