[arg_discuss] ARGs & relational aesthetics

[despain at quantumcontent.com]

I was very interested in this article posted by libfli at aol.com:


> http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117961333.html?categoryid=1682&cs=1


I IMed it to a friend and former co-worker of mine who worked with me on
an ARG in the past. I was curious about his thoughts on the subject, but I
didn't tell him where I found the link, or give him any context for the
article.

The resulting conversation had a lot of good thoughts in it, so I'm
including the text of it here. I think I even convinced him to join this
mailing list, but I'm not sure.


DB: hmm i finished reading that article. one thing it
      neglects (and sorry for the cliche) is the blair
      witch effect. the web content generated word of
      mouth in a way no amount of traditional
      advertising could

Wendy: i think the problem is that blair witch is
       generally seen as an anomaly in hollywood
       since there haven't been highly-publicized
       successful cases since then.

DB: to some degree, i'd say the lost experience did
      something similar leading into season two;
      you could argue it attempted to maintain positive
      buzz when the show was going to be up against
      american idol

Wendy: do you think it worked?

DB: i think it garnered a lot of press and will help
      the long term franchise status of the show

Wendy: personally, I think we were successful with most
       of the shows coming out of Tribune Entertainment
       while I was there. we built up a good audience for
       the premieres of the shows, but we didn't get
       mainstream publicity for what we did

DB: i think the lost experience's second phase failed
      because it itself was advertised - "look for the
      lost experience ad during the new episode in May!"
      and it was for hanso foundation, which didn't have
      much in the way of content... and the puzzles it
      presented were too cerebral for mass consumption

DB: the blair witch thing benefitted from being first.
      post-blair witch and it's revelation as a hoax to
      publicize the movie...most other efforts like it
      are going to be obvious ie: m night shyamalan's
      sci fi mockumentary"

DB: one exception would be that i love bees ARG

Wendy: so you think the hoaxiness of a project is important?
       I mean... the not being sure if this is a game or for
       real?

DB: i think that was the key to blair witch's success,
      because the site supported the marketing campaign.
      "in 1994, 3 film students disappeared in the
      pennsylvania woods. In 1999, their footage was found."
      so for a time, word of mouth was, there was this movie
      and it supported the existence of the supernatural..
      people bought the marketing line
      because there was all of this "proof"

DB: think: if mutant x had instead of being an
      action/adventure, been presented as an investigative
      series into secret government genetic engineering
      projects
      and if the websites had been even more realistic,
      and offered as proof
      but it's very hard to score like they did when your
      commercial product is so obviously fiction

Wendy: so you're saying it's very dependent on all of the
       content - the same reason we did very small sites
       for shows like DreamMaker, a talk-show type show

DB: yeah

DB: another thing he neglects, is the use of the internet
      and things like that interview feature for
      pre-promotion; like offering full pilot episodes for
      free online

DB: and come to think of it... there is another example of
      effectively using the web like blair witch, post bw,
      but it wasn't as noticeable as it could have been,
      also because of the subject matter

DB: texas chainsaw massacre. the remake's movie site
      wasn't about the movie, it was an online exhibit that
      examined the "true events" the movie was based on.
      it didn't mention the movie. the remake. and it didn't
      have studio graphics and copyrights and so on. it
      looked like a legitimate crime history museum type
      online exhibit thing. But the "true events" the texas
      chainsaw massacre was based on was an urban legend
      the events themselves, i mean
      the site tricked a lot of people until snopes busted
      them and then of course the movie's usual marketing
      kicked in it was a lot like the black dahlia site the
      LA times created, but without obvious commercial
      sponsorship

DB: also, i think you should treat a franchise property
      differently than a one-shot

Wendy: oh?

DB: yeah, i think in a franchise, to monetize it, you
      should treat each channel of media as it's own

DB: even tho the stories may exist in the same universe,
      i think it might be a mistake to force the audience
      to navigate all forms of media to get the whole story

Wendy: what do you mean?

DB: well, for example, what we did with mutant x. the
       story we told online, its plot was independent of
       the on-air plot

Wendy: it meshed with the on-air plot, but yeah

DB: i'm thinking of a franchise in terms of like how
      some people talk about broadcasting strategy
      and aggregation of audience to achieve coverage and
      while there is some overlap between audiences, the
      core "online" audience is different than the core
      "on-air" audience... or in print the core "print
      audience"

DB: so to maximize coverage, and therefore the ability
      to monetize the content, it's best to treat each
      medium as it's own channel

DB: otherwise, like what this article points out, your
      true target audience is that very thin sliver of
      overlap. that said, i think the web has really yet
      to find its true, um, entertainment voice

DB: i think social networking stuff is like one parent
      of what it will be

Wendy: but as it stands right now, the on-air channel or
       the print channel is subsidizing the web channel

DB: for the most part, yeah

Wendy: this is a problem. it's expensive to produce
       high-quality websites. we kept our costs as low as
       humanly possible and were still regularly frowned-upon
       for taking away so many dollars from ... oh, say,
       cable buys. marketing money is precious

DB: you and i thought of the fiction sites as
      creative/entertainment tho and they considered it
      marketing. and i guess that was my point a moment ago...
      90% of the world considers the web as a marketing vehicle
      (and 85% of statistics are made up).

