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

[Brian Clark]

> Really? Surely any investor is going to ask 'how do you make any

> money' at some point...


Or really, it is even worse than that, Ian. The real question they would
like to have answered is, "How have others made money from similar projects
and how do you plan on making any money?" There is no industry here to point
to as a sign of other's capital at risk in the space as well. 


>> I feel ARGs can be as or more successful entertainment venues

>> contrasting t.v. And movies.

> 

> By what metric? Certainly not by the metric that investors will use.


There probably are comparative metrics that are sellable ... after all, we
do convince advertisers to spend millions on these kinds of campaigns, and
many of them feel pleased with the results after the fact. We have systems
for measuring those metrics to prove that value as it is emerging. It is
really the lack of a worn trail through this jungle that hurts -- it
increases the perception of risk without increasing the perception of
return. 


> The genre isn't ready for serious investment because it doesn't have a

> convincing business model (which is where we came in). So advergaming,

> experimental and grassroots stuff is all there is. Clearly nothing

> wrong with any of them, but not comparable with established

> multi-billion dollar industries.


There's more than that, though. GMD at least is an independent production
house with models for funding our own work. That's not real experimental
(although that's another fruit growing on the same tree) and definitely not
advergaming and grassroots is kind of a bad label that diminishes part of
what makes that community special. Instead I'm executing a particular kind
of business strategy that emphasizes control over financing in the early
phases of the creative genesis.

But you could say that about any web media, Ian. I've been hearing that
about any Web venture I've stuck my fingers in the last 15 years: it isn't
an established industry. Conversely, the barriers of entry are primarily
creative and not financial anyway, which can't be said of many multi-billion
dollar industries, so what better place to invest my creative capital (which
is more substantial than my financial capital). 

Even porn, the universally robust media business model that spreads like
lichen as the first colonizer, has finally hit the barrier they can't seem
to conquer and their revenues are nose-diving. Disintermediator? Amateur
porn and sites like xtube. Many of us believe that watching the business
issues surround pornography gives you a good glimpse of what will happen
similar to television and film. What porn is telling us now is that YouTube
will kill the DVD star. 

I think the first successful ARG business models will likely take great
advantage of their disintermediator status. For example, digital solutions
for theatrical distribution are driven largely by disintermediation
speculation: film prints cost thousands a piece, so if you see a movie on
2,000 screens you can guess how much cash went towards making those film
prints, shipping them to theaters, getting the back, etc. I've seen tons of
business plans from people who focus on the disintermediated savings of that
one optimization as how they'll make money, even though no one has really
managed to do that yet. 


> Is there any game that has made generating revenue for the producers

> part of the game? 


Isn't that exactly the point of advergaming or a donation button? Or are you
just asking if they have been more explicitly designed the begging into
"gameplay"? I would think you would have to have a deeply loyal fan base
before you could risk that kind of model. I tend to think of immersive
entertainment as being more like gift culture than corporate culture.

Or you if you were being snarky, you could make the argument that preachers
and political candidates are the kind of puppetmaster model you're thinking
of? Direct marketing tactics tend to make me feel just a little dirty ...
and this is from a guy who does work with advertising agencies, where
bathing in Purel is a daily evening ritual for artists with "patrons" :)


Brian