Every once in a while I have to field the question “Why are you trying to trick people into believing Martin Aggett is a real person?”. So I thought I would tell the story of how Martin Aggett was “born” to help explain that The Martin Aggett Story is not intended to be a hoax.

Early in 2008, I started to research ways to tell stories with modern technologies and social media.  I had been working on a story idea for about ten years and the narrative had grown into more than just a traditional linear book.  I wanted to adapt it into some kind of modern choose your own adventure story (which now has “secret online endings”! – how cool is that?).  That research led me to the wonderful world of alternate reality games.

After studying current and past games I noticed that many of the characters in these stories were very superficial.  Especially in the grassroots games that didn’t use characters with established identities from traditional media and other intellectual property.

I wanted my characters to have depth.  I wanted them to be complex.  I wanted them to be as realistic as possible, and to have an online history that went back more than a couple weeks when the game started.  With that goal in mind I quietly created several social media accounts for my protagonist, Martin Aggett, to begin the process of establishing his authenticity.

Another shortfall of grassroots or independent ARGs, I decided, was the limited ability to attract a large audience in the introductory stages of a new game.  To solve this problem I decided to connect with people who regularly play ARGs using the social media accounts I created for Martin.  I thought that when the game launched and people discovered that someone with whom they’d interacted with for months was a fictional character that they would be excited to participate in the game.  In hindsight I realize that was a very naive hypothesis.

So, while I developed my own Alternate Reality Game, Martin began making friends on Facebook, gathered followers on Twitter, participated in online discussions, played several grassroots ARGs, and was even a guest on the ARG Netcast and had an article published at ARGN.com.

After Martin Aggett had interacted with people online for almost a year without revealing his fictional nature I came to a crossroads. Many of the people that I had come to know through the character of Martin Aggett were encouraging him to attend ARGfest 2009 in Portland.  It was then that I realized that if I attended ARGfest in character as Martin and made real friendships and connections with people that they would feel betrayed and foolish when I revealed Martin to be fictional.  In truth, I had already formed friendships with people online through Martin’s character and many people felt betrayed, angry, and foolish for believing he was a real person when I finally revealed his fictional nature just prior to attending ARGfest.  (to be continued…)