It started with a cryptic ad on an official Internet Explorer blog, and it quickly led curious puzzle players to what may be one of the most ambitious interactive sweepstakes in history.
The ad, which appeared on December 21, was comprised of a small black box with a long numerical and alphabetical code and was surrounded by the words, "Most of you won't figure this out," as well as a URL.
This was the beginning of Vanishing Point, the newest large-scale project from 42 Entertainment, the firm behind popular alternate-reality games such as I Love Bees, The Beast and Last Call Poker.
Vanishing Point is a hybrid game--part alternate-reality game, or ARG, part traditional sweepstakes--that's actually a marketing vehicle for Microsoft's Windows Vista. As a lure, Microsoft is giving away a $220,000 suborbital flight on a four-seat plane that can reach altitudes of up to 330,000 feet and that provides several minutes of weightlessness. Neither 42 Entertainment executives nor Microsoft would say how much the software giant is paying 42 to create and manage the contest.
There appears to be significant buzz surrounding Vanishing Point and its ambitious series of scheduled events in cities around the world. The first occurred January 8 at Las Vegas' Bellagio resort, during the giant Consumer Electronics Show, when organizers projected a lengthy puzzle-filled video onto the mist from the venue's famous fountains. The game is expected to conclude before Vista's January 30 consumer launch.
Despite that opening splash during CES, however, some question whether anyone will remember the link between the game and Vista.
"I'm not much interested in who's putting on the contest, as long as I have a chance to win," said Jonathan Waite, a senior editor at ARGNet, an online news and community site devoted to ARGs. "The next big question is will (people) buy Vista because they enjoyed Vanishing Point? I don't think there's going to be a big swing in Vista sales because of (the) game."
While it's difficult for game developers to measure a hard return on their investment in time and money, creating buzz may well be enough for them.
"It's definitely a lot less expensive than people have assumed," said Brian Marr, Microsoft's group marketing manager for Windows Vista. "I don't know what a Super Bowl ad costs (last year's ads reportedly cost $2.6 million for a 30-second spot). You get a month's worth of entertainment for the same price."
Unlike previous 42 Entertainment projects, Vanishing Point is not a pure ARG. According to Elan Lee, 42's vice president of design, it's quite different structurally from an ARG, but it does have some of the elements of that genre.
