Picked any cherries lately? Your shallow assessment of this still developing genre, while a scathing and "insightful" analysis of Big Business finding new ways to sucker punch us for our "hard-earned" (but undeserved) money, you have failed at any sort of comprehensive understanding due to your application of logical fallacy in your argument as well as your intent/presuppositions. In short, have you even read the reviews and commentary at ARGnet? Also, if you don't like what's out there, make a contribution of your own. Until then, you're just another blog spamming idiot.

Well duh. ARGs are advertising. Yes, most are. This is not news to anyone. Except maybe you, of course. And yet. Mostly ARGs are MORE fun than the product they are selling, when done well. THAT's what eager ARGrs look for.

Not all ARGs are "elaborate promotional campaign(s)". I have played more than a few that were made just for the love of the genre or because the creator wanted to tell a story in the format (e.g. Vaporlofts, Eldritch Errors, Must Love Robots). In fact, I would wager that most of the ARGs being played currently on Unfiction are grassroots games with no corporate sponsors - and more are being created every day. At least once a week I either see a new game launch or have a conversation with an aspiring Puppetmaster who wants to create their own ARG to tell a story because they just found out about the genre.

So, let's see here...

If I get what you're saying (and I think I do), your opinion is that ARGs suck because they're marketing products and only made for that purpose.

Hmmm.

I'm going to go ahead and leave this link here, feel free to peruse the threads there and realize that ARGs are not solely made by Big business.

http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/index.php?f=10&sid=65150b2869960d6c60e5a949cd6178c8

ARGing, as a genre of game play, is still VERY much in the toddler stages. There are indeed Ad Camps, I am not denying the fact that it is a successful way to advertise. Multi-Media Advertising is quickly becoming the wave of the future, so to speak. From "The Beast" {for the movie "AI" }, to "ILoveBees" {HALO 2}, "to Institute for Human Continuity" {2012} all the way to the games {or just virals that aren’t playable} that relate to "Cloverfield", "Lost", "Alias", and "District-9" - you have some good, you have some bad. Those are high profile, run by production companies with the kind of funding to be in your face - they are Ad Camps. They are supposed to be in your face. They are intended to SELL you things. They don't always work - I asked to day before writing this if a game I heard a lot about but never played myself was an Ad Camp or grassroots, and even a few people who had played the game didn't know it was an ad for anything, nor did the few I spoke to who had played the game purchase the product.

Now then, that being said, you obviously don't know half of what you THINK you know about Alternate Reality Gaming. There are more Grassroots games than Ad Camps, and some of the best ARGs, in my opinion, have been Grassroots {not run by production companies to advertise for anything, and are done purely for the passion of the game}.
Do a little actual research before you write an editorial.

It is, without a single doubt in my mind, unfortunate that people who don't bother to look at the genre only see the highly in you face aspect that goes along with certain kinds of Ad Camp games. The other end of that thought is that as someone who shows such distain for the genre, how dare you refuse to look to see if there is anything beyond that one issue.

Perhaps look up "Chasing the Wish" or "Urban Hunt" both HIGHLY successful Grassroots ARGs by the late Dave Szulborski. In fact, "Chasing the Wish" was so successful, there was a sequel game for it {"Catching the Wish"}. Another Grassroots game that was successful enough to warrant a sequel was "Sammeeeees" by the ever talented Jan Libby. How about "MetaCortechs" - a fan generated Grassroots Matrix ARG, granted riding the tail of a well known IP, but none the less Grassroots.

These are all games of the past, but looking at just one forum for one community of ARG players, there are many many MANY more.

I think the thing that gets me the most here though, is your statement that if these games existed beyond advertising, they would be fun and playable. So here is my response. I challenge you to go play, and have fun. Because they do exist, and yes, are highly fun.

So, your premise is "marketing is bad"? Why? You make it sound like if you play an ARG, afterwards, you'll be brainwashed into buying anything any corporation wants you to.

Why couldn't you just enjoy something because it's fun, original, compelling, engaging, even if it is marketing?

OMG! YOU ARE A THE WORST THING SINEC EVIL HITLER AND BUSH COMBINED!!!!!! QUIT ATTACKING ARGS BECAUSE I FEEL YOU ARE ATTACKING ME TWO!! NEXT TIME QUIT ACTING SO DUM.

Args are btter tahn all the oter games!!!!

YOU ARE JUST JEALOUS AND PBROLLY JUST STICK AN PLAY WOW OWR FINAL FANTSY ALL DAYD N NDONT KNOW THE MENAING OF TRUE EMERSION GAMEING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i play args and i think they are the best games because they require you to think and solve puzzles like real life so if you are on a web page you can solve all sorts of puzzles like to find clues sort of like when i go to work perhaps im driving and suddenly i spot clues in the road signs and i can assemble them to read a bigger message to find the missing woman like a secret code blue message for those in the know so that is not something you can do with conventional games which are the ones tied into marketing but most are not and are written by people just like me who play the games which is more than can be said about other elements of the industry

I personally take insult to this.

I play args because I am very intelligent. Or I like to think I am. Others would disagree. They might be right, but they do not play args!

It's like the open source of gaming!!!!

I'm wondering if maybe this post is real or maybe it's an arg. Maybe there's a hidden puzzle I can waste five hours of my life trying to solve like some obscure fucked up Murder She Wrote episode.