moto's blog

Alternate Reality Games, or ARG for short, has been the topic of discussion for the past few classes.  An ARG can be defined as 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 the participants' ideas or actions. In the way most people are chosen for an ARG is either if they post their video or sign up i.e. Top Secret Dance Off, or the player is has been chosen already by the "puppet master" or the creator of the ARG. However, when is it ok to draw the line when one is chosen by a "puppet master" and say, enough is enough. 

We had started discussing ARGs in class on Monday afternoon, and Professor Whalen had told us to try and look for the puzzles around us, that anything could be a clue in an ARG.  Coincidentally, before my Environmental Science class on Tuesday, my girlfriend had called me saying she recieved a phonecall on her cellphone with a voice recording, a picture sent to her inbox, and the missed call.  I thought to myself "hey this could be a chance to try one of these things."  The recording said "I want to talk to you, follow the clues." I have still not seen the picture nor have I heard the voicemail, however, she told me that it was a guy from Palestine.

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For this assignment, we have been asked to kind of reflect and analyze our previous blog entries.  For many of my blog entires, I have kept the same theme writing about video games, however my blogs are all different in one way or another.  My first blog was written about video gaming as a profession and if it should be considered a real profession, while the next two were about past games and giving credit to previous games, and finally my latest blog entry was a review on the new Left 4 Dead 2 game coming out in November. 

My only real reoccuring theme within my blogs is that I seem to reveiew things more than give an opinion on the subject I am writing about.  For example, in the Left 4 Dead 2 blog entry, I was trying to get my point across that I don't believe Valve was right in coming out Left 4 Dead 2 within a year of the first Left 4 Dead.  However, it just seems to me as if I reviewed the game itself, and did not really get my point across on the subject.  That goes for the Farmville entry as well, it just seems to be a review of the facebook application instead of how Zanga should give a little credit to Animal Crossing (yes I made a mistake in the name) and Harvest Moon.

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Now I'm sure over 90 percent of both classes has a facebook and that they check it religiously, but how furstrating is it to get countless notifications saying "You have just receieved a sheep from...."  Everytime you click the link it takes you to the application known as Farmtown.  Farmtown is a game where the player is given an empty lot of land and he or she can do what ever they want with it, just as long as they are growing crops and earning money from them.  However, is there really any orginiality to Farmtown?

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For those of you who will dismiss the idea of Professional Gaming I am here to tell you otherwise that it can become bigger than most sports if it is given the chance. The article posted by Lisa Baertlein about professional Counter Strike 1.6 Team “Team 3-D” captain Dave “moto” Geoffen supports the idea that gaming can become a career. At 24 years old, he works about 50 hours a week and expects to make upwards of 60,000 dollars by playing Counter Strike 1.6 for a living.

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