[arg_discuss] Re: Communities and resources

[Adrian Hon]

Hi all,

I don't think anyone has yet attempted to answer Colin's questions,  
but I'll give it a go.

> Are places like Unfiction.com considered critical to the success of  
> your
> games?

Unfiction and ARGN are both very influential websites. It is  
sometimes hard to believe this as a player since the absolute number  
of registered members on Unfiction is not *that* big, but in terms of  
Google hits and opinion-forming on the web, pretty much all ARG  
developers have to take into account both sites. That doesn't mean  
wanting to change them - I think both sites quite rightly prize their  
independence - but new ARGs, especially ones developed by smaller  
groups or companies, still have to be aware of them.

But the sheer number of opinion-formers who read ARGN for their  
news... it's pretty incredible, and it's worth pointing out that a  
good writeup on ARGN can drastically improve a small game's fortunes.

> Do you plan to target these audiences?

When Perplex City started out, it was totally unknown and was not  
tied to another brand. We had to build from the grassroots, and the  
grassroots were Unfiction and ARGN. So to begin with, we had to  
target the UF and ARGN audience, although we always aimed to grow  
beyond them while still keeping their interest.

(incidentally, I don't see this as 'us' and 'them'. If it seems like  
I'm speaking in that way, it's unintentional, since if I wasn't a  
developer, I'd be a player on UF).

> Do you think they help or hinder the genre?

They help them. Things would be much harder if ARGN and Unfiction  
didn't exist, both for players and developers. That's not to say that  
if I was some omnipotent being I wouldn't change them, but I  
recognise that that's not in my hands.

> Are player created guides helping your ARG, or are they just confusing
> new-comers? Do you depend on them, or make your own in-game guide?

None of our players is currently maintaining a guide for Perplex  
City. I don't particularly blame them because it's a very tough job.  
It doesn't help that Perplex City has been live for 12 months and  
counting - if I were a player maintaining a guide from the beginning,  
I would've given up by now.

That said, Guides are very helpful. When I wrote the Guide for The  
Beast, I found it very helpful for myself (in fact, that's the reason  
why I started it) and I regularly received emails from other players  
who used it. The number of hits on the Guide was also very high.

Guides aren't perfect though. The entire Guide to the Beast exceeded  
60,000 words by the end, which is clearly far too much for a newcomer  
to take in just to get up to speed; while it had the advantage of  
detail, it didn't summarise the plot. I considered doing a summary  
and then discarded the idea when I realised that I'd have to rewrite  
the summary regularly. I also attempted writing a Guide for Perplex  
City but it ran into the same problems.

Guides are particularly relevant to this discussion because they  
essentially obviate the need for people to follow the forums (usually  
UF) in order to follow the game. Following the forums is very time- 
consuming because there is inevitable and necessarily a lot of noise  
amidst the signal. However, if you have a good and regularly updated  
Guide (or an equivalent), then it's much less time-consuming for  
someone to follow the game, and that's a good thing for everyone.

Of course a bad Guide would be confusing for newcomers, but I can't  
say I've seen a bad Guide yet.

As for forums, I imagine that our players will eventually migrate to  
other player-created sites that cater to Perplex City specifically  
(for example, they already use perplexcitytrades.com) as we get bigger.

I should also add that player-created wikis are really great  
resources, and because they are written collaboratively and are  
reference materials rather than walkthroughs, they lend themselves to  
being well maintained by the players.

Adrian

--
Adrian Hon - mssv.net
Executive Producer and Director of Play, Mind Candy
mindcandydesign.com - newmars.com - ibiblio.org/astrobiology