Cloudmakers was the name of the Yahoo group created to tackle the online mystery alternate reality game, known as The Beast , designed around and to promote the film A.I. By the end of the game, it had more than 3,000 members, and was generating over 100 messages a day in email traffic.

The game was being developed as it was played, and while most players came to the plotlines after they had been solidified, the Cloudmakers group was constantly on the bleeding edge of the game, pushing the game's developers, influencing the plot. Warnings and messages sent by Cloudmakers members to characters in the story regularly turned up in the plot, and designs/blueprints and databases produced by the group were referenced by and even featured on in-game websites and magazines.

The game developers had sketched out a large number of possible scenarios, not all of which could be developed; in some instances, Cloudmakers members determined (through their investigations) which parts of the game world became part of the story.

External links

• The Cloudmakers Yahoo group