ugachaka :: Jacob was here

I haven’t seen Cloverfield yet, but the ARG (or alternate reality game) to promote the movie keeps getting stranger.

The ARG started with the Ethan Haas Was Right site. The early trailers for Cloverfield linked fans to this site where they completed a series of puzzles and then added their email address to a list to receive updates on the next step in the ARG.

I did all the puzzles, and weeks later, I received an email from the site’s creator/leader “Van Mantra” which linked to Alpha Omega: The Game, some sort of MMORPG (or massive multiplayer online role-playing game). It seemed to have no relation to the movie, but I thought the game must be fake. The game is based upon an post-apocalyptic world, but it says it was all destroyed by natural disasters and diseases rather than by the big monster from Cloverfield. I never tried the game, but I signed up to be notified when it finally launched.

I continued to receive emails updating me on the status of the game’s launch, but none of them seemed to have any info about Cloverfield. I almost unsubscribed, but I stuck with it.

Just a few weeks ago, I got another message from Van Mantra.

Your destinies are your own. Now is the time to play your role. Mobilize, arm yourselves with knowledge, and enter the world remade.

This message linked back to the Alpha Omega game site again, which now has a little blurb about the Ethan Haas site puzzles. I just don’t get it.

Is this MMORPG tied into the movie somehow? I guess I will figure it out when I see Cloverfield, but if anyone else has completed the puzzles and joined in on the game, I would love to hear how it all fits together.

This ARG has been pretty in-depth, and with JJ Abrams involved, who knows what it all means.

I just finished reading Game Over: Press Start to Continue: The Maturing of Mario by David Sheff and Andy Eddy awhile back. Since it had such a nice business slant, I posted my review over at my business blog at wannabeMogul.com–even though I really read the book because of my incredible urge as a childhood Nintendo fanboy.

If you haven’t read this book and want to learn more about the gaming industry, read it. I suggest checking Half.com or Amazon to try and pick up a used copy.

The book is a great read even if you aren’t a Nintendo fan.

The really interesting part of the book is how it sheds a light on what Microsoft might have been thinking when they launched the Xbox and how much Nintendo’s plan for the NES might have influenced that.

I have posted about ARGs here before, but I wanted to link over to my new blog at wannabeMogul.com where I just put together a lengthy post about the ARG and viral marketing campaign for The Dark Knight by 42 Entertainment, the same guys who did ILoveBees for Halo 2, and the mysterious death of Heath Ledger.

The viral marketing campaign is intense for this movie, and the death of Heath Ledger almost made me suspect it was going to get even more outrageous.

I know I have made this blog look like the ultimate Halo fanboy site the last few postings….and it will keep looking that way a bit longer as, now after playing, I will shuffle through my back log or review reviews and get back to my regular updates.

As a side note, I always take an interest in the marketing behind any games–especially if that marketing takes advantage of new and innovative methods–since I work in that same industry.

One of the marketing industry pubs, MediaPost, who I have mentioned on here before wrote an article awhile back just before the launch of Halo 3 [unlinked because the article is now MIA] speaking about the marketing efforts and ad campaign.

Halo 3’s marketing went after the general consumer rather than focussing virally like the Halo 2 I Love Bees marketing and gamer-focussed campaign. I have heard explained in several pubs that they did this to get ahead of the media coverage. The mass media came in late to covering Halo 2’s launch as a media event because they didn’t see it coming, and Microsoft wanted everyone to be able to anticipate and cover this launch from the very beginning. No more catch up.

I think they did a fairly good job of keeping ahead.

The article looks at how they used the diorama they created and the Halo TV spots on the diorama to promote the game to the general public and the lore of the Halo universe. Very creative and pretty intense if you asked me.

There was some backlash because people complained that the campaign was a little upsetting considering we actually have a real war going on–but come on now, don’t we have enough Iraq info hitting us everyday to allow for a little escapism, fictional war every now and then? I think so.

As an added promotion to the community, all the ads produced for Halo 3 are available for download on Xbox Live.

Kotaku covered a selection of reviews going up about Halo 3 across the Web. It’s the best Xbox 360 game to date according to some, but I am sure Bungie and Microsoft expected higher ratings from the gaming press.

Eurogamer
It’s not that the game is ugly – well, aside from the human faces perhaps, which look flat and unnatural and are the most obvious relics of the last generation here…It’s just that, compared to games like last year’s Gears of War, Halo 3 is an underachiever in graphical terms – but to our minds, any negative here is easily cancelled out by the joy of high framerates, no loading delays and an almost complete lack of any graphical glitches. It may not be gold, but it’s the most perfectly polished silver we’ve seen.

