… almost!

We need help in a very big way. You see, the site is absolutely amazing, but, at this point it’s only a fraction of the site that it should be. It needs a full database of the games that have taken place over the course of ARG history. Right now, we have most of the games prior to I Love Bees, but even those contain only the most basic of information. This means that we have a number of beta testers, especially those that have joined the community in the past two years, looking at games that they did not play. So they’re looking at the site and seeing the potential, but being underwhelmed and, to a degree, left out of the fun.

The task of gathering the information we need is a huge one. There’s no way that we can expect any individual to gather the information. However, together we can make quick work of this. Who does collaboration better than ARGers? If a couple dozen of us take on a game each, the database could be filled within days. If a few more dozen help out, it could go even faster. A wiki has been set up for this purpose. Please, go and add to it – add whatever information you know or can find. Read the information that others have already added for accuracy, grammar, and spelling. If you don’t know where to start, start with the games you played. If those are taken, start from the present and work your way back or grab that one game you always wanted to know more about. You don’t even need to be a solid writer, if you can go through and pick out the start and end dates for all the games that start with the letter L, that would be a great help. This something that can take so little of your time but really make a big impact.

If you’d like to see what the site looks like and some of the things that it does, you can take the ARGdb Tour. If you feel like seeing it a bit more up close and personal, and promise to tell us your thoughts – no matter how good or bad, you can sign up for the beta.

Most importantly, you can add any information that you have (or find) to the ARGdb wiki.

No, what’s been shown is that a bunch of strangers with both nothing to lose and nothing to gain worked toward a nebulous common goal. I guess its the sheer benevolence on display that amazed me most. — Jon Elek

Jon wrote that after reflecting on the A Million Penguins project. As mentioned in an earlier post (A million Penguins typing), the project fascinated me. The thing that drew me in to ARGs was the idea that a community of strangers from around the world could (and would) come together and collaborate on some strange project with no true understanding of what they were looking at and where they were going with it. They do so in a supportive environment with few arguments. Each giving what they can to the project and the process. In the end, they are rewarded with a story that they have, together, created.

I say story, but it’s really two. There’s the story and the story behind the story – the one of them as they played the game, the reactions they had, the processes that they went through. Both stories are meticulously documented, though only one of them is done so purposefully, and in the end they are so intertwined that it’s often difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins.

That’s what fascinated me with the Million Penguin project. They were given the directive to create a story. The pieces weren’t created by people lurking in the shadows and hiding them for the community to discover. The pieces (characters, places, plots, chapters) were to be built by the community while they were putting them together. It took out all of the other elements – the things that I found myself getting caught up in. The play. The game. The puzzles. The goals. The rewards. They are all important for an ARG, but they will never be as important as the fact that a bunch of strangers with nothing to lose and nothing to gain will come together to work towards some nebulous common goal. It’s a thing of beauty, really, that story behind the story. I’m glad that John and all of those involved with the A Million Penguin project got to experience it and that they were able to remind me of why I love Chaotic Fiction.

Twitter.

Of course I signed up back when and promptly got annoyed by it. It was pointless and stupid and something that only a bunch of kids would enjoy. Or so I thought. After seeing it in action at SXSW, I’ve become a fan. Oh, it’s still pointless and stupid and something that a bunch of kids would enjoy, but only 99% of the time. The other 1% is gold.

If you have somehow missed all the twitter talk (more power to ya!), it is essentially massively multiplayer text messaging and there are times when that is really handy – such as during conferences. With twitter, you can post up to 140 characters via the internet or email or sms and anyone (or just your friends) can recieve your post via the internet or email or sms. One post and everyone can see it in a form that’s convenient to them.

At SXSW this included updates on conference sessions and parties – where people were, what was interesting, what rocked, what sucked. It helped people find each other or, for some, avoid one another. It was fantastic. But, not fantastic enough for me to actually have logged in or used it – besides, others that I was with were getting the twitter updates, I didn’t need to bother.

What really excites me is the potential for ARG events. Imagine the ability for those at live events to post a stream of updates as to what’s going on from their phone that hits the web (or email or phones) instantly. Or, perhaps, a distributed scavenger hunt taking place the world over where people have to keep everyone else informed of what they’ve just found – each discovery building upon the other. Those are both possible with other technologies but twitter makes it fast and efficient and the possibilities excite me to no end.

Charlene Li has a great post on What Twitter is good for and how the program needs to be improved. I completely agree with her on the need for a more robust permission system. Until then, there’s just far too much noise – even if it is just my friends. But oh the possibilities.

