Transmedia: Interview with Brooke Thompson about ARGFest Conference and Game Festival 2010

A Clue from THE DARK KNIGHT's Why So Serious? Coming to Atlanta July 15-18 is the 9th edition of ARGFest, a conference and gaming festival that’s all about Alternate Reality Gaming (ARG) and Transmedia Storytelling. If you think you haven’t heard of, or participated in an ARG, who’d be wrong if you followed on any level of The Dark Knight's Why So Serious, Halo 2’s I Love Bees, The Blair Witch Project’s pioneering experience or the dozens of ARG’s that have been developed over the last ten years.

With the rise of social media, more dynamic and interactive websites, and mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad, ARGs and Transmedia Storytelling have become one of the hottest topics of discussion over the last two years.

In my role as ATLFF Communications Director, I sat down with 2010 ARGFest Chairperson Brooke Thompson to talk* about this year’s fest and the past, present and future of Transmedia Storytelling and Alternate Reality Gaming.

Show notes below:

ARGFest 2010

Transmedia Storytelling: In Transmedia storytelling, content becomes invasive and permeates fully the audience’s lifestyle. A transmedia project develops storytelling across multiple forms of media in order to have different “entry points” in the story; entry-points with a unique and independent lifespan but with a definite role in the big narrative scheme. - From Wikipedia

Alternate Reality Game: From An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants’ ideas or actions. - From Wikipedia

giantmice.com

Perplex City

Unfiction

*Sorry about the background noise. With the festival so close to the recording date, we didn’t have time to setup a better place to do the podcast.