[arg_discuss] [pm] Commercial vs. Grassroots, Player or PM?

[Brooke Thompson]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: arg_discuss-bounces at igda.org [mailto:arg_discuss-bounces at igda.org]
> On Behalf Of Andrea Phillips
> Sent: Friday, March 31, 2006 5:17 PM
> To: Discussion list of the IGDA ARG SIG
> Subject: [arg_discuss] [pm] Commercial vs. Grassroots, Player or PM?




I think that I'm in a somewhat unique position to respond to this seeing as
I have a bit of experience on both the grassroots side and the professional
side of PMing.


Though, before I get into the distinctions that I see or don't see between
grassroots games and professional level games, I would like to make one
point about professional games. 

> I'm going
> to go out on a limb here and say that if you're a commercial
> designer, you want to convince the players to do something pertaining
> to a goal of yours. This comes back to that contentious relationship.
> A commercial ARG wants to ultimately convince you to buy puzzle
> cards, or see a movie, or buy a car, or a video game, or....
> something. It's selling an idea that sells a product. And... players

I do not think that all professional games are about selling a product,
instead, it's about building an awareness. Often times, it appears to me,
that the target audience is not even the players. It's the 'buzz' or the
'award potential'. 

I've worked on three types of professional level games and - one associated
with a television show, one associated with a product, and several
associated with corporate training. While the games themselves are unique
and have several very different issues, the business goals behind them are
incredibly similar and, I don't believe, all that different from a game
designed specifically to sell. They are all educating participants on
something, be it the tv show, alternative fuels (and the company that makes
cars that run those fuels), or how to more easily work through information
overload. They do this through engaging and immersive experiences that go
beyond the traditional scope of media programming, advertising/public
relations, and/or corporate training/education. Sure, Edoc Laundry and
Perplex City are both actively selling a product, and the game is designed,
in part to help sell those products (there has to be a return on the
investment of the game creation), but the best way to do that is by engaging
the players and creating an awareness about the product which, hopefully,
creates a desire to own. I guess that I just wanted to clarify that point,
from my point of view. And, it probably just leads to some sort of
discussion on the nature of selling and advertising and whether that is so
different from educating and creating an awareness. But those are the
business goals and far more mundane than the creative or artistic goals.


> Some of us here have only been players, and some of us have only been
> PMs. But for those of us who have been in both pairs of shoes, I
> think we largely identify with one group or the other. In my case, I
> identify a lot more strongly with the PM side of the curtain, and I'm
> forming a theory that grassroots PMs tend to identify more strongly
> with players.

I've also found, personally, that my identification level with the players
depends on the game and where I am placed in the production process. In the
corporate training games, for example, I am often 'burdened' with more
project management roles than I am in other projects. Because of this, my
identification level changes. I am still very aware of the players, but find
that my mind is so often focused on other tasks that my identification point
changes. In the promotional game, I'm contracted as a writer and so I've
been interacting much more closely with the players on a regular basis. The
vast majority of the production details are out of my hands and dealt with
by other people, there is no brain space taken up with those aspects and so
there is no time or need for me to identify with them. 

I don't see this as just applying to me, personally, either. In speaking
with and watching a coworker, who has never been a player and has never
worked on a grassroots campaign, it's very clear to me that he identifies
very strongly with the players and makes his gut decisions based on that
identification. I believe that this is because of the role that he has taken
in the production. This isn't to imply that he doesn't consider or identify
with the "PM side of the curtain", he does. It's just that he tends to more
strongly identify with the player side and his gut decisions strongly
reflect this.


> When you're making a game, you're making it for a reason. 

And this is where the goals of the business and the goals of the artist
diverge. We are all making ARGs for our own reasons and we are all on this
list for our own reasons. Some may be here because they are looking at ARGs
purely with a business goal, but I would bet that the vast majority of this
list is here because of an artistic drive.

The biggest difference between grassroots PMs and professional PMs is the
general lack of a business goal.


> But grassroots teams also, I think, make games to earn prestige in
> the eyes of the ARG community, and that's the bit that makes for the
> interesting divide. 

Perhaps I (and the Lockjaw team) am unique in the grassroots world, though I
doubt it, but when we made Lockjaw there was no ARG community to earn
prestige with. We came together because we loved the Beast and we loved the
idea of the potential of these games as enjoyable narrative play
experiences, though I don't believe that any of us quantified it in that
manner... we just really thought it was all pretty damn cool. And it came at
a time when we each had creative needs that needed fulfilled.

I have never done this for any sort of fame or prestige and, throughout my
life, I have shied away from attention and always preferred to work behind
the scenes (doing stage work instead of acting in the school plays, for
example). This isn't always easy when you're as opinionated and outspoken as
I tend to be ;)

Like most who got their start in the PM realm on a commercial or
professional team, I am here because I love the genre and the potential of
it. I love conceptualizing cross media design. I love considering ways to
bring the game into different spaces. I love to watch a community come
together and work through a story. And, I see that same passion time and
time again throughout the grassroots community.

And, honestly, the fact that you mention the prestige factor troubles me to
a degree. If you aren't actively following unfiction, you might not notice
the number of games that start and fail within weeks. There are many reasons
for these occurrences, but it was often because some young kid (often 14-18
years old) saw the ease at which a high caliber team (professional or
grassroots) was able to put together a game. They may have also seen players
putting these PMs up on a pedestal and saw it as an "easy" way to gain an
inroad into the community. Many of us have been working against this for
months (years?) now by attempting to put players on higher pedestals. This
is relatively easy for me because, as both a PM and a player, I am
constantly in awe of individuals in the community and the community as a
whole. When we see "overt fandom," we attempt to temper it through a variety
of means while still allowing the PMs to receive the credit that they
deserve. Yet, those that attempt a grassroots game because of the prestige
factor quickly either fail or realize the work that is involved and bail.
Those that successfully work their way through the process were not looking
for prestige but for other things. Those that are here are those that have
successfully worked their way through the process or, if they are just now
working on a game or considering working on a game, they are likely looking
at this for many other reasons. I don't mean to imply that some don't enjoy
the prestige factor or that it is never present, I just don't believe that
it is the driving motivation. I also, certainly, don't mean to speak for
others. So, if I'm wrong, please say so. And, honestly, I'd be curious to
know peoples motivations for creating games, even if it is for prestige :)