ARGs in the Real World
Upcoming Special ARG Events You Don’t Want to Miss
I’m taking a brief break before finishing up the Dark Side of Alternate Reality Games series to let you know about a couple of very special ARG events coming up in the near future. If you truly want to know what ARGs are all about, or maybe even experience one up close and personal for a brief period of time, you’ll never get a better chance than these two opportunities.
One is a conference in the heart of the city, where you’ll learn what ARGs are and why they are so effective from the people who make them for a living. And the other is a deep woods camping expedition where you’ll come face to face with the true immersive capabilities of ARGs, in a 3 day expedition into the heart of a Lovecraftian storytelling experience you won’t soon forget.
Intrigued? Then read on.
Although ARGs are rapidly gaining acceptance in the worlds of both entertainment and marketing, the art of making them is still a pretty small and specialized field. So it’s not that often you get a chance to listen to and question over a dozen experienced ARG creators in the same place at the same time, some of the professionals who have made the most successful and noteworthy ARGs of all time. On Nov. 2nd, 2007, UnFiction, the largest ARG fan community on the Internet, is sponsoring Embrace the Chaos, a one day seminar at the Baisley Powell Elebash Recital Hall in New York City.
Primarily aimed at producers, creatives, and theorists in the fields of advertising, media, and game design, the Embrace the Chaos seminar will feature panel discussions and question and answer sessions with people like Brian Clark (GMD Studios), Rachel Clarke (Buzz Marketing), Ken Eklund (Writerguy), Brian Enigma (ARG Security), Adrian Hon (Six to Start), Evan Jones (Stitch Media), Mike Monello (Campfire Media), Mark Ostrick (Ostrick Productions), Sean C. Stacey (Unfiction), Brooke Thompson (Giant Mice), Lance Weiler (Head Trauma), and me, Dave Szulborski.
We’ll be talking from our personal experience in crafting ARGs for commercial and entertainment purposes, in a series of presentations designed to educate and excite newcomers to the world of Alternate Reality Games.
For more information and to register go to the conference website at www.embracethechaos.org.
Now, for those who want to experience what an ARG is like, in a very condensed and in-your-face manner, there’s Scream in the Mountains, an immersive camping experience from Brian Clarke and the madmen at GMD Studios.
Brian and a great team of Puppetmasters just wrapped up The Providence Prophesies, the first installment of a serial ARG entitled Eldritch Errors. Set in a fictional world inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, The Providence Prophesies, was the first chapter in what GMD Studios hopes will become a self-supporting ARG entertainment series, paid for eventually by sponsors as a form of branded entertainment.
That’s assuming, of course, they don’t scare their audience to death in the meantime.
Check out this description of the next chapter planned in the Eldritch Errors campaign:
We’re going to ask some people to take October 26, 27, and 28th off from their jobs and families and travel somewhere remote and inconvenient? And some of them should even bring backcountry gear for a day even deeper in the wilderness? All so that they can have the most immersive weekend horror experience any ARG has ever dared contemplate? Madness! We’ve gone too far! Storytellers were never meant to fiddle with such things! We should seriously consider insuring the participants’ lives against the potential of death by fright!
That’s right – the next chapter in the immersive storyline is going to take place somewhere out in the remote deep woods, as fiction and reality blend into one horrific weekend of fun.
Sound crazy? Or just your cup of tea?
The people behind the Eldritch Errors project have a great “behind the scenes” website where you can learn more about the upcoming Scream in the Mountains event, as well as read about the experiences in creating the first chapter of The Providence Prophesies.
So go ahead and accuse me of pimping for ARGs again, but these are two very unique events the likes of which don’t come along too frequently. If you’ve got any interest at all in learning more about Alternate Reality Games, either from the marketing perspective or as an intensely immersive storytelling experience, you’re going to want to check out either or both of these rare opportunities while you have the chance.
Scream in the Mountains – October 26, 27, and 28th, 2007 – location TBA
Embrace the Chaos – Nov. 2nd, 2007 – NYC
Oh, what the Hell.
While I’m at it, I might as well let you know about one other venue where ARGs will be taking center stage for a while. It’s called the View Conference (recently renamed from Virtuality) and it’s happening in Italy in November. The conference itself is a huge event, a traditional meeting place where video game and entertainment creators gather to see, analyze, and discuss cutting-edge game and video FX technologies.
This is the first year where Alternate Reality Games will be discussed in detail, which is big news in and of itself, and both I and Ken Eklund will be presenting there about our work in making ARGs. It’s another great chance to learn about the genre first-hand for anyone in Europe at the beginning of November.
