ARGFest-O-Con '08

Last weekend ARGFest-O-Con '08 took place at the Radisson Hotel in Boston. I heard about it through the IGDA ARG Sig mailing list, and, after checking out their site, figured it was just a bunch of ARG enthusiasts from Boston.

Except there were people there from all over the country, some of the biggest names in both commercial and independent ARGs, and the whole thing was sponsored by 42 Entertainment. This was the seventh annual ARGFest-O-Con, which began when Sean Stacey, the guy who runs unfiction.com decided to go visit Steve Peters in Vegas and posted on unfiction that people should join them for a beer. More people showed up than they bargained on.

Seven years later I blunder in, and was welcomed with open arms. These people are some of the coolest, nicest, most talkative people I've ever met. I didn't preregister, I don't have an account at unfiction, and I basically had no clue. Within 30 minutes of arriving I was talking to people I had never seen before about all sorts of things, including which games I've played and which I haven't. By the end of the cocktail party on Friday night, I had made a number of contacts, and, I think, a number of friends.

Also during the cocktail party an unkempt, drunk man stumbled in, warned us all about the invisible people, tried to punch an invisible person but only managed to spill his drink, then stumbled out again. The hotel staff looked nervous. The crowd applauded. One woman yelled, "He dropped some papers!" Everyone crowded around a picture of the New England School of Law which, coincidentally, is right across the street from the Radisson. A smaller group rushed off to investigate, but I returned to my newly bought beer.

Perhaps forty-five minutes later the same man, now showered and sheveled (is that a word?) sat down next to me and struck up a conversation. I bought him a drink, observed that I had recently seen him as a drunk paranoid schizophrenic, and he told me that some ARG puppetmasters had asked him to play the part. I found out that it was part of a larger, ongoing ARG (phew! at least I wouldn't have to go running off after every clue here at the con), and that the information gathered as part of his clues wouldn't pay off for another two or three weeks online.

When the investigators returned they had the same information I did, but they ran around some hot Boston streets to get it, whereas I had just bought a guy a drink. I guess there's more than one way to play an ARG.

Saturday was a full day of talks and panels, some great, some okay. In the middle of Steve Peters' talk (where he pointed out that all ARG heroines are studious looking, attractive brunettes), this guy walked in:


And only at an ARG conference would the audience begin taking pictures of his tatoos, looking for a possible clue. After all, we were going to have to solve a series of puzzles in order to find out where dinner was that night. I don't know if anything printed on him ever paid off, but I found dinner without referencing him. I think Steve was just trying to go against stereotype and used a visual aid to prove his point, but that's the problem of ARG's. What's a clue? What's a troll? Which are the red herrings and which will pay off?

There is also a real dichotomy between the commercial ARGs which are all for marketing something else (like Why So Serious, Vanishing Point, and Year Zero) and the independent ARGs (like Perplex City, World Without Oil, or Deus City). As evidenced by this blog, most people have only seen the big marketing pushes and don't even know about the independents making ARGs for ARGs sake.

And that's because no one has found a way to make people pay for the ARG experience besides using it as a marketing tool. Majestic failed. I suppose Perplex City at least broke even, but I hear Adrian Hon isn't going anywhere near Season 2 because Season 1 seriously exhausted him. Of course, Adrian is over at We Tell Stories, which seems a much less taxing take on mixed media (and it's sponsored by Penguin Books so it probably pays better).

Saturday evening kicked off with FestQuest, a chance to run around the streets of Boston (93 degrees at 6pm) solving puzzles. Our first puzzle:

which the group solved in the lobby while I was in the bathroom. We had to find the sculpture of the Tortoise and the Hare, which is apparently in Copley Sq. (my wife told me afterwards). Now I've been around Boston, I can find an address, but ask me to find a particular sculpture? Nope.

In the end it didn't matter. We spent an hour and a half wandering around the common looking for the statue, then decided to try to solve the other puzzles. We skipped to location #5, which was 45 School St. (Old City Hall), and from the clues there, put it together that we were supposed to meet the group at Fanueil Hall.

We were the last to arrive. (sigh)

I ended up having dinner with a PR rep for the LA school district and two German viral marketers in the North End. I went crazy at the silent auction, and ended up getting the 42 Productions package, which included two NiN CD's, the I Love Bees ending DVD, a Vanishing Point t-shirt, and a bunch of stickers and buttons. I went in for the I Love Bees DVD, but really enjoyed the Year Zero NiN CD (I had already downloaded the Ghosts CD).

Great stuff, all in all. Next year, if the timing works out, I'll fly out to Portland, Oregon for ARGFest-O-Con '09.