July 30, 2008
ARGFest 2008 in Review: ARG International (Lost in Translation)
This article is the fourth in a series, providing summaries of the panel presentations at ARGFest-o-Con 2008 in Boston
The third panel discussion featured Brian Clark of GMD Studios as moderator, Patrick Moeller (ARGReporter, vm-people GmbH), Alexander Serrano (vm-people GmbH), and Genevieve Cardin (Baroblik communication et multimedia). The panel discussed the blossoming ARG market in countries that have yet to enjoy the wonders of Fried Oreos.
The discussion started with a brief history of the alternate gaming market in Germany, from its humble beginnings as a student project about the World Cup to the present day, with three grassroots projects running concurrently, and commercial ARGs both international and domestic targeting the country. Cardin noted her experiences entering a market she didn't even know existed through her multi-lingual games.
Often, the developers noted, the decision to go International is more of a matter of budget than that of language barrier concerns. The panelists noted a few differences in play styles. For instance, the media involved for projects with target audiences with limited access to flat-rate internet service plans need to be adjusted accordingly. Additionally, the popularity of devices with GPS capabilities has led to the popularity of geo-caching in Germany.
Creating international ARGs as opposed to region-based games may present its own difficulties. A member of the audience noted that creating games spanning more than one language requires highly skilled translators, since they must create adaptations of the game that take into account its subtle nuances. Furthermore, navigating the international legal quagmires may mean a significant amount of time is spent talking with lawyers. The challenge of finding people in other locations also becomes grander on the global stage.
Despite these challenges and difficulties, International and region-based alternate reality games in countries outside the country are becoming increasingly popular. In some countries, it is even possible to secure government funding to assist in developing ARGs as an art form.
The growing Alternate Reality Gaming community means a broader audience is exposed to the genre. With exciting new projects by foreign developers worldwide and with news websites such as ARGReporter and ARGFan reporting on ARG news in German and Japanese respectively, English-language fans may not have the monopoly on fun for very much longer. We are, after all, grossly outnumbered.
Check back over the next few weeks for the video of this panel when it is released.
Posted by Michael Andersen at 9:59 AM | Comments (1)
July 28, 2008
ARGFest 2008 in Review: The Live Events (Stealing Sleep an Hour at a Time)
There were so many game launches, puzzles, and events at ARGFest this year, it's a wonder anyone had any time to attend any of the panels. What follows is a brief summary of some of the events that robbed this columnist of his much-needed beauty sleep.
Alpha Agency
The first game launch of the night was a subtle one. Upon arriving at the Cocktail Party at 7pm, Lewis Murphy handed me his business card. He even went through the trouble of writing my name on the card before handing it over. Upon closer inspection, there was a symbol on the back of the card. Sixteen other specially marked business cards were handed out over the next few hours. Thanks to some quick footwork by Mapmaker, the symbols were all collected and assembled to reveal the website for Alpha Agency.
Eight Days
Eight days before the start of ARGFest, a number of players received emails leading to a series of highly technical puzzles and a countdown page. When the countdown ran out, something happened at the cocktail party. The general buzz of conversation was replaced with the rantings of a mad man with a manila folder sticking out of his pants. The natural reaction, of course, was to steal the folder from the crazy man, which is just what attendee EGo did. Inside the folder was a CD containing a video as well as a photo that led the partygoers away from alcohol and into the streets, where they eventually found a letter marking the end of the scavenger hunt.
The Dark Knight
Luckily, the scavenger hunt ended with just enough time to make it to Loews theater to catch a screening of The Dark Knight, courtesy of ARGFest sponsor 42 Entertainment. Watching the film, I appreciated how aspects of the alternate reality game added to the movie viewing experience.
Ghost of a Chance
The next game launch arrived carrying a portable music player and little else. The man sported a rather snug piece of swimwear, sunglasses, and elaborate henna tattoos. After a period of flexing to old-time radio music in front of his rapt audience, the mysteriously slow streaker left. The words written on his left shoulder led to Ghosts of a Chance, where you can submit photographs of your eye and call a number to recite the famous Shakespearean spell, "Double Double Toil and Trouble". The countdown on the page expires on September 9th. John Maccabee of City Mystery is working on the project.
