Category: News (Page 64 of 183)

PICNIC ’09: A Preview

September 22, 2009 / DaniÃ«l van Gool

PICNIC 2009 Wednesday September 23^rd is a day a lot of people in the creative industry have been looking forward to, as tomorrow the fourth installment of PICNIC will kick off in sunny Amsterdam.Â Previous incarnations of this intangibly sparkly conference were self-defined as a â€œcrossmedia conferenceâ€ but this year, the organization of PICNIC didnâ€™t even try to put a tagline on the event.

And I can understand why they didnâ€™t: itâ€™s hard enough to describe what PICNIC is really about, let alone catch its essence in a one-liner. The past three installments were a melting pot of creativity, attended by major and minor names from everywhere in media, art , the digital world and several other industries.

Iâ€™m really looking forward to attending again this year and reporting on the event for ARGNet. I just received notice from the people at PICNIC that the conference event is completely sold out, and the lineup of speakers is probably one of the reasons for that. I wanted to give you a short preview ofÂ things Iâ€™m looking forward to at PICNIC this year:

Dharma Wants You Wins Primetime Creative Arts Emmy

September 21, 2009 / Michael Andersen

emmy ABC, the producers of LOST, and Australian digital entertainment company Hoodlum walked away from last night’s Emmy Awards with the award for Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media – Fiction for their work on the alternate reality game Dharma Wants You. ABC secured a win from its NBC competition, beating out bothÂ The 30 Rock Digital Experience and The Office Digital Experience for the award.

The game, centering around the now-defunct website DharmaWantsYou.com, subjected participants to a series of tests administered by Octagon Global Recruiting on behalf of the Dharma Initiative. Each test included a cheat function, allowing savvy players to achieve higher scores. Participants taking advantage of the cheats were eventually sorted into the Black Swan groups, while those who played “fairly” were placed into the White Swan Group.

According to Hoodlum, Dharma Wants You utilized a “variety of media platforms ranging from websites, exclusive video, interactive games, Bluetooth, mobile, TV, VOIP, social networks, and complex real-world events involving hundreds of thousands of fans worldwide.” Spanning the gap between the fourth and fifth seasons of LOST, Dharma Wants You is ABC’s third alternate reality game for the show.Â

The show’s first alternate reality game, The Lost Experience, captured a dedicated global audience, while the show’sÂ second ARG, Find 815,Â secured a nominationÂ for a Primetime Emmy in 2008.Â LOST is currently promoting the release of the season five DVDs with Lost University, an in-depth look at the show’s mythology. Enrollment at the university is slated toÂ commence tomorrow.

Click Here for our previous coverage of Dharma Wants You.

Riese the Series: Delivering Transmedia with a Side of Steampunk

September 17, 2009 / Michael Andersen

Riese1 The dystopian kingdom of Eleysia has its priorities in order: rather than developing automobiles, telecommunications technology, or a democratic political structure, its citizens have perfected the use of tinted goggles as a fashion accessory. Starting later this week, members of an Eleysian religious cult known as The Sect will start proselytizing their ways to our world. You can already view some of their highly stylized promotional materials at their website, TheSectIsHere.com. This alternate reality game serves an introduction to the transmedia world of Riese, an upcoming web-series scheduled to premiere early this November.

In The Sect Is Here, members of the enigmatic religious cult from the Riese universe have managed to reach our reality, along with a lone renegade seeking to stop them. Through both online and location-specific puzzles, players will have the opportunity to unravel the mysteries surrounding The Sect’s real intentions, in both our world and Eleysia. The alternate reality game will extend past the web-series’ November premiere, and will enter a media mix intended to include print, web, mobile, and television.

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Halo ODST: Discovering Sadie’s Story

September 15, 2009 / Geoff May

“Prepare To Drop”
Those words have been resounding through the gaming community for months, and the clashing drums of excited gamers are growing as the release date for Halo 3: ODST draws nearer. But there’s something more in this video game release that’s attracting attention.

