[arg_discuss] is ARG just a marketing technique to the press?

[Brian Clark]

One part of me thinks it would be ridiculously fun to play the "angry indie"
to Monello's "corporate suit". Mike normally hogs the "angry indie" role (he
wears his "I made the Blair Witch Project and all I got was this lousy
t-shirt!" t-shirt to ad agency meetings) and leaves me playing the suit! Did
you know that Google has over 360,000 matches on the phrase "theory slut"? I
just know Monello and I are in there somewhere.

Getting into why the statistics of ARGs are fuzzy beasts is almost a derail.
Let's just say with a phrase like "story participants" you are at a number
somewhere between "how many people clicked a banner bar and came to one of
the sites" and "active players". If you wanted to be particularly cruel
instead of particularly kind, I think we had fewer than 2000 people posting
in the in-game forums. If you wanted to be even crueler, you could say that
7 whole people looked at the rich media production for the "last layer of
Virgil King of Code" -- I shudder to think of the production cost per viewer
of that page, even though it was the grand reward of a long and frustrating
puzzle. That's only 2 more people than came to West Virginia for a day-long
event in the wilderness on Eldritch Errors: I'm not sure which was actually
more expensive on paper (but I suspect the Heist example.)

The big numbers, though, that's just advertising, has nothing to do with a
small game or a large game. Has nothing to do with the press tendency to use
a phrase like "movies and cars" in a slightly-negative fashion, when the
body of work would just as easily allow you to make "marketing television
shows and video games" as the label of the cliché. That might have something
to do with level of overall marketing, not the success of the ARG at all.
Maybe it is a collective memory of past marketing abuses by those particular
categories?

I guess I'm just willing to accept that when a potential client or
collaborator says "we want an ARG" it is kinda like them saying "and we want
it be VIRAL" or "and we want a WEBSITE TOO!" It is more important to know
what THEY mean when they are saying that, rather than what you as a
practitioner know it means. Frequently, those same ad agencies hire
filmmakers to shoot television commercials, sometimes television commercial
directors harbor secret dreams of making feature films! You'd be surprised
at the challenge of language in reaching shared goals. The ad agency on
Heist used to say, "So this is what it is like to make a film." Mike and I
thought, "No, this is what it is like to make an ARG for an ad agency."

So who's the one that really controls the definition? If you buy reader
response theory, it is the player community who controls that. If you buy
the auteur proposition, it is the artist's intent that controls that. If you
buy marketplace economics, it is the demands of the marketplace that define
that. If you buy into peer review, it is academic papers that define that.
If you buy into dialectics, it is the discussions happening like this.

Right now, it looks to me like the press and bloggers with mixed feelings
about the genre might be the ones defining it. That means it is just a
matter of time until someone realizes that if they can just get the press to
interview them enough, they could reshape the definition to whatever they
want. Call it the Seth Godin Scenario (bless his bald brilliant book-writing
heart.) Or maybe it will be someone who isn't as smart as Seth.

Tragedy of the Commons incoming?


-----Original Message-----
From: arg_discuss-bounces at igda.org [mailto:arg_discuss-bounces at igda.org] On
Behalf Of Michael Monello
Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 11:56 PM
To: Discussion list of the IGDA ARG SIG
Subject: Re: [arg_discuss] is ARG just a marketing technique to the press?

Very true, Mark, but you don't even need to make the point from a  
reach argument. If you look at the history of 'ARGs' as they are  
commonly defined, you could argue that the genre started as a  
marketing tool, and it's the filthy artists and indies who have tried  
to strip away its capitalist origins!

;)

Best,

Michael Monello
Partner, Campfire
62 White Street, 3W
New York, NY 10013
212-612-9600
http://www.campfirenyc.com



On Dec 18, 2007, at 4:19 PM, Mark Heggen wrote:


> (a great discussion all around, nice kick-off Brian)

>

>

> It seems a little strange to me that we would be upset that someone is

> spreading the notion that ARGs primarily advertise cars and movies,  

> when in

> fact ARGs are (by a staggering margin) being used to advertise cars  

> and

> movies. If one takes a step back and really looks at the numbers of  

> how many

> people are actually playing these things, the games that aren't  

> promoting

> products become a tiny little slice of the pie.

>

> Looking at Christy Dena's numbers (

> http://www.christydena.com/online-essays/arg-stats/) (thanks yet  

> again for

> compiling those!) it become apparent that the big games are big  

> while the

> small games are very very small:

>

>

> Art of the Heist had 2 million visitors and 500,000 story participants

> The Beast had 2.5 million players

>

> vs.

>

> MeiGeist had something like 16,000 total visitors to the main site

> World Without Oil had 1,850 players

>

>

> And it should be noted that MeiGeist and WWO were pretty big for small

> games. The total number of people who actually played other games  

> like The

> Human Pet or Deus City (just for example) are very very very small.  

> The "car

> and movie" games are measuring in the millions while most grassroots  

> games

> are measuring in the hundreds. This is no trivial difference. In the  

> end,

> when looking at the total amount of people who have played an ARG,  

> most of

> the smaller games become almost statistically insignificant.

>

> Now of course this is not meant to be a knock on small grassroots  

> games! I

> repeat; I'm not saying that small games are without merit or somehow  

> not

> worth discussion. I am absolutely interested in looking at all kinds  

> of

> games at all different sizes

(http://markheggen.com/heggen_noncasual_ARG.pdf 

> )

> and for me there is something particularly interesting and exciting  

> (noble

> even) about people investing great deals of time and energy in the  

> crafting

> of experiences for a very small audience. However, I am saying that we

> should not be upset or surprised when mainstream writers talking to

> mainstream audiences focus on those aspects of ARGs that are  

> statistically

> dominant. A large majority of all the experience with ARGs on the  

> planet

> have had something to do with selling a car or promoting a product,  

> and that

> is a fact.

>

> _mark heggen

> _______________________________________________

> ARG_Discuss mailing list

> ARG_Discuss at igda.org

> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/arg_discuss


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