Part of the game is finding the game?

I just noticed this banner ad pop up when I refreshed the ATS home page a few times. I don't know if it is for the new game or if it was up before for the final answer game but it says:

Part of the game is finding the game.

The URL of the linked image is:

adserver.abovetopsecret.com...

which is the same as all the other banner ads, only it goes back to the ATS home page.

Is this for the current game (suggesting that the start of the game is somewhere on the ATS homepage) or is it for the old final answer game? Can anyone verify this?

beat you to it fiverz - posted the same thing

Good catch. I couldn't find that on the link you sent though. Now I've gotta look harder.

when you click the link it takes you back to the ats front page - meaning the start can be found somewhere on the site.

Time to find the game! Guess I'm not getting paid for a week or two ...

What just happened? did pages of posts here get deleted?

I also would like to know where they went?

Can anyone acess bonus.thefinalanswertoeverything.com... I'm getting a 403 Forbidden page when I go there.

Edit: This now on bonus.thefinalanswertoeverything.com
Sorry, bonus.thefinalanswertoeverything.com was a benign mini-hoax whipped up by me.

The question was: "keeps spinning in the mountains..."
The answer was: "testatika.html"

this lead to the following:
"Sorry guys, just couldn´t resist... Now let´s find the real game together!"

Unfortunatly it seems I´ve been banned over this, despite my eplanation to SO... :-(

Maybe Mechanic32 as well, but he shouldn´t be as he was not in on it.

Goodbye guys.. Stay skeptic.

HardToGet

Well, that sucks. Time to go look for the real game.

[edit on 3-8-2006 by codylawyer99]

Guess I should be glad that I couldn't get to the site after all.

Man, that sucks. I thought it was legit but glad the three wise dudes stopped it in a hurry.

Still, it won't disuade me from finding the real game.

I guess i'm just a bit dazed as to why two distinguished members would risk banning themselves over a stupid stunt like that.

[edit on 3-8-2006 by Freenrgy2]

Well now that the hoax mess is over ... back to my original idea. Does anyone know if that banner was up during the other game? It might be a leftover ... or it might not be.

I dont believe the 'part of the game is finding the game' was up during the game. It was replaced by 'the final answer to everything' banner shortly after the game was officially anounced as an ATS game.

Ok time to start looking. The game IS on somewhere ... and it's on the site somewhere. I'm gonna start looking for some UFO stuff.

I located This post in the Space Exploration forum which is intriguing. ATS has used freely available sites in the past for games. This kind of ties in with the "out there" clue and I remember a mod sporting a planet avatar recently and a planet is the icon for this forum.

My guesses are usually wrong but I figured I'd throw this out there.

I missed all the hoax stuff and my thread was trashed so I don't know if this was addressed but prior to the trashing a tag was added that read htg sig.

might be a clue to where to begin.

Yea I've seen that before ... I don't think it's related but it was worth taking a look at

I'm thinking it has to be another off-site URL ... I'm not entirely convinced that it will be a link here on ATS though ... maybe just some text mentioning it. Good thing my weekend starts now

That was part of a hoax ... a spoofed website of thefinalanswer. We are back to square one of having nothing but ATS's post about the game, and the blinking banner.

Okay, I got the flashing link... clicked it, got to the ATS main page.

I've been scanning it over, clicking some things etc... nothing happens....

However one thing stands out to me...

Under the "Hot Discussions" section at the top of the page... theres a thread that still shows up, even though you can't reply to it or even read what it was...

it simply says...

Part Of The Game...

It appears to be a "trashed thread" that is in the mods trashbin.... but why would it continue to show up on the "hot Discussions" page, shouldnt it just go away...???

Just a though.

[edit on 4-8-2006 by elevatedone]

That was a thread that got trashed last night due to the "finalanswertoeverything bonus" hoax. I'm guessing it still shows up there because it it's an automatic thing when a thread recieves 25 replies.

[edit on 4-8-2006 by Fiverz]

The game is out there according to Springer.

Could it be a clue?