EdocLaundry
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Joystiq interviews Elan Lee of 42 Entertainment
For most gamers, 42 Entertainment gained notoriety after creating i love bees, a massive Alternate Reality Game (or ARG) that served as marketing for the launch of Halo 2 on the Xbox. Since then, Elan Lee has been busy. 42 invited poker fans to graveyards across the States as part of the promotion for GUN, and helped launch the Xbox 360 with a unique "casual ARG." Recent projects, however, are pushing Alternate Reality Games away from the world of marketing, and giving them a life of their own. In his chat with Joystiq, 42's VP of Experience Design discusses Cathy's Book, an attempt to design an ARG under the guise of a young girl's diary. We also discuss Microsoft's ARG mishaps with the Our Colony campaign, and EDOC Laundry, the first alternate reality clothing line.And it just so happens than Elan is wearing one of the code-embedded garments during our interview.For starters, great shirt. Is this your favorite piece of EDOC apparel?You know, my favorite EDOC shirt is one that's coming out next week. We've got a winter line coming out with these really cool hoodies and sweatshirts, and long-sleeve shirts. It's this very cool serpent print, with a really fun code on it, and I'm very excited about it.Are you excited because of the design, or because of the code?My favorite shirts are always ones where the code compliments the design. One of the main problems I had with Season 1, the shirts that are currently out, is that we designed all the shirts, and then thought "Holy crap, we've got no time. Let's just throw codes on all of these." And we just found random ways to throw on the codes. For Season 2, we had a lot more time, so I got to sit down with our art director, Shane Small, and we designed them all at the same time. So it was "Well, what if that guy's head was tweaked a little to the left, and it was a weird semaphore type of thing?" and "What if that strange emblem was..." So, all of my favorite shirts are ones where the code doesn't seem slapped on, and it seems like this really wonderful synergistic merge of code and design.
Wearable game launching soon
While alternate reality games of the past have been deployed as viral marketing campaigns for standalone video games, newer ARGs are looking to physical merchandise as a means of funding and distribution. ARGs are usually characterised by a trail of puzzles left across various in-game websites, solved by players working alone or together.However, new ARG EDOC Laundry differs from precedent; its puzzle trail is wearable, in the form of a boutique clothing line which launches in March. The designers hope that their "skater" style clothing will become a talking point, tapping into the puzzle-solving, game-playing subconscious. This isn't the first ARG to sell puzzles, but clothing is a novel direction for games in general as well as ARGs--it will be interesting to see if it takes off.
