Patrick Moeller from VM-People recently gave an insightful talk at ARGfest on the challenge of getting an audience hooked from the very beginning of an alternate reality game (ARG). He discusses the psychology and desire of players who want to take part in a transmedia storytelling experience from the very start of the project. This all stems from the fact that traditional ARGs play out in real time like a concert,but unlike a concert tour that could have dozens of shows in multiple cities,most ARGs only have one “show”. Other transmedia production companies have tried to solve this problem by tailoring their experiences to the single player which expands the potential audience but sacrifices the sense of community and shared experience inherent to traditional ARGs.
So,what can game designers do if they want to keep the “real time”aesthetic of traditional ARGs but still want to reach a large audience? During his presentation,Patrick discussed several ways that VM-People is tackling the challenge,and Remix Fiction was busy taking notes. Patrick noted that after the end of each campaign the most common question he gets is “Where do I have to register to get informed about the beginning of a new Alternate Reality Game?“. VM-People’s answer to this question is their www.folge-dem-kaninchen.de website (in English “follow the white rabbit”) that allows players to register their interest and contact information so that they can be included in future projects.
We have done something similar with our Personalized Privacy Sign Up form where we ask questions about how you would like to interact with Remix Fiction characters and give you an opportunity to share contact information. Like VM-People,we will never share this information with any third party and we will delete your information as soon as you send us an opt out notification. So far,we’ve only used the contact information to send out a few postcards and a couple gifts,but as our game deadline gets closer we’ll be using our list to do more game mechanics testing, and of course we’ll use it to send trailheads when our game launches next year.
What do you think? Should game designers continue to create ARGs that play out in real time or should they shift to a more single-player and replayable mechanic? Let us know in the comments.
[VIDEO] ARGfest –Follow the White Rabbit.
