I’m a newbie ARGer and got hooked on ARGs last year with Superstruct and the Lost Ring. I’m currently playing/following PIE Theory so I thought I would share my bit on Hector’s Journal Entry and the game in general.

The game: I like the characters but I really love the discussions going on among the rest of us players. The community vibe is good. The challenges are a little tough for me a non-coder but the readme files help along with spoilers from the community (lol). I will say I do sort of know how to work with Netbeans 6.5 and JavaFX a bit now where I started with no knowledge.

The clue: The file I got was a .zip file that was of an animated PIE Screensaver. Something seems to be hidden in there and a few people in unfiction tried to scramble it to unlock a message. Since then we’ve received a couple other clues and code challenge that unlocks more content.

“What’s in the sack?” suggests, for me, the end of _Se7en_, “What’s in the box?”

“Transmedia” – Henry Jenkins has been doing a lot of work with this term. Check _Convergence Culture_.

The list in question, though, contains a heck of a lot of stuff that I wouldn’t consider “what people used to mean by ARG” … and doesn’t include stuff that some would argue is. So trying to boil down the list to, “Here’s a list of brands who have commissioned ARGs” starts to quickly erode in usefulness … and the “well, it’s ARGs and AREs and pervasive games etc.” starts to make the room go all wobbly and definition go all pair-shaped. And because the definition is all pear-shaped, ARG has started to mean “viral narrative thingie” the way the majority of people are using it.

The “Eagle Eye” example you guys mention is the kind of edge case worth discussing. So is “World Without Oil” or “Top Secret Dance Off”. My new theory is that ARG is like Emo … maybe that would make a good ARGFest panel?