Alternate Reality Games SIG/List Members
International Game Developers Association
[edit] ARG SIG List Members
When people join the SIG mailing list for the first time, we | invite them to post a paragraph about themselves by way of introduction to the other list members.
It helps if you can also post your introdution to this page (and unless you specifically ask otherwise, we might do it for you) so everyone can quickly see who's who on the list.
This page is also referenced as: http://igda.org/arg/people.html
[edit] AJ
I'm an IT Manager from the UK, roleplayer, roleplaying game designer, layout artist and Techno Pagan. I think i became interested on the periphery of Perplex City, but i think i've been interested in the genre for a lot longer, films like Michael Douglas's The Game, and thing like that have always intrigued me. I guess i'm interested these days in what ARGs show us about people, the expectations of them, and what people are prepared to do as players as a mass decision making machine. A friend and I are looking at running a UK Based ARG-lite, based on some roleplaying material we have, definitely a small player base, as a first run to prove the concept.
[edit] Adam Martin
I used to specialize in MMOG's (patented some server architectures), and I'm half way through writing a book on designing and developing game-servers. I used to evalute and help flesh out MMOG game-concepts from potential tech licensees, and as an MMOG person I find the collaborative-play aspects of ARGs the most fascinating.
[edit] Alex Fleetwood
I'm a freelance TV producer with a background in opera; up until about 3 years ago I produced new work for the stage, developing Arts Council funded projects with young composers and librettists. I got tired of making work that hardly anybody saw so I made the switch to TV, which has led me to the production of a film opera with the company Illuminations TV. We're in script development at the moment. I came to Perplex City by chance and have been playing it since then, partly out of curiosity, partly because I'm really enjoying myself.
[edit] Andrea Phillips
I was one of the Cloudmakers moderators, now I'm a game producer at Mind Candy working in Perplex City, and I've got a bit of a blog talking about ARG and gaming meta-issues as they strike me (see link below). I'm sure many of us know each other by reputation, but it'll be fab to get to know all of you a little better than that. :)
[edit] Andres Martinez Quijano
I'm from Jengibre Interactive, a video/advergames company from Argentina. I also teach a University "Advergames" course for marketing people.
[edit] Anthony Saad
I co-founded Torgame.com and was the Producer, Experience Design for - Waking City - Torgame's first hybrid ARG. In 2005 I was instrumental in the conception and development of the award winning installation, Painting The Myth, The Mystery of Tom Thomson - an innovative new media platform for galleries and museums. (not very ARG like though could be...) I have created training and marketing projects in a variety of media including; Video, Audio, Print, Multi-screen Multi-Projector, Videowall, Interactive Multimedia, CD ROM, World Wide Web and recently Interactive Art Installations.
[edit] Ben Wochinski
Being an avid Matrix fan, I first got pulled into the world of ARGs by Project Mu (Metacortechs). I was an extremely active player during AWARE and went on to run my own game, Tranquil Valley, in the fall of 2004. I worked on the PM team for AWARE 2 before it imploded and have been (progressively) owner, administrator, and moderator of the Immersion Unlimited forums. After that I was an on and off lurker of Unfiction until recently. I am currently "Lead Programmer" for ARGdb.com and am making myself involved with IonARG.
[edit] Brian Clark
I'm the Founder/CEO of an experimental media firm called GMD Studios (http://www.gmdstudios.com ) that's involved in a variety of community/publishing/marketing stuff that generally clusters around the entertainment sector (or applies that kind of thinking outside of the entertainment sector.) I was part of the PM and development team on one thing that we later found out was an ARG (Sharp's "Legend of the Sacred Urns") and another thing that we knew was ARG (Audi's "Art of the Heist") and a bunch of stuff that I don't think you'd include as ARGs but share enough of the features that you can tell how we fell into the genre (like "Nothing So Strange", say starting from http://www.citizensfortruth.org or http://www.billgatesisdead.com ).
[edit] Brooke Thompson
Currently, I write for ARGN & moderate the meta section of UnFiction. I am also working on a project that will invite people to explore the same narrative in various ways throughout a major metro area. My academic hunger is being fed by looking into the small community built ARGs run by often unprepared teams/individuals which I find reminiscent of tabletop Game Masters and/or murder mystery hosts. Specifically, I am looking at ways in which those analogies can be utilized to strengthen the teams behind such games and reduce the negative impact those games can have on the community and the genre, perhaps even making them a positive. If you have any thoughts on this, please share!
