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SXSW 2011: Andrea Phillips on Blurring the Lines

March 24, 2011 / Brandie Minchew

Andrea Phillips has excellent qualifications to talk about ethics in transmedia. In addition to designing a number of transmedia narratives, she, or rather, one of her transmedia campaigns, has been condemned by NASA. In 2009, Sony Pictures launched a website for The Institute for Human Continuity promoting Â 2012, their disaster movie for the year. Soon after the websiteâ€™s launch Dr. David Morrison of NASAâ€™s Astrobiology Institute began receiving emails about the site from people who failed to notice the references to Sony Pictures and the film in both text and logos, leading him to declare the site to be “ethically wrong.”

This was not the first time Phillips encountered ethical quandaries in transmedia. Her interest in this issue began in 2001, after finishing an alternate reality game called The Beast. Shortly after the game ended, a smart, empowered, close-knit group of players behind who call themselves “Cloudmakers” were faced with the events of September 11. In the aftermath, some of the Cloudmakers discussed the possibility of combining their skills again, this time to track down the perpetrators of the attack in the real world. This was a source of concern for Phillips. Following a breadcrumb trail of clues in a game does not equate to the skills for dealing with global terrorism. She and other feared that people trying to “solve” 9/11 would in fact be placing themselves and others in danger.

Phillips prefaced her talk with the disclaimer that, while she intended to share some cautionary tales from the history of alternate reality games and transmedia campaigns, her intent was to highlight concerns, not call anyone out on their mistakes or cast aspersions on the campaigns or the industry in general.

So, what are the ethical concerns that today’s transmedia creators should keep in mind? In her talk, Phillips took the audience through some history of attempts at blurring the line along with more than a few war stories, focusing on the risks and consequences of excessive realism in transmedia campaigns. She followed this up with some suggested solutions.

The Smithsonian and MIT Help Your Kids Get “Vanished”

March 23, 2011 / Alex Calhoun

There is a mystery afoot, and scientists at MIT and the Smithsonian are investigating. But they project that before the next full moon, they will need the help of middle-schoolers across the country to understand an impending environmental disaster, secrets that they alone can uncover.

Vanished is a science-fiction themed alternate reality game launching on April 4^th, created and run by MITâ€™s Education Arcade and the Smithsonian Institution. Vanished invites kids and teens 11-14 to participate in the role of scientific detectives, although older participants can also follow along with special “watcher” accounts. Players will uncover clues, form and test scientific hypotheses, collaborate with their peers, engage online with scientists, and learn about a broad range of scientific fields. Over the course of eight weeks, they will encounter multiple scientific mysteries that require real scientific methods to solve.

Each of the eight weeks of Vanished comprises a chapter with its own activities, scientific content, and another layer of a larger mystery. Online, players will engage with scientists from the Smithsonian via video conferences, play games that will help to illustrate concepts, and unlock clues and hidden messages. Offline, players need to explore their own neighborhoods for scientific data. Journal entries from in-game characters will lead players to visit Smithsonian-affiliated museums for exhibits to gather clues and learn more about each scientific field.

Players will share their offline discoveries with others online to advance the story. They might document what plants are blossoming or what animals live in their area. Contributions are shared so that other kids can see the differences across the country. In forums, moderated by MIT students, players can discuss their findings and how they might apply to solving the mystery. The participating museums arenâ€™t being used for scavenger hunts; rather, they are a way for kids to explore subjects further as the game progresses. Museum staff at the Smithsonian have been warned to expect anything from Vanished players, as participants may have questions the creators did not anticipate.

Fools of the World Unite, Send a Cookie

March 21, 2011 / Michael Andersen

Earlier today, I received an item in the post. It was postmarked with three stamps from Denmark, and was apparently so interesting that someone else saw fit to open both envelope and box, as it was ripped open when I received it. Inside was a box liberally taped together with the message “Fools of the World Unite! (.com)” along with a flattened, homemade fortune cookie.

I’m sure this fortune cookie would have been delicious (albeit stale), but sadly I had to destroy the cookie to get to the message inside, a veritable fool’s fortune. The message reads “[t]hrow yourself to the ground, while shouting UNITE!”

Heading over to the Fools of the World Unite website, I must admit I am confounded. Apparently, the box I received is covered in Dandelion stickers,Â and Fools of the World Unite is an organization that has been fooling people with “creative outbursts and spontaneous foolishness in public spaces” since August 2010. The goal? To lose points by engaging in acts of tomfoolery, eventually earning the right to the title of “revolutionary fool.” The Fools are having a “training camp” between March 17th and April 8th at Theatre NyAveny in Copenhagen.

Interested in some foolishness of your own? Contact Kingimars at [email protected] for more details.

SXSW 2011: Fan to Fanatic: True Bloodâ€™s Marketing Hook

March 21, 2011 / Dee Cook

Full disclosure: Dee Cook, a former associate editor at ARGNet, was employed by Campfire to work on Seasons One and Two of the True Blood marketing campaign. She also attended a SXSW panel dedicated to the campaign, and graciously agreed to post a summary of the conversation here.

Some readers may recall a buzz back in 2008 when various bloggers began receiving mysterious dead language mailers and posting about them. These mailings served as the beginning of a marketing push for HBOâ€™s True Blood, which premiered on the small screen later that summer. Representatives from some of the agencies involved in the campaign’s creation joined an HBO executive, aÂ True Blood fan site co-owner to describe how it all happened during the SXSW panel, Fan to Fanatic: True Bloodâ€™s Marketing Hook on March 11, 2011.

