Reflections from the amazing communal experience that was ARGFest-o-Con from the POV of the search for independence during my Death by Junket: the most amazing and terrifying phase of any independent arts movement is when it is a scene but still growing. Scenes are different than industries or genres or movements (although they sometimes grow into those things if they are successful) because they can maintain a sense of intimacy and collaboration -- what you have in common with other members of the scene tends to transcend whatever differences there might be.

The alternate reality gaming scene is at the beautiful, magical and fragile phase in its lifetime. What maybe started as the merging of fan bases of different games has, for a while now, been a scene of its own. It's intimate enough for most people to know each other, at least through the contributions if not personally. That intimacy breeds open collaboration on how to promote the scene overall. At the same time, the academic world is looking at ARGing more and more, just as the advertising world and gaming worlds and entertainment worlds are. The scrutiny of the scene by "outsiders" or "newcomers" is becoming a large shadow on the intimacy.

There was a meta conversation not happening among the scene, but starting to bubble. That meta conversation right now sounds like fears. Elan Lee said he worried if the genre could hit a wall, that all of this could end. Jane McGonigal voiced similar fears. My version was "how do we produce more self-sustaining work and less corporate-sponsored work?"

In reflection, I think it is inevitable that the "ARG scene" will come to end. That's what scenes do -- they are artistic moments in time among a finite set of devotees. Some become historical treasures, like the Beat Movement, that have impact on other things even if they don't survive as living movements. Others, like the independent film movement of the 60s and 70s grow into industries ... they become something different than a scene, but sustainable over multiple generations of artists. Others scenes become genres, metastasized communities that are more loosely connected, the way "comedy" metastasizes from theater or "science fiction" metastasizes from literature.

The sad thing about a scene is that it almost never lasts; the forces of growth always end up changing into something else. For example, a trait that the independent film industry (not a scene) has that the alternate reality gaming scene (not an industry) doesn't have is the cycles of rebellion -- every decade or so, a new generation of indie filmmakers comes along to rattle the cages of those who have grown complacent. That only starts happening when groups and companies have it down well enough to start calcifying instead of adapting. If you buy into the idea that one day the ARG scene might grow into a small indie industry, you've got to imagine an industry susceptible to needing waves of rebellion against status quos to fuel creativity.

In the meantime, what makes a great scene, how do you prolong the length of that phase (or do you even want to) and what do you gain from that? I think these are the kinds of questions that the scene needs to be asking of itself, and part of that means dreaming what the scene would want to become. For much of my life, I've been fascinated by the impact of scenes on the cultural landscape, such as the importance of Tangiers in American modern culture or how a year without a summer forever changed the horror genre. The commonality among these kinds of experiences, these scenes, seems to be that intense collaboration and influence on each others' work drive artistic summits that have long, long resonances. Maybe that's what a scene should try to accomplish before it starts to become something other than scene.