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

[Patrick O'Luanaigh]

RE: Ian's comments about monetization

Does anyone know whether Perplex City broke even and ended up making profit?
For me, this was one of the bravest and most creative ARGs I've seen so far,
but I've assumed that because the team didn't go straight into a sequel, it
wasn't the successful monetization that Michael Smith had hoped for. For me,
selling puzzle cards at retail doesn't sound like a monetization solution
that could support more than a few ARGs. My view is that whilst the majority
of ARGs remain short, free advertiser-funded promotional vehicles (despite
the best efforts of the creative people behind them) it's going to be hard
to either:

a) get more mainstream awareness and recognition for this exciting area
or
b) find a monetization model that gets players paying to play in some form

The route that interests my company most is taken from the games industry,
as demonstrated by the superb "KartRider" game from Asia, which is worth
looking into if you haven't heard about it. It's a superb game that was
given away for free, but makes lots of money from micro-transactions;
selling small objects, better clothing, modifications for your kart and so
on. The key to this was getting lots of people to play the game over and
over again - once you have a large community playing repeatedly, then it
seems possible to start charging them small amounts to make their experience
even better. In this model, the biggest challenges seems to be creating an
ARG that doesn't end after a month or two (not an insurmountable obstacle),
and getting the funding to create the game in the first place. Anyone
agree/disagree? Has anyone tried the micro-transaction model?

Patrick, nDreams


-----Original Message-----
From: arg_discuss-bounces at igda.org [mailto:arg_discuss-bounces at igda.org] On
Behalf Of Ian Millington
Sent: 27 December 2007 15:36
To: Discussion list of the IGDA ARG SIG
Subject: Re: [arg_discuss] is ARG just a marketing technique to the press?

Great discussion.

I guess like many other readers I read Brian's mail and thought - yeah
how unfair, isn't it obvious that  this is the start of something
significant?.

But is it unfair? Can you think of another creative discipline that:

a) Is appreciated widely (including by the media) in its own right.
b) has no proven business model for direct monetization.

Nearest I came up with was graphic design, but even then I wouldn't
say it was widely appreciated in its own right (and certainly wasn't
appreciated in its own right for half a century, despite considerably
greater ubiquity than ARGs).

For ARGs (b) is still the 800lb gorilla in the corner of the living
room. As someone who is not interested in advergaming, but has
(unsuccessfully) tried to get commercial ARG material funded, I know
from bitter experience that ARGs are perceived as marketing gimmicks
by the mainstream games industry as well as the media. The chalk
outline of Majestic is till tiptoed around with an air of disdain.

I have a depressing sense that unless we crack b - work out how to
reliably monetise our effort successfully for its own sake - that ARGs
might be destined to languish in the 'marketing gimmick and academic
curiosity' for a long time.

Ian.



On 27/12/2007, Brian Clark <bclark at gmdstudios.com> wrote:

> >1) The no-longer appropriate bundling of marketing and non-art.

>

> I'm working on a piece regarding this, but sadly the answer I offer up

isn't

> a simple one as it requires providing an alternate framework for creating

> sets from this work. In many ways, the complete misreading of "Blair

Witch"

> cause-and-effect lead marketers to mistake one (fan building) for the

other

> (marketing) -- even though those were two different phases, even for

"Blair

> Witch". There are other historical examples in play, but since Mike is

here

> and the BW case study is well (mis)known it is as good of a shortcut of

that

> bigger idea as I can offer up yet.

>

> Fan building and marketing can co-exist, but don't necessarily share the

> same value structures. Fandom, though, can't be "faked" -- its appearance

by

> definition implies success in forming a connection between a creator and

an

> experiential participant. The disconnect between the implied goals of fan

> creation and "mere marketing" are what we're seeing and what we're

thinking.

>

>

> People want some kind of taxonomy to feel safe with the world though, and

> none of the taxonomies put forward articulate the question of intent.

> Fortunately, it shouldn't have to; it only has to show a diversity of

> intent, like any media or artform needs to. What craft it is applied to

> (entertainment, news, advertising) is almost beside the point.

>

>

>

>

>

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