[arg_discuss] Looking for Resources on Engaging Casual Players in ARGs

[Brice Clocher]

Thank you all for the great input.

Wendy and Jamey, you are making excellent points. I myself have witnessed
TINAG being a really big hindering when reaching to audiences that are very
inexperienced with ARG.
Thank you for your insight, your words really ring a bell. Having a
"tutoring" design strategy also really fits our story, in which super
heroes are trying to recruit regular people and make heroes out of them.
Right now I'm thinking about a unified "welcome website" that would display
what's going on in the game "right now", the story so far, and how to play.
There also would be a hotline and chatrooms as suggested.

Alice, we're based in Germany and have quite a big local team already, but
thanks for the feedback ;) We're in the preprod stage, and many things are
happening in parallel. My role is about defining the overall structure of
the game and story. Many folks are working on the characters designs and
logistic issues.

As for my previous library ARG, we're preparing a video summing up what
happened. I'll be sure to forward it here when it's released. :)

Cheers
Brice


2013/6/6 Zenox Bochastle <zenoxbochastle at gmail.com>


> Another way of addressing the tutorial issue is to think of games as "a

> system that teaches you how to use itself."

>

> This might suggest a less binary structure (tutorial > main game), and more

> a gradual progression of increasing complexity. Or pockets of

> mini-tutorials throughout the game that periodically culminate in more

> complex  combined activities.

>

> TINAG is the millstone around our neck. When it doesn't serve us, why not

> discard it? Theater has the proscenium arch, film has the screen "frame,"

> books have pages and chapters, and these formats don't suffer from having

> such obvious boundries; in fact, these delineating conventions are

> necessary to the forms. Of course, we're still figuring out the conventions

> of ARGs and transmedia.

>

> Jamey

>

> >>> Sent from my N64<<<

> On Jun 5, 2013 10:55 PM, "Wendy Despain" <wendeth at wendydespain.com> wrote:

>

> > Hi Brice,

> >

> > This is a topic that interests me very much as well. It's so

> > interesting to see some of the audience "get it" instantly and throw

> > themselves into full participation... and then some of their friends

> > get dragged along in the wake, then discover they love it too... but

> > then there seems to be a large number of people who are exposed to the

> > ARG-related materials in exactly the same way, yet they don't

> > participate.

> >

> > Solving this problem is actually what led me to start studying more

> > about videogame writing and videogame design. After all - they don't

> > seem to have the same problem. So I wondered why.

> >

> > Maybe I should try to sum up what I've learned over the years and put

> > it into an article... I don't have one I can just point you to. Maybe

> > others here will.

> >

> > But what I realized is that videogames -do- have exactly the same

> > problem (with one exception, I'll get to in a minute) and they have

> > solved it ... in maybe a hamhanded way sometimes, but I don't think it

> > ALWAYS has to be hamhanded.

> >

> > But most videogames include a tutorial. They take the first part of

> > the experience and teach the players how they (the designers) expect

> > the players to interact with the materials. Now, I know the idea of

> > adding a tutorial to an ARG messes with TINAG in terrible and

> > frightening ways... yet, when I sat down and talked to people who

> > didn't participate in my ARGs, but were exposed to them (millions of

> > people watched the show every week... only a tiny percentage

> > interacted with the ARG...) many many of them said they didn't really

> > know how they were expected to participate... they didn't really know

> > what they were supposed to -do-. When I would say something like,

> > "well... if you saw a phone number, we pretty much expected you to

> > call it." That blew their minds. They have been trained via TV and

> > movies and even concerts and plays...  that the audience doesn't

> > -participate- it didn't even occur to them to try dialing a number.

> >

> > Most of those non-players I talked to about it were disappointed to

> > find out that they had missed out on a fun fan experience, and said if

> > they had only known they would have tried to play at least to a

> > certain extent.

> >

> > So I will go out on a limb and suggest that you search gamasutra.com

> > and the GDC Vault if you have access (and other video game dev blogs)

> > and read up on how to make a great tutorial, or immersive tutorial

> > techniques... how to train your players what they are supposed to do

> > without breaking the immersion and outright saying "Press X to jump."

> >

> > I think you'll find things that will apply to ARG audiences as well.