[edit] Bryan Alexander
I'm the research director for NITLE, a group of 110+ small colleges in Europe, Africa, and the US. I study emerging technologies, like web 2.0 and gaming ...which is one way I got into ARGs. For me they're a fine example of Web 2.0 storytelling. And also educational gold. I've been telling academics about these since before ILoveBees, and at last there are some projects. There is bloggery, mostly at http://infocult.typepad.com/ for ARGishness. More of my .edu work is here: http://b2e.nitle.org/index.php .
[edit] Christy Dena
I came to ARGs through my research: I'm doing a PhD in Cross-Media Entertainment and find ARGs the most developed type in this genre. I investigate best practice in design for CME and ARGs for my research, for my own creative projects and for my work as an industry mentor. I mentor linear producers (film and TV) to help develop their properties into CME (http://www.lamp.edu.au/) and design miniARGs for these workshops. I have a research blog at http://www.cross-mediaentertainment.com; I co-edit a blog on New Media Arts at http://www.writerresponsetheory.org and there is some info about my PhD here: http://www.polymorphicnarrative.org.
[edit] Clay Chiment
I started out as a Cloudmaker (my daughter’s name is Laia but it was my husband’s idea, I swear!). I was a Puppetmaster for both LockJaw and Project Mu Metacortechs and am still a member of the Karetao team, dreaming of feeding my ARG addiction in whatever way possible. I’m a reference librarian by training and an anthropologist by degree (though I worked for a few years in graphic design) and I have high hopes of getting back into the ARG community in a more active way now that my personal munchkin is sleeping through the night!
[edit] Dan Carver
I happened to have been a warm body standing in the right place (or the wrong one depending on your point of view) to get sucked up into the Beast when that fired up and spent the following 6 months in a sleep deprived fever dream where I was hounded by a mob of voracious ARG players.oh wait, that part was real. Regardless it was one of the most interesting projects that I've ever worked on. Although, I haven't worked on another ARG since, I've kept up with the genre on ARGN, Unfiction, and various other ARG sites. On IRC I go by wraith, or wwwraith and I'm known to occasionally haunt the #unfiction and #evanchan channels. Oh, and many thanks for inviting me to participate!
[edit] Dan Hon
Along with Andrea, I was one of the Cloudmakers moderators. I did a stint of contract work designing community specs for Elan, Jordan and Sean over at Microsoft before they became Myriad Mobile, before they became 4orty2wo. I'm now COO at Mind Candy working on Perplex City and used to write a lot about ARGs on my (now sadly neglected) blog: http://danhon.com/ec/mtarchives/2002/10/18/under_your_spell/ index.shtml#000190 and http://danhon.com/articles/archive/000407.shtml
[edit] Dave Szulborski
I got started in ARGs back at the time of MAJESTIC (2001) as a beta tester for the game and actually began making my first independent game a few weeks into the MAJESTIC experience. I've created seven independent games since then, as well as working on some commercial projects too, most notably Audi's Art of the Heist campaign, for which I was the lead puzzle designer, and Chasing The Wish, a greatly successful independent game that received international media attention.
[edit] David Andrews
I haven't done much ARG work that can be credited to me, though I can say I was 'BTS' on a small indie project that ultimately flopped (not the best start, but it's just the truth). I'm currently on Active Duty with the U.S. Air Force, and just returned from 5 months spent in Southwest Asia, in support of Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom. I am a '3C251' in the USAF, which basically translates to Network and Long Haul Communications Infrastructure Technician. I have an Associate's Degree in Information Technology and a CCNA (anyone in need of a networking guy? ;D) On the creative side I've written two full length novels and tons of poetry, some of which has been published over the course of the last three years. I ran an online text-based RPG based in Ancient Rome (called 'The Roman Republic') which successfully ran for two and a half years before I found out about ARGs. In the past year or so I've designed two ARGs, though neither of those have launched as of yet.
[edit] David Fono
I'm interested in ARGs because they represent an intersection of a variety of topics that are close to my heart: game design, immersive storytelling, online cooperation and community building. ARGs are like a dream nexus of everything that is wonderful. I was the founder and creator of Torgame, which was an enormously huge team effort to apply ARGish principles to meatspace in support of urban exploration. It practically killed me and now I'm volunteering at a telecentre in rural Nigeria to chill out and take a break. However, I am a sucker for punishment, and new projects are in the works.
