FW: [arg_discuss] Re: Communities and resources

[despain at quantumcontent.com]

"Colin Gehrig" <colin at colin.com.au> wrote a lot of things I agreed with,
but I thought I'd try answering the question he asked (at least from the
commercial ARG perspective):

> Another new question to the list: How would you feel about a website
> that Reviewed ARGs? Almost every other form of entertainment has some
> form of review. However ARGs suffer from having a curtain, and only
> being played through once, hence a review is less practical because the
> game can't be pre-viewed. Is there still merit in it? Would you be
> willing to 'preview' part of your game to a reviewer? Does the idea of
> receiving a score or mark for your game seem too scary, an unnecessary
> risk?

I'm not sure how I feel about letting someone from the outside in ahead of
launch. Of course, launch is one of those tricky things about ARGs. How do
you say "Hey everyone, come play this ARG!" and still maintain "this is
not a game."

Sure we have to acknowledge it at some point, but I think we're still
negotiating where that point is.

Hypothetically speaking, I think someone getting a "sneak peek" would have
to be a) proven trustworthy ahead of time b) forbidden from playing the
actual game after launch and c) asked to be obtusely descriptive instead
of quantitative.

By this I mean... I don't think the people footing the bill would like to
hear you're putting out an ARG that gets 3 out of 5 stars - before it even
launches. Can you say "back to the drawing board at the 11th hour"?

But if a reviewer/previewer could help point players toward games they
might like to play (which I'm sure is ultimately the objective) - that's
good for both player and developer.

Then I wouldn't have a problem with someone putting up post-game critiques
(we had high hopes but ultimately, I'd give it 3 out of 5 stars) in the
same space as their preview. I'd hope that they critique the player
performance as well as the design, though. This is ultimately a
collaborative form of entertainment.

Wendy Despain
quantumcontent.com