The most bringing-down-to-earth review came from Gamer 2.0 which left Halo 3 with a lovely 88, not too far from Brian Crecente’s own 87.5 or B+.

Gamer2.0
…is it any big surprise that Halo 3 isn’t able to live up to the insane expectations? Not really…[but] one thing that’s still fresh in this third installment is the gameplay itself. It’s much smoother and more streamlined than in the previous titles. There is more of a super soldier feeling with your controls (you can also tell now that you are clearly taller than everybody else). Weapons are balanced well and nothing seems to be too far off from their beta counterparts.

To see all the review and comments, check the Kotaku post.

The latest commercial shows two soldiers talking about weapons, but don’t ask them to pick up the Spiker. They just want to share a hug about Master Chief’s “big sacrifice” that saved the world. If he was a real person, I think I might be really annoyed with him by now.

If you don’t have the online gaming experience of Xbox Live, Best Buy will be sponsoring Xbox Live for three days after the Halo 3 launch. That is just crazy. While I love the free-ness, I hope they are opening up another fleet or servers for all the matchmaking that they are going to have to be doing because I can’t see a possible scenario where Halo 3 doesn’t flood Xbox Live for those three days. I wouldn’t want to be Best Buy if their is slowness or problems. As a paying customer, I would hate to have three days I could have had free suck for online play because of all the gamers with Halo 3. Good luck, Best Buy.

On the other hand, I thank you Best Buy for the n00bs that you will bring onto our Xbox Live servers so that we can reach all those multiplayer achievement points right away. Tea bags are bound to be everywhere for those three days.

More than just myself is getting tired of this Halo 3 marketing machine. I think it really did go all T1000 on us and start taking over the world. I think it just became self-aware. I mean, come on, Bungie, I already ordered my copy. What more do you want from me? Flynn De Marco of Kotaku is tired of it as well. That’s at least two people.

They even took over Future Weapons. That’s crazy talk. I guess now they are shooting for catching those crazy militia types who have been holed up in their barns over the last few months only emerging to watch Future Weapons and then scurrying back to rewire all their pipe bombs. If they weren’t getting Halo, now they will if for no other reason than to start making mock ups of Master Chief’s armor to sell on Ebay.

Oh, and more jealousy.

For those interested in the story behind the Halo series and not just the multiplayer beat downs, Halo3.com has put up a Flash animation of the entire diorama seen in the first video of the Believe campaign, Museum.

The diorama is called the John-117 Monument and was created after the battles that take place in Halo 3 supposedly in honor of Master Chief Petty Officer John-117.

What do you learn from the diorama?

Well, for one, Master Chief is captured near the New Mombasa ridge in a huge engagement that includes Brutes and a new type of grunt slated for special ops in black armor.

The final scene in the diorama leaves you with Master Chief in the clutches of a Brute general describing it as the scene in which Master Chief allowed himself to be captured to set in motion the events that made him the greatest hero. On a minor note, Master Chief is also listed as the last Spartan warrior although some lore/story proposes that there are still two remaining Spartans in other parts of the Halo universe.

Two videos in the diorama Flash are slated to be revealed on 9.25.07, but one after the Master Chief capture says it won’t be released until 10.1.07? Bungie is not giving any spoilers until you make some progress on the campaign I guess.

While you cruise through the display, you can also make your own screenshots and download the scenes as wallpaper.

How do you launch the most successful product in the entertainment world? Apparently, it’s a 5-step program. Brandweek is talking about the 5 phases of the Halo campaign.

Apparently, you start with the Starry Nights ads–the one that aired during football–then throw a little Beta at them. As that wraps, you give them a little Project Iris, but that seems to have flopped a little since I had to look hard to even find out about the thing.

Finally, make sure you get Halo on the side of every fast food cup and bucket o’ fries you can touch by merching out the Master Chief, and give them the Believe campaign–mixed thoughts on that thus far although the lore level is very high, so the die hards are probably gobbling it up.

In Baton Rouge, the Baton Rouge Area Digital Industries Consortium is attempting to recruit gaming companies to move to the area to help improve the economy and build a workforce. Many cities and states promote movies to come film in their location, but, as the article says, the game jobs stick around for years with their longer production cycles and bring income to the city from the consistent pay of salaries of around $40k to $55k a year–so says the article.

It’s a new move for city projects. Maybe people are finally starting to think better of the videogame industry and use it as more than just a scapegoat for the corruption of America’s youth.