April 30, 2001

1:37 PM

As noted earlier this month, there are slew of websites connected to Spielberg’s AI. As it turns out, they are all part of an intricate game that stands to last long after the movie comes out. That game is called “movie marketing,” albiet terribly engrossing marketing.
posted by capt.crackpipe (7 comments total)

I find this whole concept incredibly fascinating. I just did a search on google and poked around some of the websites it turned up. The idea of a game in this format, one that requires legwork, phone calls, research, and general vigilance is exciting. The fact that it's linked to a movie somehow cheapens the thrill. If only there were a real prize associated with it. Either way, it could be the future of reality-based media games.

It reminds me of book a friend told me about in college. It was designed to appear like a beautifully illustrated children's book, but within the pictures were hidden clues (real clues to physical locations, in Europe I think). Anyway, the person who figured out the puzzle got to keep the treasure, a solid gold statuette of a rabbit, which was actually buried in some field. Does anyone know the name of the book I'm referring to?
posted by treedream at 2:17 PM on April 30, 2001

treedream, your idea sounds a lot like EA's Majestic. the game interacts with you through phone, fax, and e-mail. almost like a scavenger hunt, i guess. :)
posted by pnevares at 2:36 PM on April 30, 2001

pnevares: Cool, thanks for the heads up.
posted by treedream at 2:46 PM on April 30, 2001

In regards to the golden rabbit: check bunnyears.net. Apparently the prize has already been found.
posted by daver at 2:49 PM on April 30, 2001

There was some controversy, as I recall... ah. I see it's all explained, and it's even more sordid than I remembered. (The people who found it used personal knowledge of the artist through his ex-girlfriend to surmise where to run a metal-detector ... instead of solving the puzzle.)
posted by dhartung at 5:34 PM on April 30, 2001

I was interviewed briefly about the AI game in The Guardian. It really is quite a compelling story and surprisingly for a Hollywood project, it reads wonderfully well (e.g. the writers appear to have a good grasp of SF concepts). There's a great community that has built up around it at YahooGroups, called Cloudmakers. Check it out if you're interested, there are links to other resources there.
posted by adrianhon at 12:18 AM on May 1, 2001

It sounds entertaining, but remember that it is a marketing campaign. I probably wouldn't give my home phone number to one of those movie research people who hang out in the lobby of multiplexes, so I'm not likely to do it for a promotional website.
posted by Sqwerty at 8:02 AM on May 1, 2001