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Reader Discussion: The Value Of ARGs
Valve is running a huge alternative reality game that ties into a cross-promotional bundle deal with Portal 2 and a bunch of indie games on Steam. Are you into this kind of thing?
ARGs have been growing in popularity for years. Halo 3's ilovebees campaign generated a ton of fan interaction and goodwill for being a smart, fun, in-fiction interactive side story. Portal 2's potato-centric campaign is an interesting way for Valve to push Steam as a retail channel and reinforce its gamer cred (by offering an honestly great bundle deal on cool games that you may not have heard of) while letting thirteen indie developers piggyback on the massive Portal 2 hype machine.
Even with these two generally positive examples, ARGs have also generated some pushback from gamers who feel like games should just be games. If Bungie wants to share something about Halo's backstory, shouldn't they just tell us or put it in the game itself? Some folks have no interest in participating in extracurricular activities just to unearth a few tidbits of info on their favorite game, or are generally resistant to anything that smells of marketing.
Where do you fall along this spectrum? Are you decoding cryptic photographs leaked from Aperture Science, or is anything that's not actually playing the game not really worth your time?
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