Zach Enterlin, Senior Vice President of Programming for HBO, explained that the True Blood experienceÂ wouldn’tÂ have been possible without the vision of Alan Ball, the show’sÂ creator. Ball brought the show to HBO after the end of the hit Six Feet Under, and asked them how they could educate viewers about Bon Temps, Louisiana, as well as a world where vampires exist and live among us. Enterlin, a long time follower of Campfireâ€™s work, brought this dilemma to them. Campfire jumped in with enthusiasm: Enterlin recalled that Brian Cain read all six books published at the time in the space of one weekend. Campfire wasn’t working alone. In fact, season one had ten agencies working on the campaign, and the HBO marketing machine was strongly backing the project. Enterlin credits the gusto all the vendors had for the work for how coherently so many different moving parts were able to move together. It just worked, he said, because everyone was on the same page together.

Season two of True Blood saw some unusual partnerships between the show and brands like Geico, Harley Davidson, and Monster.com. Todd Brandes from Digital Kitchen explained that the team decided that if vampires were living out in the world, then they could be marketed to: so they ended up cold calling some 30 different brands, resulting in seven brands that were eventually used in True Blood-themedÂ banner ads. Â Alan Ball nixed one of the brands, a gum maker, because he argued vampires did not chew gum.

World Robot Boxing League Presents History of “Real Steel”

March 15, 2011 / Michael Andersen

PAX East was held in Boston this weekend, and conference attendees that took the time to dig through their conference swag bags discovered cardboard cut-outs of a futuristic controller. If rumor is to be believed, this innocuous controller serves as the trailhead to 42 Entertainment’s newest alternate reality game for the film Real Steel. Each controller was labeled with an alphanumeric code and the url WWW.WRB.COM. At the time, the website displayed the controller alongside four progress bars. Inputting codes from PAX caused the progress bars to slowly fill up until earlier tonight, when the history of World Robot Boxing was revealed.

The history of robot boxing is charged with clashing personalities. The sport was born at Raiden’s Koma Club in Tokyo’s Akihabara district. Raiden carefully cultivated the bot boxing community, offering scrap from fights in the club to help local designers get their start in the industry. Quickly, Kizu, an up-and-coming designer backed by Cold Siren Industries, dominated the fights with his bot Backslash. Kizu split from the Koma Club to found the World Robot Boxing League with billionaire Nate Matheson before abandoning Cold Siren Industries to create the next champion, Gamma.

Kizu did not get to enjoy his championship long before Gamma was defeated by the Lemkovas, a family of Russian oligarchs, and their bot called Rubicon. Partnering with former rival Tak Mashido, the Lemkovas created the current reigning champion and unstoppable juggernaut known as Zeus. But while the era of Kizu appears to be over, the figure depicted on the controller given away at PAX bears a striking resemblance to Gamma, and the “G2” logo can be found on Gamma’s blueprints, so his work may resurface again.

It is at this point, presumably, that former boxer Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) steps into the ring with the Real Steel film. According to IMDB’s description of the plot, Kenton “thinks he’s found a champion in a discarded robot.” The Hero Complex blog hints that you might see director Shawn Levy and Hugh Jackman “using this particular campaign to communicate with fans in some special ways.”

PC Studio “3:15 Stories” T-Shirt Giveaway

March 14, 2011 / Michael Andersen

The Ides of March have almost arrived, and with them, the release of Patrick Carman’s 3:15 Stories app. In honor of the release, Carman and PC Studio have graciously offered to give away fifteen 3:15 Stories t-shirts to ARGNet readers.

And what better way to give away fifteen 3:15 Stories t-shirts than to have three methods of entry? That’s right, up to three chances to win fifteenÂ 3:15 Stories shirts for three days, starting on 3/15.

You can use all three methods to triple your odds of winning, but entrants are limited to one entry per method, and each person can only win one shirt. No purchase is necessary, but this contest is limited to U.S. residents in the 50 United States and the District of Columbia (excluding U.S. territories) who are 13 years or older as of the beginning of the contest period on March 15th.

–Entry Method #1
Download the free 3:15 Stories app from 315stories.com for your iPhone, iPod Touch, or Android phone. Take a picture of your phone running the app and email the photo it to [email protected] with the subject line “3:15 Stories in the Wild.”
–Entry Method #2
Email [email protected] with the subject line “Paul Chandler Scares Me,” and tell us about your favorite Patrick Carman book or what you thought of the 3:15 Stories trailer on 315stories.com.
–Entry Method #3
Follow @argn on twitter and tweet/retweet the following message:
“RT @argn Retweet for a chance to win a “3:15 Stories” t-shirt from PC Studio http://bit.ly/h2OiIy #315contest”

All entries must be sent between 3:15AM EST on March 15th and 3:15AM EST on March 18th. After collecting all entries, ARGNet will randomly select the 15 potential winners and notify them on or before March 21st, 2011 (by email for Entry Methods #1 and #2, by a twitter Direct Message for Entry Method #3). Potential winners will have 48 hours to respond with their mailing address before they forfeit their prize and an alternate is notified. Read below the cut for additional rules.