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Oddly, true Alternate Reality Games [0] peaked in the mid-to-late 2000s, even as the world has shrunk by orders of magnitude since. Perhaps that's the period wh

Oddly, true Alternate Reality Games [0] peaked in the mid-to-late 2000s, even as the world has shrunk by orders of magnitude since. Perhaps that's the period when the internet itself was at its most Unknown, before the great silofication of everything. [0] ...as opposed to, say, ads with base64 "puzzles" tacked on or narrative-less viral videos with arbitrary distortion.

jmcgough 5y ago
ARG for promoting films / games kinda peaked as a guerilla marketing campaign then. Once it became less novel, less money was spent on developing them. But yeah they become a lot less compelling when it's solved so quickly and there's wikis devoted to them.
- EamonnMR 5y ago
  ARGs for promoting nothing seem to be on the rise (I don't have links to back that up though.)
jacurtis 5y ago
> true Alternate Reality Games peaked in the mid-to-late 2000s I agree. Early 2000's were the glory years of the internet. The internet was powerful enough to be bringing people together that could have never communicated or met before. It allowed niche interest groups to connect so that these types of stories and mysteries could proliferate and spread, but it was not so widespread and attention-focused that the mysteries dissolved. I'm actually surprised that this mystery survived into 2018. I would have expected some Tik Tok/Instagram/YouTube/Facebook influencer to camp out all week with a camera to find the mystery re-stocker like they were hunting santa clause. The video would go viral for 8 hours, the influencer would get their 15 mins of fame, then the mystery would be forever ruined. The internet would forget that there was ever a time when we didn't know how this machine worked, and the mystery would cease to exist. Edit: Ok, apparently someone did camp out and ruined the mystery, spotting who restocks it. [Source - If you really want to know, but the mystery will be ruined...](https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2014/05/spoiler-alert-mystery-of-the-capitol-hill-mystery-coke-machines-mysteries-revealed/ https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2014/05/spoiler-alert-mys...)
- Aeolun 5y ago
  Well, it’s clear now! TBH, that picture couldn’t give us less information if it tried…
- lamontcg 5y ago
  > I agree. Early 2000's were the glory years of the internet. You know how every generation thinks that the music they grew up with was the best and its all gone downhill from there? Well, lemme tell you little shits a story about Usenet and Eternal September...
  - EamonnMR 5y ago
    I've been searching for a natural way to browse pre-eternal-september Usenet. Google Groups is less than ideal.
    - randomswede 5y ago
      Any "archived" way would require some serious effort to emulate the delay. Especially if you chose to experience it from (say) Australia.
    - ornornor 5y ago
      Of course I can’t find I now, but there was a website that let you read today’s Usenet from 30 years ago in real time.
- anthk 5y ago
  > Early 2000's were the glory years of the internet. Oh, poor youngster... Late 90's were damn anarchy on NNTP servers, videos, IRC channls full of nerds and not nerds...

jmcgough 5y ago

ARG for promoting films / games kinda peaked as a guerilla marketing campaign then. Once it became less novel, less money was spent on developing them. But yeah they become a lot less compelling when it's solved so quickly and there's wikis devoted to them.

EamonnMR 5y ago
ARGs for promoting nothing seem to be on the rise (I don't have links to back that up though.)

jacurtis 5y ago

> true Alternate Reality Games peaked in the mid-to-late 2000s I agree. Early 2000's were the glory years of the internet. The internet was powerful enough to be bringing people together that could have never communicated or met before. It allowed niche interest groups to connect so that these types of stories and mysteries could proliferate and spread, but it was not so widespread and attention-focused that the mysteries dissolved. I'm actually surprised that this mystery survived into 2018. I would have expected some Tik Tok/Instagram/YouTube/Facebook influencer to camp out all week with a camera to find the mystery re-stocker like they were hunting santa clause. The video would go viral for 8 hours, the influencer would get their 15 mins of fame, then the mystery would be forever ruined. The internet would forget that there was ever a time when we didn't know how this machine worked, and the mystery would cease to exist. Edit: Ok, apparently someone did camp out and ruined the mystery, spotting who restocks it. [Source - If you really want to know, but the mystery will be ruined...](https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2014/05/spoiler-alert-mystery-of-the-capitol-hill-mystery-coke-machines-mysteries-revealed/ https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2014/05/spoiler-alert-mys...)

Aeolun 5y ago
Well, it’s clear now! TBH, that picture couldn’t give us less information if it tried…
lamontcg 5y ago
> I agree. Early 2000's were the glory years of the internet. You know how every generation thinks that the music they grew up with was the best and its all gone downhill from there? Well, lemme tell you little shits a story about Usenet and Eternal September...
- EamonnMR 5y ago
  I've been searching for a natural way to browse pre-eternal-september Usenet. Google Groups is less than ideal.
  - randomswede 5y ago
    Any "archived" way would require some serious effort to emulate the delay. Especially if you chose to experience it from (say) Australia.
  - ornornor 5y ago
    Of course I can’t find I now, but there was a website that let you read today’s Usenet from 30 years ago in real time.
anthk 5y ago
> Early 2000's were the glory years of the internet. Oh, poor youngster... Late 90's were damn anarchy on NNTP servers, videos, IRC channls full of nerds and not nerds...