[arg_discuss] Software for managing games/events/playercommunication

[Jeff Watson]

Hi everyone,

Christy -- thanks for the shout out!

Kim -- I've been experimenting lately with different ways of tapping into users' existing social media profiles, and have found a few things on the Wordpress platform that might be helpful for doing what you're trying to do. 

First, there are a variety of plugins that can link a Wordpress install to players' Facebook and Twitter profiles. This makes it easy for players to have a single sign-on that grants them access to your site so long as they're logged into Twitter or Facebook (think of the easy login for Echo Bazaar). Check out the plugins called "wp-fbconnect" and "Twit Connect". You might also want to look into Gigya Socialize, which is a kind of meta-API that enables users to associate OpenIDs, Google accounts, and more alongside FB and Twitter.

Once you've got players registered on a Wordpress site, you can run it basically as a kind of meta app -- Facebook users can access using FB credentials, and you can communicate with them through their walls or whatever. Same goes for Twitter users, etc. You can expand and extend the range of functionality here with the universe of plugins and scripts for Wordpress, depending on your needs (SMS, for example). One full-blown way to go would be to use BuddyPress, which is a kind of social networking platform in a plugin thing. BuddyPress opens up a lot of communications options, and even some game mechanics with things like the Achievements plugin (which could easily be hacked to just be a simple profile-tracking tool). If you or one of your team have some basic PHP and web design skills, modding WP in this way will be a relative breeze.

Anyway, please update us on the solutions you develop. Your wish list of 'things which help manage communications with players and time-sensitive cross-platform content rollout' is awesome and exactly the kind of stuff that I think many of us on this list are thinking about!

Best,

Jeff

On Nov 15, 2010, at 1:37 PM, Kim Plowright wrote:


> 

> Ooh aces, thanks Christy, will have a look through. I found your 2008 post yesterday, but hadn't seen the new one.

> 

> (random observation) I'm really struggling to find something 'small pieces, loosely joined' at the moment; everything seems to want to be overarching systems...

> 

> 

> On 15 Nov 2010, at 21:00, "Christy Dena" <cdena at cross-mediaentertainment.com> wrote:

> 

>> Hello Kim,

>> 

>> There are a few projects in development for what you're talking about, and

>> some proprietary technologies that are licensed out. I've been keeping a

>> list, and Jeff Watson has too, here:

>> http://www.christydena.com/online-essays/cross-media-management-technologies

>> /.

>> 

>> Best,

>> Christy

>> 

>> 

>> -----Original Message-----

>> From: arg_discuss-bounces at igda.org [mailto:arg_discuss-bounces at igda.org] On

>> Behalf Of Kim Plowright

>> Sent: Monday, 8 November 2010 02:19

>> To: IGDA ARG Sig

>> Subject: [arg_discuss] Software for managing

>> games/events/playercommunication

>> 

>> Hello

>> 

>> I'm having a bit of a poke around trying to find useful bits of software /

>> cloud applications for folk making ARGlike things.

>> 

>> I've had a look back through the list archives which tends to point to:

>> 

>> Scriptwriting / Storyplanning software:

>> 

>> Word / Excel

>> Celtx  - http://www.celtx.com/

>> Scrivener -  http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php

>> Final Draft -  http://www.finaldraft.com/ FiveSprockets -

>> http://www.fivesprockets.com/fs-portal/

>> Storyist -  http://storyist.com/index.html Novamind -

>> http://www.novamind.com/ Tinderbox -  http://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/

>> With more listed here; http://www.literatureandlatte.com/links.php

>> 

>> Project Management/Coordination Software:-

>> 

>> Basecamp - http://basecamphq.com/

>> 

>>                                          ProjectPier -

>> http://www.projectpier.org/ CoMindWork -  http://www.comindwork.com/

>> OpenAtrium -  http://openatrium.com/ Yammer -  https://www.yammer.com/

>> 

>> These are all great for internal team coordination, and for planning the

>> story, but there's a piece that seems to be missing from this

>> suite: running the experience.

>> 

>> Broadly, I think this is 'things which help manage communications with

>> players and time-sensitive cross-platform content rollout.'

>> 

>> The sort of use cases I'm after are:-

>> - associating a player with a facebook id, twitter id, mobile number, and

>> being able to track all of their interactions with the game in one place.

>> - Smart use of external APIs to publish once to many places, and aggregate

>> responses centrally

>> - being able to send an SMS message to multiple players from a central point

>> - being able to store story content objects centrally, and manage player

>> progress through those objects: sending the right email/SMS/tweet at the

>> right time, from the right character

>> - cue tracking during live events: team notifications, progress tracking,

>> content release

>> 

>> I suspect that there are tools out there that do this sort of thing, but I

>> don't know about them (I'm SURE that the social media marketing crowd use

>> them all the time!). I've used Cover It Live http://www.coveritlive.com/ to

>> run a live event in the past, for instance. I'm fairly sure that someone

>> announced they'd created something like this here on the list, but my email

>> search foo is failing me.

>> 

>> So - my questions...

>> 

>> - Does anyone know of any products designed specifically for

>> transmedia/arg/crossplatform/social storytelling?

>> - Have you experience of using them? Good? Bad? Indifferent? What were the

>> catches? What did they do well?

>> - If you've bodged this kind of thing together from existing tools in the

>> past, what different things have you used?

>> - Have you used any tools that helped you manage the realworld-online bridge

>> successfully?

>> 

>> Hopefully this is useful stuff to share on the list, too!

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....................
Jeff Watson
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