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

[Brooke Thompson]

There are all sorts of categories and whatnots that we could play with. We
could even play with fun and annoying words such as "advergaming" and
"edutainment" or break it off into games that are purely promotional (Last
Call Poker and others), those that run along side a product (ReGenesis),
those that run along side a product and also sell their own product (Perplex
City), and on and on. The point that I made which, you're right, was
"splitting hairs", was that ultimately they each have a very similar
business goal and, I think, this is true whether it's a marketing effort or
an educational effort... it's about building awareness. In one case it's an
awareness about a product and in another it's an awareness of a particular
subject matter. I felt that "building an awareness" was a more inclusive
term than "selling" or "marketing".

But all in all, it is just nit-picking :)







> -----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 10:50 PM
> To: Discussion list of the IGDA ARG SIG
> Subject: Re: [arg_discuss] [pm] Commercial vs. Grassroots, Player or PM?
> 
> On Mar 31, 2006, at 10:33 PM, Brooke Thompson wrote:
> 
> > I agree that it's splitting hairs, to a degree. But, I think it's an
> > important distinction when one considers the ARGs used in educational
> > settings (I know of several used to support school curriculum) and
> > corporate
> > training. Those are not about selling or marketing, however they
> > are about
> > building awareness. There's a game that I'm aware of that's in very
> > early
> > development stages that will work on social awareness of a local
> > public
> > policy. Is it selling? Marketing?
> >
> > So, splitting hairs? Perhaps. More accurately defining? I think so.
> >
> > ARGs do not have to have to be run along side a product or serving
> > as a
> > promotional tool and, as someone actively working in another
> > environment, I
> > suppose that I'm a bit sensitive to people limiting discussion to
> > that.
> 
> Well, you're right that some categories of ARG for, say, corporate
> training or other educational uses do have a goal besides selling; I
> don't tend to think about this potentially broad category of games,
> probably because I hear next to nothing about 'em, more's the pity. I
> could still get into some semantics about selling an idea vs. selling
> a product, but that would just be goofy. :)
> 
> Nonetheless, I do hate to see a definition where the team for
> something like Art of the Heist (hi, guys!) could say with a straight
> face that their end goal is to build buzz, and not in any way at all
> to sell cars, because the purpose of the one is still to lead right
> toward the other, sooner or later.
> 
> Do we need to break it into three categories, now? Grassroots games,
> commercial games, and non-profit/educational/public interest games?
> (Does it hurt more than it helps to do that kind of defining?)
> 
> --
> Andrea Phillips
> http://www.perplexcity.com
> http://www.deusexmachinatio.com
> 
> 
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