unfiction.com

In a previous article, I discussed Chaotic Fiction as a concept and as a context for a better understanding of Alternate Reality Gaming. This was intended more as an overview and did not address in detail the gaming dynamic, the process, or the chaotic play of Alternate Reality Gaming. How does it work? What engages an audience? Which elements are necessary to facilitate the growth of the audience, and which elements can be discarded? Why does there have to be a "curtain?"

Many discussions focus on only one of two aspects of the experience as being the primary drivers within the medium: (1) Dividing the audience into discrete groups and (2) defining types of "real-world" game interaction mechanisms. Because the process of Chaotic Play is so different from that of more traditional gaming and entertainment pursuits, I believe that the metaconversational space shared during the creation of a chaotic enterprise should be the focus of the perspective from which we describe the system.

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A few years ago, in the midst of my first draft of a trail for Lockjaw, an early alternate reality game, I came up with that very term (yes, I am that particular idiot), for the lack of any better way to quickly convey a feeling for what might be involved in the information that followed, catalogued on that page in excruciating detail. That same impetus to try to categorize a nascent genre, to distill a definition into a more memorable soundbite, drove me to create the Unfiction site, mainly because I realized that I could not define the genre so easily as I might have wished. This site became my surrogate definition; instead of repeatedly explaining at length what these "things" were, the idea went, I could just point people to the site instead. As has been readily apparent to those active in the ARG community, however, there has never been any collectively agreeable, concrete description of alternate reality games.

So here's where where I tell you that I have a way to define alternate reality gaming in such a fashion as to prove to you that I cannot in fact define it at all. While the previous statement may seem nonsensical, I encourage you to bear with me. The following is written with the assumption that the reader has some passing familiarity with the history, mechanics, and gameplay of ARGs.

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An editorial reply.

I wrote the following in response to a recent article on ARGN by Larry Eisner, "Building Fences," and the resulting discussion that it sparked among the ARGN staff. I was thankful that both had forced me to articulate some concrete thoughts about why things are the way they are with respect to the unforums, beyond just "it's always been that way" or "it feels right" and I am curious to see how the wider community might respond.

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For a while now, I've wanted to chime in on ARGTalk, a self-proclaimed "balanced and fair" website that originally advertised itself as the first site to print the reviews, rumors, and speculation "the other ARG news sites are afraid to post." Now with the recent transformation from Meta site to ARG game, ARGTalk has gone under the microscope as community members try to make sense of what the true purpose of the site is, and whether or not this is a shift from its original mission. In this writer's humble opinion, however, ARGTalk has failed as a neutral, supportive site, regardless of whether it is real or make-believe.

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