[edit] David Gamble
Unlike most people here I'm just recently becoming involved in ARG's through the research I have to do for my job. So I'm here primarily to keep up to date on what's going on in the world of ARGs and also to hear educated takes on the new games that come out.
[edit] David Varela
I worked at Mind Candy as the in-house writer on Perplex City from the end of 2005 until June 2007. As well as writing, I also found myself producing and directing all the game's AV content. And I looked after a lot of the meta-content, such as the gargantuan Story So Far site.
My background is in drama, so I'm now pursuing ways of combining ARG-style interaction with more mainstream broadcast media – the 'Frozen Indigo Angel' episode of Perplex City, produced with the BBC, was a decent start.
[edit] Dee Cook
I was a beta tester for Majestic in '01 and briefly found The Beast, but that was around the time I had my second daughter and I got a little distracted. I finally re-found the scene in '03 and have worked behind the scenes on several grassroots games. I am also a moderator on Unfiction and a staff writer for ARGN.
[edit] Ed Martin
As a Europe-based screenwriter/producer, I come from more of a film background than ARG, but I'm interested in cross-media as a storytelling tool and as a means to create puzzle-driven narrative mythologies. Though many people consider "The Beast" as the "Citizen Kane" of ARGs, I think it would be more accurate to compare it to Griffith's "Birth of a Nation". Both films represented a breakthrough in cinematography at the time of its release, but Orson Welles' masterpiece was really a quantum leap forward in style. In this regard, I'm currently designing an as-yet-to-be-launched ARG that will blur the boundaries of mainstream traditional ARG and other entertainment/narrative disciplines. Anyone interested in pushing forward the limits of ARG, please contact me.
[edit] Evan Jones
While the introductions are hot, my name is Evan Jones and I am working as Xenophile Media's Creative Director (www.xenophile.ca). We're a cross-media production company working in documentary, television and interactive narrative but most importantly ARGs, specifically ReGenesis (www.regenesistv.com) which will be releasing its second season in the Spring of 2006. I came to all this through a background in computer science, radio production, film studies and interactive multimedia. I have a terrible habit of storytelling which I am failing to kick, and find ARGs one of the best outlets for my vice. The classic mystery is my Achilles heel, and some may know me as my online alter-ego mysteryjones (www.mysteryjones.com).
[edit] Geoffrey Richards
I am a student finishing up my certificate with a specialization in 3D Environment Art at Austin Community College. As far as my particular interest in ARGs, I believe it has been piqued due in part to a number of things: the film The Game from a few years ago was pretty, a brief brush with the early Matrix-inspired ARG. Also, theres a band (you might have heard of) called Nine Inch Nails, and I thought that the promotion for their newest album "Year Zero," which utilized ARG tactics to get fans involved in decoding art, websites and found flash-disks to promote and help tell the narrative of the album.
[edit] Hugh Davies
Coming from a background in filmmaking and education in sculpture, I first encountered Location Based and Alternate Reality Game's through studying multimedia design in Scandanavia and ended up developing an ARG for delivery on mobile phone. Since that time I have maintained an active interest in ARG's from several angles: ARG's as relational aesthetics, ARG's as guerilla marketing, ARG's and game theory and ARG's as fun games to play. I am also very occupied by the boundaries of immersion that are created by reality and am interested in exploring ways of overcoming this barrier.
[edit] Jan Libby
The door to "Alternate Reality" opened to me when I participated in a theatre installation piece called "The Angel Project". Even though this project was not considered an ARG, it certainly had (for me) all the elements of one. Then, in 2004, I read an article about "i love bees". It wasn't long before I was lurking and playing games on the boards of Unfiction. My background is in experimental film and comedy television. I'm not kidding. :) I created my first ARG called "Sammeeeees" last fall. Presently, I'm planning another indie ARG for the fall of 2007.
[edit] Jey Biddulph
I'm an ARG developer at Mind Candy. I fell into ARGs during Metacortechs (thanks Krystyn!), hung around some and then became a moderator of Perplex City. This led to me joining MInd Candy in July, where I work on the ARG and puzzlecards doing a variety of different things. I enjoy discussing how to make the ARG genre better, current flaws and all sorts of other lovely meta topics, although I have yet to follow the trend and put them down in a blog!
