Horse eBooks and Pronunciation Book Join for ARG

Bear Stearns Bravo, an alternate reality game, launched today as the creators of Horse eBooks and Pronunciation Book revealed their partnership.

The creator of Horse eBooks has been doing more than just horsing around with a series of disjointed tweets. This morning at the Fitzroy Gallery in New York City, the creators of both the strange Twitter account and YouTube channel Pronunciation Book revealed they teamed together to make an interactive video called Bear Stearns Bravo. Jacob Bakkila, creative director of Buzzfeed, and Thomas Bender, previous vice president of product development at Howcast, have been working together on the game for four years.

This morning, Horse eBooks tweeted a link to a Pronunciation Books video called “How to Pronounce Horse_ebooks.” A link in the video description and another tweet linked to the new alternate reality game where you are either a banker or a regulator. It starts out like a normal video, but gives you options to click to take different paths in a story taking place in Los Angeles.

Bear Stearns Bravo also leads to BravoNET, where you can sign up for…something for $7. You sign up as a banker or a regulator, and joining grants a lifetime membership to BravoNET and access to “Second Impact.” Features of the “art project” are access to a “revolutionary computer network with full-text message boards and personalized interDactive modules. News, sports, stock quotes…romance?”

Bakkila and Bender said they will no longer maintain Horse eBooks and Pronunciation Book. “No one wants to work on a painting forever,” Bakkila said. “When it’s done, it’s done. We’re ready for the experience of whatever this next piece is.”

Source: Bear Stearns Bravo, The New Yorker