Issue date: 12/7/07 Section: Campus News

Media Credit: Matt Keyser

It began with a few one-dollar bills. Found at the San Diego Comic-Con, the bills had been defaced with the web address whysoserious.com, which led to a website where the Joker (the Batman villain) offered jobs as henchmen, with a prize for those willing to run his gauntlet. Before the day was over, fans had gathered at a specified location in San Diego specified by the site to read a phone number written in the sky, and followed an elaborate scavenger hunt around the city which ended with one fan being "abducted" and "murdered" by armed thugs who mistook him for the real Joker.
It was all part of an Alternate Reality Game (ARG for short) designed by 42 Entertainment to promote the upcoming release of The Dark Knight, the new Batman movie starring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger. 42 Entertainment was the same group who organized the ARGs for Halo 2 (ilovebees), the Nine Inch Nails album Year Zero (Art Is Resistance), Activision's first person shooter Gun (Last Call Poker) and the grandaddy of all ARGs for the Steven Speilberg movie A.I. (known as The Beast). ARGs are part scavenger hunt, part dinner theatre: participants hunt for clues on the Web and in real life, and communicate with game characters and organizations through emails, phone calls, letters and specially arranged events that play out in real time.
The Joker's plans for his new clowns continued. After sending them out to take photos of themselves in Joker facepaint in famous locations and revealing clues which led to the discovery of over 10 more Gotham City-related websites, he sent players to pick up cakes at 22 locations around the US. Each cake, reserved under the name "Robin Banks," contained a cell phone and bore a phone number in frosting. Those 22 lucky players are, at the time of writing, still waiting for their next instructions. In the meantime, whysoserious.com listed 5 IMAX theatres nationwide where the first 7 minutes of The Dark Knight (previously only screened for critics) would be shown free to fans.
This is where I enter the story. I printed out two tickets, but ended up going alone to Loews Lincoln Square 13 IMAX in the city. After rushing home from work, running out of money on my Metrocard and struggling to find a card vendor, and almost having my stop skipped by the subway driver, I arrived and got in line with only minutes to spare. Myself and at least a hundred other fans climbed the stairs to the top floor of the theatre and entered the massive IMAX theater for our reward.
Well, I won't spoil anything for you - you can Google it if you're dying to know what happens. Suffice it to say that the new Joker is a devious, doublecrossing and ultimately brilliant maniac who puts Jack Nicholson and Cesar Romero (the two previous stars to fill the Joker's shoes) to utter shame. On the way out of the theater, we received complimentary copies of The Gotham Times, a 4-page paper created to promote the ARG. I'm staying glued to this ARG until its end, and definitely seeing The Dark Knight when it comes out.
Interested in playing? Visit http://whysoserious.com to dive right in, or http://batman.wikibruce.com to get up to speed on all the details.

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