ARG Netcast, Episode 48: Solved!

 ARG Netcast, Episode 48: Solved! [55:18m]: Play in Popup | Download

It’s puzzle solving time as the netcast gets a bit silly this week. Host Jonathan Waite (ARGNet) is joined once again by Sean C. Stacey (Unfiction, Despoiler) and Brooke Thompson (Giant Mice, Eldritch Errors). Be sure to catch our zany news items of the past two weeks, and stay tuned for an in-depth discussion about the fine line between ARGs and hoaxes.

News Items of the Past Two Weeks

• After the US release of the Cloverfield movie, the viral campaign seems to have slowed drastically, perhaps so the architects may direct more effort toward the newly-discovered Star Trek campaign. The trailhead site can be found at NCC-1701.com and was found subtly linked from the official movie website at Paramount.com.
• Aporia Cross-Media Entertainment (ACME) announced its upcoming effort, the Aporia Agathon Project with a video trailer and clues released via the web and tips to certain ARG news sites. The genre-blending campaign is slated to begin this summer.
• The Harvard Business Review, as part of its annual “Top 20 Breakthrough Ideas” issue, published an article by Jane McGonigal, in which she argued for more Alternate Reality Gaming in the workplace. Except, like, where your boss would know about it this time.
• Book 3 of Eldritch Errors, the ongoing Lovecraftian ARG created by GMD Studios, kicked off in earnest with a series of live events in Sacramento, California; New York City, New York; and Austin, Texas. Yah, R’lyeh!
• ARGNet has a new iPhone edition, which is not only pimp-stylin’ but also style-pimpin’. Browse to ARGn.com on your iPhone or iPod Touch, you lucky bastard, and watch it magically pimp your shiznit!
• Some random guy named Steve Peters pointed out an excellent short story, featuring a mention of Alternate Reality Gaming. Written by Tim Pratt of Escape Pod, it’s entitled “Artifice and Intelligence,” and is available in transcript and podcast forms.
• Fundi Technologies is at it again. The makers of Deus City recently launched their sophomore effort, “Conspiracy Asylum File Zero.” Surf over to the meta site at conspiracyasylum.com and get started.
• Viral Marketing may be getting sneakier but is our marketers learning? A recent web video series called “You Suck at Photoshop” was revealed as produced by an online marketing company known as Big Fat Brain, when they used a classic ARG technique to provide a clue in the fifth episode to a fictional website where the main character was employed. We are trying to reach Big Fat Brain for comment as to whether this was an intentional meta-reveal or a horrible, gory accident, with blood everywhere and rats chewing on eyeballs and GOOD GOD WHAT IS THAT
• An old story we once called “401WTF” was recently resurrected (for us, anyway) as “Nowheremen.” A self-labeled “Social Reality Game,” the promotion surrounds a web-series about a missing gentleman named Derek, the first episode of which premiered on January 22nd at nowheremen.net. Clues to Derek’s whereabouts are strewn about the internets in true Web 2.0 trans-media fashion.
• And finally, a brand new game launch this weekend, Project Ophiuchus was launched via strangely misdirected emails to various ARGonauts referring to the end of the mysterious “Phase 11.” Intrepid players have already discovered an enigmatic code in the source code of the website, projectophiuchus.com.

Links from the topic discussions:
Anti-Hoaxing Strategies and the TINAG Fallacy
Launching Strategy: Birth Your Alternate Reality in an ARG Community

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