***UPDATE***
Would someone please leave me a comment and explain why this post has had more than 500 hits over the past two days? I normally don't see nearly this level of traffic so I'm curious...
--Original Post Begins--
Call this number: 13102951040. Really. Try it.
What you’re listening to is part of a viral marketing campaign by the rock band Nine Inch Nails for their upcoming album Year Zero. Three days ago fans of band realized that highlighted letters on a tour t-shirt contained an embedded message leading to the website Iamtryingtobelieve.com. Since then fans have discovered about half a dozen other web sites, several audio recordings including a leaked album track, and the phone number listed above.
Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) are real time interactive games that use a variety of media to create the illusion that the player is functioning within an alternate reality. Player actions often drive the plot and characters, websites, and phone numbers behave as if they are real. The storyline of “Year Zero” takes place in a oppressive, dystopian future in which the US government routinely drugs it’s citizens, violates their civil rights, and isolated individuals choose violent resistance. Stir in the supernatural “presence” and the stage has been set for a dark and disturbing game
ARGs are intrinsically tied to internet communities as the internet allows for the dissemination of clues and information. These communities seem to rapidly coalesce around a game and demonstrate some emergent properties, similar to what occurs on Wikipedia, as they draw upon the insights and knowledge of community members to figure out what is happening. Conversation threads from year zero have so far required knowledge of computer graphics, audio recording, chemistry, and the Spanish language.
Although I’ve read about ARGs before, I’ve never followed an active one. I’m very curious to see what happens to community once the mystery has been resolved and I would anticipate that they normally dissipate relatively quickly. However, the Year Zero game seems to be piggy backing on the pre-existing Nine Inch Nails fan base so that may not be the case. Regardless I will be watching this with interest.
For the curious here are links to related sites.
http://www.consolidatedmailsystems.com/nooneimportant/#
http://bethehammer.net/
http://anotherversionofthetruth.com/
http://anotherversionofthetruth.com/forum.htm
http://105thairbornecrusaders.com/
http://churchofplano.com/
Labels: viral ARG community year zero