[edit] Jim Gunshanan
I've worked with Mike Monello and Brian Clark as a PM/writer for Audi's "Art of the Heist," Sharp's "Legend of the Sacred Urns," and a few other previous, ARGish (ARGesque?) interactive marketing campaigns. I recently finished working on a GMD-produced ARG for GM called "Who Is Benjamin Stove?", during which I also had the great pleasure of working with Brooke "Sleep Is For The Weak" Thompson and Dave "Evil Genius" Szulborski.
[edit] John Evans
I've been interested in computer games for, well, probably all my life. I've finally decided to try and pursue a career in such, so I'm building up a portfolio of little game projects with which to either get a job or start a business. (Probably the former, but who knows...) My website has some online games written in PHP; the kind of thing where you get a certain amount of stamina every 24 hours with which to perform in-game tasks, so you can make it part of your daily routine. (That's the quick and dirty summary, anyway.) I like ARGs because of the potential for interesting kinds of storytelling, that always gets me interested. (I've been involved in various online writing projects for many years.) The other reason I'm interested is because, given that I want to pursue game design, I want to try to experience as many games as possible.
[edit] Jonathan Waite
I have been involved with alternate reality gaming from the time of The Beast. I was teaching English in Korea when I came upon the link to the Bangalore World University, and was hooked from the get-go. From that game, I travelled through Plexata before becoming completely immersed into Lockjaw, and I've been hanging about ever since. In 2004 I joined the writing team at ARGN and in mid-2005 I accepted the role of Associate Editor. When founder Steve Peters left for his new opportunity, I inherited the site and have been Senior Editor and site owner since December. I have also begun development on the ARG Archive at www.arghive.com, which I hope will be a central hub for the history of ARG.
[edit] Kira Snyder
I got to mess with reality on a much bigger scale when I wrote and designed for Majestic, joining the team early in development (mucho NDAs for my job interview) and staying through launch until the bitter end. Lots of valuable learning from that project, some of it painful, but all of it rewarding. As designer and producer for the virtual world There, I made tools and content for members to build their own in-world adventure games and ARGs (ooh, how meta). I also have created real-world puzzle race games including team-building exercises and games for conference attendees, some that took placed within a few square blocks and others that ranged all over the SF Bay Area.
[edit] Kristian Leth
I work with DR (the national public service broadcaster in Denmark) where I write and produce ARGs. I've been hosting and producing TV and radio for Denmark's biggest channels (DR1, P3 and P1) and have experience both as a writer and an editor. I'm a graduate from the Danish Writers' Academy, and I've published poetry, prose and essays. Besides that I'm an active musician and I've just started my own record label Speed Of Sound.
[edit] Krystyn Wells
Originally a Cloudmaker, I then became a Puppetmaster for two of the most successful grassroots ARGs to date: the aforementioned Lockjaw, and Project Mu (more commonly known as Metacortechs), the latter of which kept Matrix geeks and ARGers alike hopping and scrambling during the last quarter of 2003. I am also fairly active at the Unfiction forums, having acted as a moderator for 2 high-profile games (ilovebees, Last Call Poker), and participating in several others. It *appears* that I have a propensity for being stalked by clowns and mimes in ARGs at live events.
[edit] Luiz Adolfo de Andrade
I am a pervasive game designer with Raccord Productions, Phd Student at Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) and Researcher at Cyberculture Center (UFBA). Master degree in Communication and New Technologies at Fluminense Federal University (2007), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. My research focuses on sociability in pervasive games and games multiplayer, especially ARGs and MMORPGs. Recently my interest is on the relationships with ARGs/Marketing and ARGs/Urban Space. I taught “Game Designer” at Fluminense Federal University (2006-2007) and Estácio de Sá University (2007). I was the puppet master of “Obsessão Compulsiva” (2007-2008), an Alternate Reality Game related to the movie “Meu Nome Não é Johnny” (Brazil, 2008). As a game screenwritter, I produced an adventure/educational game called “França Antártica” (2006) for Fluminense Federal University.
[edit] Mark Heggen
I am a graphic designer and media theorist who is currently working on a masters degree in graphic design with a focus on user-created content, collaborative narratives, and ARGs. I am currently PMing a small-scale ARG, and hope to utilize additional games as research tools in my education. My plan is to become a full time game designer, and further my investigations into contemporary applications of hypertext theory.
[edit] Michael Cox
I am a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Liverpool, UK and specialise in marine microbial ecology and biogeochemistry, particularly with respect to climate change. I fell down Perplex City's rabbit hole a few years ago and have been avidly following it on Unforum ever since, whilst lurking through a number of other ARGs. I'm interested in exploring the medium with respect to education and communication of science to the public. And also with respect to having fun.
