[arg_discuss] TINAG and the curtain: necessary?

[Morbus Iff]

> Provocative declarations, Morbus. Mind if I poke at a few of them?


Always - it's just not fun anymore if no one says I'm a fool <g>.

 >> "It's important to note the difference between an "ARG to market" (such

>> as I Love Bees for Halo 2, and numerous others), and one intended for 

>> something else. When your goal is to build a community then surprise 

>> them in the end with Ovaltine, mystery is just fine. When your goal is 

>> to sell product, build a brand, or come out Day 1 and say "we got 

>> prizes!", mystery can work against you: it creates suspicion that the 

>> prize isn't real, that your money could be wasted on irrelevant product, 

>> or that no one can be held accountable."

> 

> To be honest, Morbus, I'm not sure I follow your distinction. If your intent

> is to sell a product and build a brand, isn't that exactly what "ARG to

> market" is in your definition? Aren't those brands just as interested in


No, and I'll agree this could be fleshed out more. Looking at I Love 
Bees and Iris, I don't think either were about /selling/ Halo 2 or 3, 
the video games. I think they did a wonderful job of building buzz and 
getting free press, but I don't really think they encouraged anyone (in 
a quantifiable drove) to buy Halo 2 or 3 /solely because of the content 
of the ARG/. I'm watching the Cloverfield ARG because it's an ARG and I 
like ARGs, not because I'm going to the theater. I'll buy it on DVD when 
it comes out /because I already like monster movies/ (or FPSs or Nine 
Inch Nails), not because of the ARG itself. I classify these things as 
"ARG to market", because they're enjoyable awareness campaigns, but 
don't affect my buying decisions.

With that said, ILB, being my first major ARG of interest (having spent 
passing time with The Beast) did excite me enough to go out and buy Halo 
and an Xbox, because of the "holy crap, ILB is the greatest gaming 
experience I've ever had". I was let down by the first video game ("this 
is supposed to be better than Half-Life?"), AND the second video game 
("erm..."). I will buy Halo 3, not because of Iris (which was horrible), 
but because a) I like FPSes in general, and b) I'm an achievement whore.

When I say "sell a product or build a brand", I mean something like 
Perplex City's puzzle cards, something that didn't exist before or had 
any existing buy-in.  Once you get into the activities of selling 
something physical (as opposed to finding or giving them away, ala 
Chasing The Wish, etc.) in retail markets, concerns of snake oil starts 
coming into play, and I think "who is this" (vs. "what happens next?") 
mystery hurts.

Do I think it's entirely possible to create a mysterious story with 
reality prizes and succeed? Sure! Would I, of relatively jangly pockets, 
throw a few quarters to mysterious cloaked figures through Paypal? Sure! 
Do I think everyone could, or would, do that? Not at all.


> making sure that prizes aren't misperceived as fictional, or that the

> consumer's money wouldn't be wasted on an irrelevant product, or that

> consumers wouldn't feel no one is held accountable?


I don't know of any ARG that would be relevant
to answer those questions by. Help me out.


> It seems like a false dichotomy you're setting up, one that suggests that

> Microsoft, 42 Entertainment, Bungee, etc. didn't care about the same things

> you say you care about (when they are brands and product developers just

> like you, right?) Or worse, that they just don't care about those things?


The difference (loosely implied by "build a brand" [from scratch], 
hopefully more stringently explained above) is that they have nothing to 
  lose. They already have buy-in, and can "throw away" a million dollars 
on an experiment - they're still gonna have people buying Halo 2, Halo 
3, Microsoft Vista, or Year Zero. Of course they care about their 
products - that wasn't what I intended at all.

Note, always, that these are /my opinions/. I have little desire to 
write any sort of definitive "this is how things are", because I don't 
think anyone knows this early in year zero. What I know, however, is 
starting many trailheads, only to be absolutely and positively bored 
because /everything/ was a "spooky website" (see previous posts by me on 
this list) with not enough to care about or "believe in". If they were 
attempting to build a brand (or, even, a player base), they did a 
horrible job of it, because they're losing me, and the people I played 
with in IRC and forums. "Adam Worsley" and "6op 1 libra" off the top of 
my head. Were those real ARGs, pointless fiddlings, or psychotic 9/11 
conspiracy delusions? Who knows, because it was always spooky, always 
unattributed, and never revealed.


> In some ways, though, if you have to rely upon OOG mechanisms to explain

> what you intend to do, or what an experience is, or what an experience meant

> ... it might be that there are more active IG mechanisms for accomplishing

> the same thing. In fact, sometimes if you purposefully don't provide the OOG

> mechanism it provides the incentive for the fans to build it themselves.


Was this a general rumination, or meant to specifically address 60BWC?

As a general: I agree. As to 60BWC: it's not what I wanted. The elements 
  of 60BWC, such as the online/browser-based card game, could never hope 
to /reliably/ be treated as IG without thinking up really lame excuses 
that /I/ wouldn't have believed as a player. And whilst I am a huge 
proponent of "suspension of disbelief", I could never reconcile or be 
saitisfied that different /kinds/ of suspension were required (one for 
the story, one for this real-world mechanism that complemented the 
story, and one for something else entirely).


> That said, in every project I've ever been involved in, the curtain is

> constantly up for renegotiation. Eldritch Errors is making us rethink it a

> lot because of a factor you don't even mention. The flip side of the curtain

> is the orgy of the PM chat -- the lack of OOG information fuels the desire

> for a lot of it all at the end. But if you have a serial, you don't ever

> really have an end and have to rethink the "post-ARG OOG orgy" aspect of the

> curtain's definition, an aspect that people rarely even discuss. 


I agree. No, I never considered or recognized this; excellent point.

People keep telling me about EE. I simply /must/ get into it.

-- 
Morbus Iff ( i think the "good book" is missing some pages )
Technical: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/779
Enjoy my: http://www.disobey.com/ and http://www.60bwc.com/
aim: akaMorbus / skype: morbusiff / icq: 2927491 / jabber.org: morbus