> > We have to overcome the default state of inaction in an entertainment

> > experience, and show them/encourage them to get involved and take

> > action.

> >

> > Another arena that faces this problem is improv acting, where they try

> > to encourage audience participation - or live magic shows...though

> > often times what I learn from magicians I reverse, because I WANT the

> > audience to see my hand moving over here and discover the ace up my

> > sleeve, instead of learning how to avoid having the audience see/take

> > part in that way, the way magic acts do.

> >

> > Today, I wish I had tried one or two things like "Call me. This -is- a

> > game."

> >

> > The last ARG I consulted on (I've mostly been embroiled in videogame

> > narrative design lately) I recommended having a short tutorial, plus a

> > sanctioned backchannel where players could ask the puppetmaster

> > questions "OOC" (out of character). Things like... "Am I allowed to

> > ask my physicist friend to help me solve this problem?" The

> > puppetmaster felt it was obvious... YES, THAT'S THE POINT. But his

> > audience was hesitant and didn't want to "break the rules" or "do it

> > wrong," especially not in front of their peers. So he would respond

> > with a polite, nice "Yes, as long as it's legal and not on the list of

> > prohibited actions... you can do something like what you are

> > suggesting."

> >

> > The people who ran that ARG reported great success with that approach.

> > They actually were running a series of ARGs within a large corporation

> > in an effort to break down walls, encourage communication across

> > divisions, and generally do "team building" and internal networking,

> > so people in this huge company had some way of getting to know people

> > who weren't assigned to the desk next door.

> >

> > Anyway, the point of that is - once the audience learned "how to play"

> > with the first tutorial in the first ARG, the tutorial was much

> > shorter in the second ARG, and fewer questions came through the

> > backchannel. More inventive solutions were concocted, and once the

> > audience felt comfortable, they really ran with it - even people I

> > generally thought of as outside the ARG demographic.

> >

> > The tutorial for the second ARG - and those after - were down to one

> > email, as I recall, which included info on how to use the backchannel

> > and what kind of answers you would or wouldn't get from it. This

> > "tutorial" was seen by veteran players as the traffic signal that a

> > new ARG began - and it was mostly used only by new players who were

> > encouraged into participation by their friends or colleagues, but had

> > missed the first or second ARG because they were oblivious or nervous

> > or just didn't understand what was going on. After the core group

> > really figured out "how to play" the ARGs, they did most of the

> > training for the puppetmaster (which is what I originally thought

> > would happen with my first ARGs) but I underestimated the importance

> > of the sanctioned, "permission" many audience members feel they need,

> > in order to jump in.

> >

> > Does this make sense?

> >

> > I am very interested to hear more about the library-related ARG!

> >

> > Wendy Despain

> >

> >

> > On Wed, June 5, 2013 7:37 am, Brice Clocher wrote:

> > > Hey everybody,

> > >

> > > Last March and April, I conducted an ARG project in the French

> > > university

> > > INSA de Lyon.

> > >

> > > The ARG was designed to engage people in a story revolving around the

> > > library, with the intent to improve the visibility of the latter.

> > >

> > > We created the ARG keeping in mind that our audience was primarily

> > > casual,

> > > and it yielded very interesting results (that we are still preparing

> > > for

> > > public release), but in the end, it only managed to engage a very

> > > limited

> > > part of the audience that it was visible to.

> > >

> > > Now I am on a contract to design another ARG, but this time at the

> > > scale of

> > > a city, and still targeting casual players, therefore I am trying to

> > > ensure

> > > that this one will engage a bigger ratio of people.

> > >

> > > Can you point out any useful resource I can read for that matter ?

> > >

> > > I've read Montola et al.'s Pervasive Games, and the ARG SIG's

> > > Whitepapers

> > > on the wiki

> > > (http://wiki.igda.org/Alternate_Reality_Games_SIG/Whitepaper).

> > >

> > > Do you have other cool resources for me to read ?

> > >

> > > Thanks in advance

> > > Brice

> > > _______________________________________________

> > > ARG_Discuss mailing list

> > > ARG_Discuss at igda.org

> > > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/arg_discuss

> > >

> >

> >

> > Wendy Despain

> > quantumcontent.com

> >

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