Back in 2004, an ARG milestone was achieved with the launch of a defining marketing campaign for the genre. Before Halo 2 was released, a mysterious URL appeared momentarily in a promotional trailer, leading the way to the discovery of another world, another story within the Halo universe. The campaign became known as “I Love Bees“. That campaign is what introduced me to the world of ARGs. Already being an enormous Halo fan, the combination of the Halo science fiction universe with this method of story-telling had me immediately hooked.

Chrysopteron / Superintendent With each iteration of the Halo video game franchise, there has been some form of extended experience, viral campaign, or ARG. For Halo 3 it was Iris. Bungie even produced their own relatively localized mysteries, such as the Cortana Letters leading up to Halo: Combat Evolved, and other strange A.I. users posting and interacting on the Bungie.net forums like The Smuggler and The Superintendent. Bungie had created a diverse, dynamic, and vast universe in which many stories could be told beyond the video game genre.

Sure enough, Halo 3: ODST will have a unique extended experience of its own. Or rather, an embedded tangential experience, for lack of a better term. Within the game, players will be able to uncover bits and pieces of a separate story arc throughout the campaign. This story is being called “Sadie’s Story“. Created by Fourth Wall Studios in partnership with Bungie Studios‘ Joe Staten and Ashley Wood, it’s an audio drama (not unlike the radio drama revealed in I Love Bees) that utilizes comic-book style story-telling and will reveal an exciting mystery throughout the campaign, told from the perspective of Sadie- a New Mombasa civilian, and her experience through the ordeal leading up to New Mombasa’s destruction. It’s reported to contain even more voice acting than ODST itself.

Accomplice Hollywood: “Legendary” ARG Experience with Neil Patrick Harris

September 15, 2009 / Michelle Senderhauf

This article is the second in a series on â€œsecret tourismâ€ spots: cities that provide immersive experiences to residents and tourists alike, as long as you know where and what to look for.

He’s played a genius child doctor and a likable womanizer. He’s hosted the Tony’s and will do the same for the Emmy Awards this year. He’s become an internet sing-along sensation as Dr. Horrible. Now, Neil Patrick Harris can add Puppetmaster to his list of credentials, as he is co-producing an ARG experience in California called Accomplice: Hollywood.

Accomplice: Hollywood is a third in a series of live theatrical experiences that send participants out into the city to find clues and interact with characters in public places. Harris describes it as, “[p]art walking tour, part murder mystery, part scavenger hunt”. After playing Accomplice: New York himself a few years ago, Harris collaborated with the original creators, Tom Salamon and Betsy Sufott, to bring the experience to the West Coast.

This third installment involves a missing starlet named Nikki Desmond. Participants purchase tickets in advance, but have no information other than the date and time of the event and a video, starring Harris himself, with some background information on Desmond. A few days before the event, participants will receive a phone call from a character with the meeting location and other details. When they arrive, they suddenly find themselves immersed in the world of Nikki Desmond. They help solve the mystery behind Desmond’s disappearance while exploring Hollywood.

The customer reviews for all three Accomplice experiences are outstanding, with an average of 4.7 out of 5 stars. This definitely looks to be a fun experience for anyone living in Hollywood or New York. Tickets can be purchased through the Accomplice website.

BREAKING NEWS: Evan Ratliff Gets Caught

September 8, 2009 / Michael Andersen

evancaught1 It appears that a penchant for gluten-free foods can cost you, as Evan Ratliff learned earlier today. As of 7PM EDT tonight, Jeff, the owner of Naked Pizza, the only gluten-free pizza shop in New Orleans, caught Evan redhanded. As a gracious gesture, Evan received the pizza free of charge. As we previously reported, Evan has spent the last three weeks attempting to avoid capture as part of a contest for Wired.com, with $5,000 at stake.

Read about Evan’s capture here, or follow the whole harrowing ordeal by reading about the hunt at wired.com/vanish. Congratulations to the @vanishteamÂ on Twitter for tracking Evan down, and to Jeff for sealing the deal.

Congratulations are also in order for Evan, who successfully evaded capture for three weeks before his appetite got the better of him. For a detailed account of his capture, read the breakdown at Newscloud.