Does anyone know what LastCallPoker.com is all about?
I discovered LastCallPoker.com today through my news service and find myself wondering what the story there is.
They have a fairly attractive Java client running on proprietary software and evidently have only play money games (with no ads or sponsorship), which is weird.
And they are having cemetary-based events in the US? Huh? This is one of the most unusual things I've seen a site in the online gaming industry do, which leads me to assume the people doing this aren't in the industry. They're WAY too creative, and more likely ad agency types with too much time on their hands (and coffee in their veins) in their fancy offices in NY or Miami.
I say that because the back-story is surreal and might I say a tad insane?
I think the entire site an odd viral marketing campaign for some large brand or movie. The costs for developing the client and server technology are staggering (though without the tournaments, banking or anti-fraud components probably not unaffordable), particularly when there's no direct ROI from rake or fees. So only a company with some fairly deep pockets could do this. I would guess that it's BK trying for a repeat of the staggering success they had last year with Subservient Chicken, but I guess it could also be Coke or some other retailer trying for a HUGE push as part of a large halloween campaign in North America. Are there ads or billboards anywhere in N/A that you might have seen?
If anyone knows the story on this, please let me know.
1 Comments:
Yes. You're close with the "viral marketing" comment.
LastCallPoker.com is an alternate reality game (ARG), an interactive mystery played out both online and in real-world spaces (in this case, apparently, in cemetaries), in which a community of people come together to solve the mystery, interact with characters via phones, chat, and other media, solve puzzles, and generally have a good time.
Often ARGs are used as marketing tools, but generally very little reference to the actual product is made.
For example, the first ARG, known as the Beast, was a promotion for the movie A.I. but made no reference to it. Similarly, a recent ARG that's gotten a lot of press (done by the same company as the Beast -- with much of the storyline written by multi-award-winning author Sean Stewart) is Ilovebees, which was a promotion for the video game Halo 2. While it took place in the same fictional universe as the Halo games, it made no reference to any of the characters or plot elements contained therein. It was a separate self-contained story. You don't have to buy the products to enjoy the ARG -- the company's purpose in sponsoring it is to generate buzz, not necessarily to sell the product to the ARG players (although it's not out of the realm of possibility that some of us buy the product out of sheer gratitude for the experience, even if we weren't particularly interested in the product itself).
Returning to Last Call Poker, it is also an ARG, with an intriguing storyline revolving around a Navy Colt Pistol that everyone seems to want, connections between people who were involved in WWII together, and messages hidden in hands of poker. We've had the chance to interact with several of the characters, and it's been good fun all around.
There's already a large and fairly well-established community working together on solving the mystery.
Come visit us at Unfiction. At the very least, you'll gain some poker buddies.
Your first ARG is almost always a completely unforgettable experience.
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