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

[Brian Clark]

> Interesting... it has pretty positive connotations for me - even 

> commercially.


It does for me too, which is why I think it isn't appropriate to muddy it by
thinking of GMD Studios as a grassroots company. Once upon a time, we were a
loose grassroots collaboration -- the Radiation Group -- and those times
were very special but very different from the challenges of a company with
employees. Managing volunteers doing something primarily for the passion is
very different than my position, where I'd never take advantage of that
tendency to get cheap labor for a client. I don't want small corporations to
become part of the definition of grassroots, I'd prefer people to think of
that as a potential direction a grassroots effort could grow into if it
wants. Conversely, though, the funded start-ups of the world would see us as
independent serial bootstrappers (the local economic development council in
Orlando, Florida defines small business as "less than $50M a year in
revenue" which means we aren't in jeopardy of being "medium sized" anytime
soon.)

There was a thread in Unfiction last year were people wondered if they
should treat GMD Studios' experiences for clients differently than our own
projects like Eldritch. I made the argument the only thing I wanted them to
do was ask if they were being entertained and to realize in a commercial
game I'm more likely to have money and less control, where in our projects
for ourselves we'll generally have less money but more control. Neither
should be inherently more "fun" than the either, or we didn't design the
experience right.


> The latter. Where funding the project is part of the challenge of the 

> game. It was just a random thought I hadn't seen discussed before.


I can't think of any good explicit examples of that in ARGs, but it is a
frequent theme among some viral pranks (remember the guy collecting money to
cut his own legs off?) and among the more direct marketing end of the viral
community, like the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. Sometimes you'll
hear the phrase "activation" to describe the "parting of the fool and their
money." I have no problems with the direct marketing crowd, it just isn't
the side of the pool I choose to swim in (I spent enough time with them as
an affiliate & performance marketing critic through the late 90s and early
part of this century.) I find direct marketing tactics frequently present
ethical dilemmas that branded entertainment approaches can assault with more
nuance and less disclosure.