[arg_discuss] Penny Arcade and the Ovaltine Disappointment

[Morbus Iff]

> "You saw A Christmas Story, right? Remember when Ralphie got his decoder ring

> and locked himself in the bathroom to translate the top secret message? Well,

> that was an ARG too. And all ARGs end the same way."

> "Drink your Ovaltine?" "Buy teh Haloz."


I've seen this and, for what it's worth, I find it hilarious and, to 
some degree, true. Whilst playing ILB, I /did/ run out and buy an Xbox 
and Halo, and then did eventually buy Halo 2 (ugh, it, and the Xbox, 
sucked, though I'm loving my 360 and will buy Halo 3 solely because I'm 
an achievement whore).


> that players enjoy. Then they associate that enjoyable experience with, say, a

> brand. If the players are disappointed, then the ARG designers have done

> something wrong; they haven't provided an experience that's enjoyable enough


I will agree, to some sense, but I think it falls down on Iris (the 
official name of the Halo 3 ARG). ILB stayed away from the Halo 2 
association for a /long/ time [even though it was trailheaded into the 
video, there was a lot of tight-lipped/implicit denial] - the story spec 
was a lot of "well, if this WAS Halo 2, then this could be a monitor!". 
Once it became the Halo 2 ARG, I slowly lost interest because the story 
required me to know loads of Halo history and to read books based on the 
Halo universe. The same thing with Halo 3 - I don't know what a monitor 
is, don't care about the Forerunners, don't care about Covenant, or any 
of that crap. Most people who play Halo run around and shoot things that 
move. I'm one of 'em. I don't play Halo because it's a testament to 
story-telling. I play Halo cos I can blow stuff up real good.

So, I'm pretty much "lost" when it comes to Iris. Oh, I'll certainly 
follow the trails and await the countdowns as much as the next guy. And 
I'll happily Hypercard my way through Flash apps just to see what I 
download next, but I don't much "get it", because I'm not invested in 
the story at all.

The same thing is happening to me with the now-dead Perplex City ARG. 
The only reason I invested time and money into the cards was because the 
puzzles had a purpose and a story - there were people who "needed" me to 
solve them and I felt that, when I did, I'd get something more out of 
the ARG (which itself had its own brand of puzzles). With no ARG, the 
remaining waves of cards for Season 2 are "just" puzzles. I don't find 
"just" puzzles very fun. Granted, I will learn far more from the PXC 
cards than I will from an issue of Games magazine, but there's no 
impetus, no ARG, no caring, for me to do so.

This, as a player, is the chief problem with some of the grassroot ARGs 
that are coming out. There are plenty of spooky and mysterious websites 
with plenty of spooky and mysterious puzzles. But, there's no "reason" 
for me to climb that mountain save for "because it's there". I have to 
believe I'm gonna find Noah's ark before I'm going to invest that much 
time in the trip. For me, I want the "alternate reality" to come first, 
and then the "game" (and puzzles inherent) to come second.


> have two things to worry about. First, is there anything specific we can do to

> make sure players understand and accept the marketing nature of an ARG? (Other


I wish the media would stop calling them "viral". Viral is more "dude, 
check out this dog on a skateboard!" - there's no effort involved.

-- 
Morbus Iff ( take your rosaries off my ovaries )
Technical: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/779
Culture: http://www.disobey.com/ and http://www.gamegrene.com/
aim: akaMorbus / skype: morbusiff / icq: 2927491 / jabber.org: morbus