So-called "Alternate Reality Games" are stupid

[icycalm]

http://www.seanstewart.org/interactive/args/

'nough said.

[Afterburn]

I once jokingly said that if Moby Dick was an ARG,

1. you'd see a whale swim by outside your window,
2. Ahab would call you on the phone, and
3. a harpoon would come flying out of your television set.

That's not a game; that's just annoying. And a terrible "joke."

The article is nonsensical and stupid, but what's worse is the title itself makes no sense.

If something is a "game" is it not an "alternate reality" by definition? Wouldn't that make the phrase "alternate reality game" redundant?

[icycalm]

The article is nonsensical and stupid, but what's worse is the title itself makes no sense.

Yeah, I just went by his definition of "ARGs", because he seems to be one of the guys who coined it, and one of the key people behind their creation.

A more apt title would be "stupid gimmick games" -- SGGs.

[Bradford]

Wait, I thought we already had names for these types of "games."
1. Viral marketing
2. Scavenger hunt
3. Puzzle
4. Riddle
5. Dinner theater murder mystery

I don't know that I'd call the entire article "nonsensical;" but I think you have to lol at the use of the term 'alternate reality' to describe this. I think Icy nailed it with the word "gimmick."

I can't take away from the guy that he and others put together something that that was very popular and exciting for the participants, but at the end of the day, what he 'created' is a dinner theater/scavenger hunt over the internet.

How much credit does someone deserve for putting together some stuff that hasn't been put together before? I don't hear the guys from BASEketball claiming to have invented "what might be the signature art form of the 21st century."