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 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.

Most fans probably didn’t know the Halo 3 ARG already came and went, but it did. This edition’s attempt to cause some buzz for the game–as if they need it–was plagued by leaks and delays.

This year’s campaign was called Iris. Despite the many problems, it was apparently still a success.

ARGNet is a site that follows these kids of marketing, and I will have to check it out more often since ARGs have become my recent passion.

Check out the a quick summary of the Iris ARG if you want to see what you missed.

An email came out to the mailing list for the www.EthanHaasWasRight.com viral site for JJ Abrams new movie codenamed Cloverfield. The message is from Van Mantra and reads:

Now is the time……

The forces working against us tried to stop us from spreading Haas’s message but we have overcome them.

The battle is only beginning; you cracked the codes now use the key you uncovered to learn the truth.

Return to Haas’s site www.ethanhaaswasright.com and use the key to enter a whole new world.

Ethan Haas was right about the future and now the role you play will be up to you.

- Van

When you go to the site now, a message reads that it is “time to choose what role you will play” and clicking “yes” to check out the next installment jumps you over to a completely new and deep viral experience.

AlphaOmegaTheGame.com

I cannot even begin to explain all the intricate details of this game. It looks like World of Warcraft with character creation and seven different species in the world that look to be a combination of apocalyptic survivors and alien/magical hybrids. You have to visit the site to fully experience it yourself.

The lore part of the site seems to suggest the world tore itself apart through the ravages of Mother Nature to create a post-apocalyptic society. I’ll have to check it out more to see anything else but comment if you catch this post and have checked out the game as well.

I hate to be part of a hype machine, but I can’t resist this viral campaign that looks to now be turning into an ARG.

Update: The latest news and Wikipedia entry on EthanHaasWasRight.com around the Web says that it is just a site to promote the Alpha Omega game…

But then there is a posting on Wikipedia about a possible Cloverfield connection that has been denied.

AND this site has emerged as a source of all things Ethan Haas and seems to be more about Cloverfield than the game…this is getting DEEP people.

Shankar Gupta of MediaPost wrote an excellent post today about the success of the Halo franchise and Halo 3’s inevitable record-setting sales.

He points to 42 Entertainment’s ARGs for the saga as one of the greatest marketing elements that made Halo as big as it is today. An ARG, or Alternate Reality Game, captivates the fans of a product or media outside of the normal outlet and makes them feel like they are part of the action.

42 Entertainment is creating “the world’s most innovative, immersive entertainment” as a form of advertising for their clients.

ARGs like ILoveBees.com allowed fans of the Halo series to follow clues left on the Web to put together a puzzle that unlocked hidden audio clips fleshing out the Halo story. All in all, it feeds into the Halo persona at Bungie. Bungie employees refer to this time between when the game is complete to when it finally launches as just another stage in development. I would assume this habit is a good way of making them see the marketing and promotion of the game as a development or as the development of the ARG. The ILoveBees.com campaign was such a success that people are speculating about what Halo 3’s ARG might be. Clues have been left on message boards and online. Even staged events have been suspected, but thus far, no one knows for sure how Halo 3 will emerge on the scene.

ARGs are the next wave as far as reaching the college market though. Viral campaigns have been shown as great ways to reach the young and “elusive” demographic, and ARGs are just one step higher in the immersive scale. An advertiser must use viral marketing to build buzz for their ARG, which then generates buzz and media coverage for the product they are promoting. It’s ingenious, and I believe it will become even more prevalent as we move into future media types and advertising. The consumer demands to participate in the story now in the online space, and marketers who give them that privilege will reap the rewards.

I spent an hour or so this morning running through the promotional site for Cloverfield. Trailer below. The link above is to the mysterious end site you find at the end of the puzzles for the movie. I assume the date is the release date for the film. Supposedly, Cloverfield is a cover for the real name of the film.

If you haven’t heard about the movie yet, you probably haven’t seen the trailer at the beginning of Transformers. You can read a lot more about it in the post from Moriarty over at Ain’t It Cool News in which he points out all the exclusive information he gained about the film that is now being passed off as exclusives by many other journalists–especially one member of the media.

The breaking news post by Moriarty can be found here.

The trailer was completely mysterious, but the basic premise for the movie appears to be some kind of parasite attacking the city as seen through a handy cam camera view. The actors were not even shown the script until they were fully on board and on set.

If you want to do all the puzzles on the wonderfully well-designed promotional website, hit it up here at www.ethanhaaswasright.com. The puzzles are amazingly addictive once you get through the first one.

I’m not gonna lie. I cheated myself to get through them faster. You can check out text walkthrough here or a very well done video walkthrough on YouTube. The video was more helpful for me and offers some analysis.

You also might find the image below helpful. I made it myself to help with a lot of translations. The alien/parasite language or whatever it is takes some time to recognize.

I can’t believe the site captivated me so much, but I guess it is meant to capture your attention. The site is definitely some great work by some very creative PR folks working with JJ Abrams. Can’t wait to see what the movie turns out like with all this hype already beginning to build.Oh. I forgot to mention that the site/movie is supposedly not related to “Lost” in any way, shape or form, so get that out of your head right now.

In shuffling through some Halo 3 footage today on YouTube, I came across TheHalography.com, which has compiled the complete story of the Halo series (with cutscenes from YouTube embedded).

The site even traces the strange sidestories of Halo that have been part of the marketing of the game (or could be) such as the ILoveBees.com promotion and the Cortana Letters. I had never even heard about Cortana’s integration into the Myst series…very interesting. How long has Bungie been plotting Halo?