San Francisco! I love this city! I love that the only times I’ve been here have been to play and/or attend game conferences. I got in yesterday so that I could get settled in in time for ARGfest which leads right in to GDC, which I’ll be covering for ARGNet and indieWIRE. Then it’s on to Austin, a city I’ve never been to for a conference that I’ve never been to – SXSW. I’ll be covering that, as well, for ARGNet and sitting on the ARG! Attack of the Alternate Reality Games panel. Excitement!

Of the three, I am the most lookiing forward to ARGfest. It’s going to be an amazing time and not just because it’s a huge party filled with people that I see once a year (if that) despite chatting with them near daily. First off, I’ll be announcing two projects that I’m really quite excited about and hope that others will be as well. And then there’s the conference. The organizers, notably Rose, have done an absolutely AMAZING job in pulling this together and getting some fantastic people to come in and talk to us. A little taste:

1) The first public appearance by the folks behind lonelygirl15. I’m quite anxious to hear what all they have to say. They’ll be speaking the following week at SXSW, but I have a feeling that the talk at ARGfest will be a bit more intimate. It will definitely be interesting to compare the two, especially the audience reaction.

2) A panel with a number of folks from 42 Entertainment. I’m not sure who all will be a part of it, but from what I’ve heard, it will cover a wide range of roles & responsibilities. It should offer some fantastic insight on how the company approaches a project which is always interesting to me. Plus, they’re just a really fun group of people. I’m sure we’ll be getting our information served with a large side of fun banter & stories.

3) The guys (or at least one of them) from SFZero – a “Collaborative Production Game” which is created by the players almost as much as it is by the developers. By getting people to challenge each other to explore themselves and the world around them, the game makes a very real impact on the players and, by extension, their world. I’ve been a longtime fan from afar and have only heard amazing things by those more familiar with them and their work.

4) Jane McGonigal. She’s hosting Cruel 2 B Kind (a game she created with Ian Bogost) on Friday night and then sitting on a panel about the future of ARGs on Saturday. Her insights on people and play and community are amazing, if only I could sit in her brain for an entire day! It’s going to be nice to get a chance to hear from her before GDC where she’s giving the SGS Keynote on ARGs as serious games – but not serious as in boring, serious as in games for good.

There’s loads that I’m missing, but there’s just no way that I can hit everything that I’m excited about. It was all I could do to limit it to three. Seriously, check out the conference schedule to see for yourself. There will be a bit of coverage of the even on ARGNet, so be sure to head over there for post-ARGfest thoughts, impressions, and whatnots. If I can find a moment or two before getting wrapped up in GDC, I’ll try to add some of my thoughts here as well.

Penguin Books has set out to see if the novel, an art form so thought of as a singular endeavor, is immune to the benefits and enjoyments of social collaboration. Is it possible for just anyone to contribute to the writing and editing. Talk about Chaotic Fiction! The experiment, A Million Penguins, began last week with a wiki and a few (very few) guidelines.

I can’t help but agree with Ben Vershbow over at if:book that the true story is in the discussion pages. The struggles and triumphs as people attempt to come together to create something whole. He’s right in that it is far more a novelty than a novel, but I’m fascinated by the project and anxious to watch it unfold.

I wonder what we’ll see in five weeks when it’s over. Will there be a coherent novel? Will the project continue by those unhappy with the final result? Will it turn into an experiment in hypertext storytelling? What themes will emerge from a novel written by people from all over? What themes will provide the greatest controversy? The more I think about it, the more the questions come. Add your own below, if you’re so inclined.

Last week, we had Boston’s reaction to the Aqua Teen Hunger Force guerrilla marketing campaign. This week, we have Portsmouth, NH’s reaction to a geocache.

Common sense, people.

Do not put light brights on highway overpasses and do not duct tape Altoid tins to electrical panels.

I’m not saying this because it could lead to a “chilling effect.” I’m saying this because it’s stupid.

Geocaching is a fun and, sometimes, challenging activity that gets people outside where they may go places they wouldn’t otherwise go and see things they wouldn’t otherwise notice. The location of the cache caused concern not only to the police but also to the first person to find the cache who noted his discomfort in the cache log (in geocaching, it’s common practice to sign a log and, sometimes, trade items in the cache box).

There are thousands of caches out there in the wild waiting for people to find them and new ones are appearing every day. This incident will not put a stop to the activity and the overall effect of this will be an awareness that people think that placing a cache on an electrical box is stupid – the person that might have considered it will now be a bit more creative and that is a good thing.