[edit] Michael Lebowitz
I'm the Co-founder and CEO of Big Spaceship a digital creative agency with a significant focus on games of all kinds. The most relevant projects to this group are the Lost Oceanic-Air and Oceanic Flight 815 sites and related content and the original Hanso Foundation site. More about us here: www.bigspaceship.com
[edit] Michael Monello
I come from more of a film background than game or tech. In 1998 I formed Haxan Films with some fellow film school grads and we made The Blair Witch Project. Following that, we created a hybrid web/tv show called Freakylinks for Fox. While the TV show was bastardized from the original concept (losing much of the links to the web world, alas), the website kept its integrity for the entire year it was live. We have an archive of the Freakylinks site here: http:// www.haxan.com/portfolio.html
[edit] Michelle Senderhauf
I was intrigued by the concept behind Majestic and became a beta tester in 2001. It was the most "innovative" thing I had ever played, even with its many problems. Shortly before the game ended I had met a lovely farm boy from Wisconsin. He distracted me from the gaming world for a while by somehow convincing me to quit my job, marry him and have a child. Family couldn't keep me away long, as I returned to the community to play Chasing the Wish. I've since gone to the dark side and worked on many ARGs including the grassroots game Orbital Colony, Catching the Wish, Monster Hunter Club and World Without Oil. I'm currently doing contract work when I'm not busy drawing, painting or making cute cupcakes to make the other classroom moms envious.
[edit] Morbus Iff
(a.k.a. Kevin Hemenway) I've coauthored a few books for O'Reilly, tech-edited or contributed to a dozen others, and have written for Apple and MacTech magazine. I had a passing interest in The Beast, bought an Xbox and Halo because of ILB (and was heartily disappointed in Halo 2), and have been fiddling with Perplex City for the past year. I'm waxing poetic internally about what ARG to follow with PXC's now-indefinite postponing. AliceIsLost is currently high on that list. I joined the list a few weeks ago to get a better understanding of the PM side of things, mostly for curiosity. I have a slowly developing idea for an ARG (with optional micropayments) but know I wouldn't have the resources to do it myself (and would rather develop the world/plot and pass it to someone else).
[edit] Morgan Calhoon
My background is in board game and card game development (over four years), but I am now in my first year of graduate school studying games. I almost immediately became interested in Big Games - pretty much the complete opposite of board games. I love the whole idea of ARGs and plan on creating one for my MFA thesis project. I can't wait to get it started. I love coming up with new game systems and functionalities. This genre of games has a lot of potential. I invented a children's card game called Monster Maker a couple years ago. You can see other things I've done or am interested in at www.calhoonplay.com.
[edit] Naomi Alderman
I've been lead writer at Mind Candy, working on Perplex City, for the past 18 months and have come to the mysterious world of ARGs from the equally mysterious world of literary fiction. My first novel, Disobedience, will be published by Penguin in March 2006. This is me, but I don't usually look so stern: http://www.davidhigham.co.uk/html/Clients/Alderman I'm an academic in the field of Buffy studies (and proud). I am easily confused when people start talking in computer-related acronyms. I push bagels.
[edit] Olivier Buisson
I have had a strong interest in ARG for a few months and I am involved as a GateKeeper in Deus City. I am not a professional in the game or multimedia industries but I have been working in the Internet industry for about 7 years. To me, ARG is THE real experience of multimedia and I currently am trying to understand how the genre works behind the curtain and would like to help with the development of the genre.
[edit] Patrick Moeller
I am the senior editor and owner of the German news site ARGReporter (http://www.patmo.de/). We try to spread the word about Alternate Reality Games to our German readers and to bring them in contact with the Genre. Last year I moved to Berlin, where I am now working for a company called vm-people. We've had some projects that included ARG-Experiences to a certain point and we've had a German Alternate Reality Game last year, too. It was called "A posteriori" and was about the adventures of a young man named "Philipp Retingshof" with nine muses.
[edit] Piers Beckley
I PM'd Spooks Interactive for the BBC back in 2002. More recently I've been writing comedy theatre and living in Los Angeles. Not necessarily in that order. I'm neither short nor sweet.
[edit] Rob Cooper
I developed the Jamie Kane game for the BBC. As well as having a foot in the game design world, I'm also involved in the BBC's commissioning process so I guess I could be useful in providing a broadcaster's perspective.
