ARGhhhhhh!!!

A most pleasant lunch yesterday, with Jeremy Ettinghausen (super power: Digital Publisher and Introducer of Punctuality into people's lives) and new personal hero (and Penguin author) Naomi Alderman. We found out heaps of top notch gossip about Perplex City from lead writer Naomi, which pretty much blew my mind, even though most of it was just hints along the lines of "Yes, Cube 2/3 does mean something exciting." Bloody hell. Since one of her super-powers is also Buffy, we bored Ettinghausen with some catch-up, but our main conversation was about ARGs.

For those of you who are unaware of ARGs, or perhaps just of what ARG means, here's a quick guide. Basically, if you've stumbled across some odd Dharma Initiative stuff while googling Lost, you've found an Alternate Reality Game. Unfortunately, one of the major problems of the ARG is that if you use it to promote something, the game itself can often be more popular that the product itself (witness A.I. vs The Beast) - which is fine if you care only about great gameplay, not so great if you want everyone to see your film/read your book/watch your programme.

The question I kept nagging Naomi with (until I had a horrible feeling she was about to put her head down on the table and start weeping) was this: How do you get people to care about your mysteries? Obviously, it helps not to do something rubbish. And it also helps if whatever you're basing it on has the rough shape of an ARG anyway (a particularly beautiful example here). But it seems the key is building communities: feeding information and challenging them to get involved, whether it's a black helicopter pick-up, or a fiendish puzzle.

So that is what the finest minds of Penguin will be attaching their skulls to. Over the next few months, we'll be attempting to schmooze with those great originators, and will hopefully bring you, Dear Reader, the fruits of our labour.

Sam the Junior Copywriter

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Comments

[Guy Parsons]

"It helps not to do something rubbish" is now my new mantra.

[MikeyJ]

"the fruits of our labour" - I'm pleasingly intrigued - schmooze your socks off.