Fortunately Police Captain Janet Camplin seems to get it. As she pointed out, activities such as these are on the rise and people just need to use a bit of common sense.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

As we all know by now, there was a little incident in Boston last week. Something about a non-bomb with a light bright-esque cartoon alien. The internet is a buzz. The blog world is going crazy over the idea that a few glowing signs could cause so much fear – I mean, really, does no one in the Boston Police Department watch Aqua Teen Hunger Force? And do they really think a terrorist would put out bombs that say “Hey! Look at me! I’m a Mooninite all lit up and flippin’ the bird!” Wouldn’t making it less noticeable be a bit more effective? Don’t even get me started on the fact that these were out there for weeks before anyone panicked. So, yeah, that’s what the blog world is talking about. The ad and ARG worlds are talking about it, too, but they’re also concerned with a statement by the mayor.

Facing a large bill over the city’s reaction (which, Turner will likely have to cover – a fair price for all this internet traffic on a campaign that only took place in a few cities), the Mayor has stated that “this nitwit guerrilla advertising” has no place in the city of Boston. A joke, really. How do you ban something that has no clear definition?

Over at Clickable Culture in a post titled Boston Guerrilla Marketing Scare’s Chilling Effects on ARG Design, Tony agrees with me about the lack of enforceability, but then questions what would happen if other cities follow suit. He goes on to say that, “[i]f any good can come out of the Boston incident, it’s that ARG designers will more carefully consider how the public is engaged, perhaps involving local people–and local authorities–earlier on in the development process, even at the expense of breaking the “this is not a game” mantra some hold dear.”

That statement troubles me on a number of levels, but especially in the way that it implies that designers currently do not fully consider how they are engaging the public as well as their players and that they do not take steps to retain a certain amount of control over the situation or to provide security. Perhaps I am playing the “wrong” games, but in every game that I have played or designed, I cannot think of any examples where designers did not show such concern.

In Art of the Heist, players had to go on a mission at a car dealership and distract the salesmen while another member of the team looked through a vehicle to find a memory card. Not only was the dealership informed of what was going to happen but the diner across the street, where players met, was also informed. People on the design team were present, unbeknownst to the players, and overseeing the situation. Another incident occurred in Chicago when players were taken out on a boat, at night, and in the dark. Again, unbeknownst to the players, members of the design team were hidden on the boat as well as on land overseeing the situation and ready to act as needed.

I Love Bees is notable not only for the amazingly rich story it told but for it’s incredible use of pay phones to tell it. It sent players to phones all over the United States in dozens of cities every week. Unlike Art of the Heist, game designers were not present for each phone call, but they did their best to ensure players safety by flying “payphone scouts” all over the country to find suitable working payphones. This kept players in safe areas and shows that concern was not only given to the game design but also to the public and the players.

Last Call Poker held playful events in cemeteries throughout the country. While the events were organized games and very obviously had members of the team present to oversee and photograph them, they were held in an environment that many don’t see as a playful environment. And, as a matter of respect to the public, not only were cemeteries carefully chosen but the boundaries in which we could play were carefully considered. If someone was mourning, we backed off and let them have their time with their loved one in peace. Every cemetery had agreed to the event knowing full well that it was rather unconventional and, from what I understand, they welcomed the activity provided that people were respectful. In addition, there were separate “missions” that people could take on and perform at any cemetery and these included things like cleaning up a grave site or leaving flowers or finding interesting epitaphs. The designers not only showed great concern for the greater public but encouraged their players to do so as well.

Granted, none of those events dealt with leaving battery operated objects with wires and blinking lights on highway overpasses and the like, but I cannot fathom that the same care and concern for both the public and the players would not be met if the games had included such things. To imply otherwise, is selling those of us involved in the genre short and is rather shocking, if not disconcerting, coming from someone that is involved.

It is important to remember that while ARGs are often part of marketing campaigns, when we engage in public play the goals are very different from that of your average guerrilla marketer. We are not out just to get some attention or after any sort of shock value. Our campaigns are complex and spread out over weeks at a time. We are telling a story and engaging the public in play as part of a play. We act in a spirit of collaboration and community. Therefore, our activities are more carefully designed to elicit a different type of response.

And while Tony was reminded of a similar over-reaction to the Mario Brother’s blocks in Ohio and Zombie Dance Party in Minneapolis, I can’t help but wonder how many dozens or hundreds of displays of public play occurred after those events that didn’t elicit any fear – including the number of cities that did not react to the Mooninite campaign as Boston did, and it took weeks for Boston to react in this way. Stating that these events have a “chilling effect” on ARG Design and/or public play is overstating the situation and, dare I say it, about as reactionary as the Boston police were last week.