Before we begin – if you don’t know a thing about ARGs – read this article.

To tell you the truth, I was sort of dreading this first post. Last week I was all excited to dive straight in and start playing, when I hit my first wall: What ARG should I play? Which ones are happening right now? ARGNet, the go-to site for ARG-related press, has just had a complete makeover but thankfully kept one of the most important resources: Now Playing. It’s a list of active ARGs that their team is aware of being active.

So, naturally I wanted to start here but ran into the following list of problems:
- There are 14 ARGs listed here – ack! That’s way too many to test out on my own!
- All of them link to the ARGs recommended point of entry, but offer no description of what to expect at all. There’s no rating system or summary, and I’m not sure where to go to get this info.
- I know from experience that some of these have been underway for quite some time. I’d rather jump in on the newest one so I don’t miss anything. Or even just an indication of how long things have been going on would help.

Based on that, I haven’t yet decided where to start. But I do know that Unfiction is the place to be for discussing ARGs, so I’m hoping that I can take a look over there and get a sense of what’s hot. I jump on to UF and have to start playing a little devil’s advocate for a minute. The most essential part of UF is UnForums, where all the ARG discussion takes place on a mega-forum. Now I know about unforums.com, but the branding of UF leads me (pretending to be a newb) to unfiction.com. Once I’m here I have to admit – I’m having trouble finding the forums. The blog-style content is mostly articles which might confuse me into believing that was the forum. The first two links are ‘welcome’ and ‘getting started’ (Both sort of appropriate for me), but neither of these links me through to the forum. In fact, the link to the forums is link #22 on the sidebar. A quick fix, but an important one.

So I get to UnForums, and quickly realize that a newb is WAY out of his/her league. We’ve got well over a half a million posts on this board, and seven thousand users online since yesterday. Yikes. None of the headings list ARG in the title (a contentious issue, I know) and the ‘News and Rumors‘ section – the go-to spot for breaking tips about newly discovered ARGs – it has THIRTY-SEVEN conversations blinking to show that they are popular today (and I’m not kidding).

I didn’t even know where to start. I used to read this forum from top to bottom and it’s really hard to admit that I can’t keep up. There are just too many posts! So unfortunately, I don’t begin at all. Totally overwhelmed with choices, I opt for no choice at all. Barry Schwartz wrote a book about this phenomenon called ‘The Paradox of Choice‘ and did a great TED talk too. I wonder if it’s happened to any other would-be ARGers out there?

I wasn’t sure how I was going to dive in at this point. I knew one day I’d just have to bite the bullet and spend an entire afternoon skimming UF threads to see what sounded cool and somewhat new. I was avoiding it, and knew it. And then, when I least expected it – I fell down a rabbit hole.

Here I was on a Friday afternoon, mocking up wireframes for a proposal (and peeking at Facebook as research). Skimmed through the ‘Posted Items’ section when it caught my eye. My pal James (owner of The Secret Location) always recommends some great stuff and this one had a title that looked particularly interesting.

A special report from 1970 looking back at ten years of Dr Manhattan.

Wait a minute… I know Dr. Manhattan! That is, I know the Dr. Manhattan character in the upcoming Watchmen film. (Full disclosure: I have never read the Watchmen comic books. The reason I know anything about Dr. Manhattan is because I was enticed by the movie trailer to read about him on Wikipedia. Oh Wikipedia, is there anything you don’t know (about comic books)?)

Okay, so tip #1 – if you have something as recognizable (and cool) as Dr. Manhattan in your creative arsenal, then best practice is to get it out there right away. Admittedly, James usually picks some winners, but if I saw a viral video labelled “NBS Report: looking back 10 years, March 11th, 1970″ – I can guarantee you that I have better things to do. Some might try to convince you that going with a ‘stealth campaign’ would create more buzz as people tried to understand what’s behind this video, but with a narrative so well-understood and loved, you’ve got to play to your strengths.

Immediately it’s apparent that this project knows quality production. Apart from the obviously fictional content, it’s right on the nose with the ‘color’ treatment, costuming and tone. And you get to believe that it’s real until about fifty seconds in, when the tank explodes. Nobody in their right mind can call this fictional video a ‘hoax‘.

The other strength it has going for it at this stage is that there isn’t a strong call to action. I wouldn’t say this is an absolute rule, but I like the way I get to feel smart by ‘investigating’ this viral video. All this involves really is clicking on the description of the YouTube video to find the URL: http://www.thenewfrontiersman.net/. It’s not very hard, but it does make me feel like I’ve stumbled upon something that no one else may have noticed before.

That’s the feeling I was hoping to find in this exploration – the feeling that I might just be uncovering something for the first time. Whether it’s true or not, it’s exciting.

Okay – that’s enough for one day. Next up: Playing!

One bonus track I thought I’d add to this blog series is a few links to things that I’ve read on the topic since my last post. I’ll gather some articles here and plunk them in at the end for people who still haven’t had enough.

- Seven things about ARGs – Educause (This may be the best, quick description for newcomers I have ever seen.)
- Interactive Games Make Museums A Place To Play – NPR
- A newcomer to ARGs describes his experience
- Storytelling through ARGs – Noesium
- Everything you know about ARGs is wrong – Six to Start