[edit] Rob Zoeteweij
My real life entity, Rob Zoeteweij, is currently employed as a lecturer in videogame and simulation development at "Media aan de Maas" in the Netherlands. Long before he finished his finals project (were he worked on abusing stand alone DVD players as game consoles) Rob was recruited by his university's mentor to teach game design and development at the Rotterdam University of Professional Education. Now, having a bachelor's degree in ICT, he wanted to put his skills to some good use and specialized in game technology and virtual/augmented reality which is probably why he's such a huge fan of MMOG's. Alternate realities are a complete eye-opener for him. As his A.I. counterpart I can tell you he can't wait to get his gears going on the settings that could be created and perhaps combining them in an augmented world.
[edit] Ron Finch
I have not had much experience with ARGs, nor have I developed anything. I am fresh out of highschool, soon to be in college, and have entirely way too much free time. I am extremely interested in ARGs. Being someone without much experience, I look forward to learning as much as possible. During college, I hope to get into the development of my own ARG on campus, but I know I have a ways ahead of me.
[edit] Siobhan Thomas
I'm interested in the learning potential of ARGs, and research, in particular, pervasive learning games. A couple of years ago I developed a very basic ARG (heavily influenced by nokiagame and majestic) to teach economics and politics to 14 to 16 year olds. I've mostly been working on a model of pervasive learning, basically a set of design guidelines that can be used for the design and evaluation of pervasive learning. I teach at london southbank university and next semester I'll be teaching a class in ARG/ locative/ pervasive game design. I'm also part of the london game research group so if anyone out there is living in london would be good to see you at a meeting (we meet once a month).
[edit] Steffen Walz
in my academic life, i am currently pursuing my ph.d. at the swiss federal institute of technology in zurich; i am putting together a theory / taxonomy of serious pervasive game design, whilst realizing prototypes from time to time. basically, i am looking at ways to take advantage of, or develop game design principles, and combine them with emerging mobile, sensor, interface, positioning, gesture recognition technologies for non-entertainment purposes (education, marketing, policy making). currently, and together with colleagues at the RWTH aachen university, i am designing a location based spell-casting game for cell phones as a permanent service in the city of regensburg in germany, see http://www.rex-regensburg.de/im-stadtraum/rexplorer/ (sorry, only german at the moment). we call this type of mechanic "cellcasting";-).
[edit] Stine Ejsing-Duun
I am a PhD fellow researching ARGs and pervasive games. Besides research - or as a part of it - I am developing an ARG prototype as well. And finally I just like the games for the fun of it, so it nice to keep track of what is happening on the scene.
[edit] Thomas Svendsen
I'm a student at Aalborg University in Denmark at a study program called: "Human based informatics: Interactive media". I am currently writing my master which deals with AGRs used as a tool for learning. I am researching within the fields of game based learning, situated learning, pervasive learning and experimental learning. What is mostly interesting - from my point of view - is not the content of what is learned, but what drives the "students" to commit themselves to the learning situation and what sets their minds in "learning mode". I believe that both "fun" and "games" are keywords in the answers to question.
[edit] Tony Walsh
Tony Walsh is a creative developer and consultant with a background as a professional artist, writer, and designer. He has worked extensively in the field of interactive entertainment, primarily for the youth market. Past work has included game design and writing for the "ReGenesis" and "Ocular Effect" ARGs. Further details available at http://www.SecretLair.com/about
[edit] Wendy Despain
I came to ARGs by way of building official websites for television shows. Starting in 1997 and for almost eight years I managed all things Internet for some Gene Roddenberry and Marvel television projects. We won advertising awards for our ARG-related methods of bringing in viewers and getting them to stick to the shows. Most of the suits were on board and excited about our experiments blurring the lines of reality. We spilled it over into licensed novels and comics, too. These days I do contract/freelance work and develop some of my own projects. I'm also active on IGDA's Game Writing SIG, but I'm happy to have a more focused group for discussion about ARGs.
[edit] William Killeen
I am the Scenario Lead for an Instructional Alternate Reality Gaming project for an Information Technology firm. My job is to oversee the development of the ARG, working with a Technical Lead and an Instructional Designer to craft a sound learning scenario that makes use of current Web technologies. I am interested in developing a compelling ARG that meets our customer's training needs while also furnishing them with an enticing, interactive storyline. In my off-time, I write about technology and new media studies (http://williamkilleen.squarespace.com).
