[arg_discuss] Open Source ARGs

[Mark Heggen]

> "Wouldn't it be interesting if some hints or story

> elements in one ARG led to another? What if there was a sort of

> larger alternate reality that had these elements in common? For

> example, an "in-character" news site where you could have results

> from the Gotham City election alongside bulletins from Perplex

> City? Or, what if a hacked file on a Metacortechs server had the

> random filename "BadWolf"?"




It seems clear by now that the single biggest audience-limiting aspect of
most ARGs is the inapproachability that stems from their complicated and
multi-tiered systems of obfuscation. One important reason that such small
numbers of people actually play ARGs (for more than a few minutes) is that
most people don't really like feeling lost, confused, stymied, and unable to
advance a plot they are trying to follow. A large majority of people who
have any initial contact with an ARG stop "playing" before long because they
are unable to grasp what is going on, what they should pay attention to,
what is a good use of their time, and so on.

The notion that ARGs would benefit from further confusing their players and
blurring their boundaries seems odd to me. Successful ARGs take pains to
give their audiences some set of clean lines of distinction and well-marked
boundaries, because without some hard and fast rules about what players
ought to pay attention to people are bound to get lost (aka lose interest).
The once-popular notion that ARGs are popular BECAUSE they are so hard to
follow has by now surely been set aside as untrue, and yet still most ARGs
today are in need or more clarity and less confusion.

_Mark