DB: back to the article a second

Wendy: yeah

DB: the battlestar galactica example that's a good example of
      his article's point. web waste. but in the 10 minutes
      we've been talking i can't think of a really good use of
      the property as an online entertainment vehicle. but i did
      think of another good mutant x example. lol

Wendy: heh

DB: it's too bad we didn't have all the open source options we
      have now, then. genomecities, could have been a real in
      universe social network

Wendy: yeah. that would have rocked

Wendy: i can think of some interesting battlestar possibilities
       they have intra-ship communications. and a press. er,
       journalistic tradition

DB: you mean like a second life in the BG universe?

Wendy: the problem is - as with all super-futuristic sci-fi -
       you have to suspend disbelief that we have access to this
       stuff on earth unless the producers are willing to spill
       the beans on how they plan to manage the show when the
       ships do find earth (as they did in the original series)

Wendy: man, that would be cool. treating the show as a dramatized
       catch-up of what happened prior to them reaching earth
       and treating the websites as they're already here

DB: that's what i was trying to say about the web finding its
      own voice as an entertainment vehicle

Wendy: crap, DB, you've managed to make me want to work for
       that show

DB: and you have a contact, yes?

Wendy: not a close one. stargate is a natural for ARG treatment.
       it's present day. and it uses conspiracy theory as a cover
       X-Files would have been, too. Dresdin Files is sorta

DB: ok, but i'm still saying...

Wendy: yeah, i tangented. sorry.

DB: an ARG is not the web's voice

Wendy: well, an ARG uses the web's voice

DB: an ARG is web advertising meets ZORK

Wendy: the present state, yeah

DB: genomecities as a social network in a fictional
      universe is appraoching what i'm thinking

Wendy: isn't that just web advertising meets D&D?

DB: ah you derailed my brain... but... i don't think so
      in fact

DB: web advertising meets D&D is more in tune with the
      voice i'm thinking of. D&D and magic the gathering
      and yu gi oh and such. they have one distinction from
      other games in that they're interactive with other people
      they're social games. you can't play D&D by yourself

DB: well you could but that would just be pathetically sad
      and while you can have a communal viewing of a tv show
      or a movie and you can interact similarly with the same
      plot and options and story branches of a video game as
      other people what makes the web intriguing is the
      interactivity with other people changes the experience
      it's like that law of quantum physics that by looking
      at something you change it. by playing Oblivion, you don't
      change the game experience for another player halfway
      around the world

DB: by visiting the Lost Experience series of websites, you
      don't change the entertainment experience of other players
      but something like... sorry to keep going back to it...
      genomecities every player's contributions affects other
      player's experience within the entertainment being consumed
      that's the attraction of myspace, or second life, or a wiki,
      or digg... or... pick any web 2.0 site

DB: but most of those are functionaries and not entertainment.
      people substitute them for entertainment Jane Smith's blog
      becomes vouyeristic escapism and jane smith's blog is not
      itself an example of the web's voice, because it's still
      1 to many

DB: so in summary, what i guess i'm saying is, web 2.0 is one
      parent of the web's entertainment vehicle voice, but the
      other parent hasn't risen from the clay yet


Wendy: in-game bbs for I love Bees and others have been
       fostering this... play along on the web scheme
       players definitely played along with the phone calls
       in ILB. they had zero players out of character on
       the phone. I think that's a sign that people are
       willing to play along and be part of the game
       or the entertainment experience

Wendy: how do you think MMO's fit into this? a player playing
       Oblivion can't change the game for someone half way
       around the world, but someone playing WoW can.
       to an extent.

DB: well, i'm not entirely sure that a "game" is the best
      metaphor for the web's true entertainment voice

Wendy: I agree

DB: but.. i think it's a nice sandbox

Wendy: but I think ARGs are the closest thing to finding
       that voice maybe we should call them ARE.  Alternate
       Reality Entertainment

DB:  or ARC

Wendy: C?

DB: alternate reality concepts heh. no, E is better

Wendy: i like that better. it sounds less like a lame set of
       VR glasses

DB: lol

Wendy: laf

Wendy: would you mind if I edited out some of the specifics
       of this conversation and posted it in an email to the
       ARG mailing list? the ARG SIG mailing list

DB: which specifics?

Wendy: the part involving dollar amounts. this article in
       Variety is the reason my dept. got shut down. Because
       this was what the Tribune Entertainment people were
       thinking three years ago. it's nice that they were
       ahead of the curve on something. I hadn't realized how
       much Mr. U was alone in his web-thinking

DB: well had we had the tech available to us, genomecities
      would have been cool. as. shit. but Ms. V would not have
      gotten it. lol

Wendy: lol

DB: "i don't understand, these people are going to create
       content for us? the producers will NEVER agree to that."

Wendy: oh, you're so right. i'm still not sure hollywood would
       buy that concept

DB: "why don't we put content on our website that they can
      reprint on theirs?"

Wendy: laf

DB: .. that's essentially what hollywood is doing on myspace

Wendy: it scares me that you can do such a good impression of
       her after three years

DB: she's one of a breed