Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Alternate Reality Gaming

Overhaul

Hi all! I just landed here, and I think it would be cool to do an overhaul of the main WikiProject page, as well as unify the style of ARG articles. I am working on an overhaul here, trying to get stuff up to date. cayden 19:16, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

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Hello everyone! I just wanted to say that I'm happy to add the CourtTV/Applebees ARG "Save My Husband" to the most recent games list, with a description of what that was like. Ladyeuthanasia 18:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

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Hey guys! Kudos for taking the initiative on this. I was just thinking, it might pay to locate and help clean up/improve the existing articles for games, as well as making a list of all the wikipedia articles on past or current ARGs out there. I'm fairly certain there's on for LOST, there's definitely one for ILB, there's a new one for Cathy's Book, etc. I'm going to focus on trying to improve the main article. Phaedra777 15:47, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

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I just finished up a cleanup of the main Alternate reality game article. I moved most of this history to a subpage (History of Alternate Reality Games), added a brief summary to the main page, and some other minor cleanup. How does everybody think it looks? -AtionSong 18:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

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As much as I like it for its organization...

I don't know that we're justified in having two separate articles. I do think a page could be created to list ARGs to draw off the spammers, but I'm not sure that Wikipedia's not eventually going to notice and nominate the History article for deletion, which would be frustrating. I'm currently working on cleaning up the history section, but I think after it's cleaned up, the two should be re-merged. A history summary, however, is a good idea and I'll take a closer look at your summary when that's done, because while the content and form is generally excellent, it's in need of some proofing and there are a couple unsupportable statements (e.g. do you have any proof that either Perplex City or edoc laundry have made money? MC's frequent acceptance of venture capital would suggest otherwise, and I'm reasonably certain that no financial figures or comments about the success of edoc have been made public).

If you'll note the changes I made to the chronology section, I feel both people's understanding of the genre and its development and the article itself are better served by having a history section that is arranged to highlight trends and major developments, rather than one that is simply arranged by chronology (in the case of the latter, because it'll make it more difficult for people to shill their own game).

I'm currently working on a section identifying influences and precursors and comparing/contrasting ARGs to other art forms. I think it should be separate from the rest of the history.

I suggest:

• Main summary (containing a very brief subsection identifying terms and concepts referred to in the rest of the article, such as "curtain," "puppetmaster," and "TINAG" -- any other essentials? I feel like those are the only bedrock concepts absolutely necessary to define)
• Precursors, Influences, Comparison/Contrast (following the summary, the comparison/contrast section will help elucidate what an ARG is and what it isn't)
• The Beast and its Influence (because I've defined a lot of the concepts/design principles still in play in ARG development there)
• Genre History and Development (History Section -- your history section and "Current Trends" section would be incorporated)
• External Links
• Notes

Anything I'm missing? Phaedra777 21:28, 14 February 2007 (UTC)