FestQuest
The ARGFest planners thought that just letting attendees eat without a challenge would be a trifle unfair. So after dividing interested participants into four groups using a deck of cards (I got the 10 of Hearts), the puzzle quest commenced with a different set of puzzles for each group. The winning team received the Grand Inquisitor's approval: a poster signed by Elan Lee with the felt beard used in panel after panel.
Even FestQuest had a bit of promotion slipped in, as "Thehost" from What is this Game marked the end of the trail, and handed keys to the three players who came from across the country to compete for a role in What is this Movie, a film being produced by Staff of the Magi. "Thehost" gave out business cards that served as keys to con-goers interested in joining in the fun, and was a hit with random passerby on the street as well.
Eight Days Faces Inflation
Over the previous day, Eight Days faced some inflation, now telling players to visit 13 Lights. Someone left notes on the doors of select players as they returned from last call at the bar. Those of us attempting to solve the puzzle apparently didn't reach the Ballmer Peak, but eventually the puzzle resolved to a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy quote along with a handwritten countdown ending August 3rd.
The Tomb
The Tomb is a local Boston attraction that is horribly underappreciated, as it offers a comedic yet entertaining romp through a puzzle-strewn Egyptian tomb transported to Boston. And thanks to a letter accidentally delivered to ARGNet's own Jonathan Waite's door, the destination for an alternate reality game. After completing various missions in the Pharaoh's tomb, players received a Jeffersonian cipher wheel and an envelope containing letters as part of Aporia CME's Aporia Agathon Project.
Lost Game: Boston
James and Mei Hui, two characters from Find the Lost Ring, completed the barrage of ARG events by leading our tired ranks through rounds of the 3-circuit and 7-circuit Lost Game. The best times of the day set records for the New England region.
Click Here to view the ARGFest 2008 Flickr pool, with photographs of all of the fun. If you have videos of any events, reply to this article with a link!
Posted by Michael Andersen at 11:41 PM | Comments (1)
July 26, 2008
ARGFest 2008 in Review: Rules of Engagement with Steve Peters (Brunettes with Glasses are Hot)
This article is the third in a series, providing summaries of the presentations at ARGFest-o-Con 2008 in Boston
Steve Peters left ARGNet a few years back, but he still sticks around. Supposedly, he works for some company named 42 Entertainment that sponsored ARGFest 2008 and purchased tickets to The Dark Knight for attendees. In this Showcase Presentation, Steve Peters explained how to deal with Alternate Reality Gaming audiences using the Microsoft Vista-sponsored ARG Vanishing Point as an example.
According to Peters, there are Five F's of Fantasticness necessary for every alternate reality game: Find, Focus, Fun, Freedom, and Fear.
The first step to every alternate reality game is the FIND: discovering the game. With Vanishing Point, 42 Entertainment targeted early adopters with puzzle boxes, puzzle graphics on Windows and technology blogs, and a taunting message suggesting that the readers wouldn't be able to solve these. Solving the puzzles led to the main page for Vanishing Point, where, explains Peters, players found the ever effective and tantalizing countdown. So effective, in fact, that Vanishing Point included dozens of countdowns scattered around the website, each one culminating in a live event.
Which brings us to the second step: FOCUS. Players need to know what to expect when they're entering a game. While you can pick up a book and anticipate the commitment it will involve by the number of pages, size of the font, and reputation of the author, the same does not necessarily apply to alternate reality games. Sticking to regularly scheduled updates helps generate expectations for the players. Setting more explicit boundaries through iconic touches to the websites can also help guide players and protect the developer's sanity.
The third factor is both the simplest and the hardest: FUN. Under the direct assault of hundreds or even thousands of skilled players, puzzles often need to be difficult. However, they still have to be fun, and often building upon previous puzzles can help with that process.
Next is the FREEDOM factor. Playing an alternate reality game gives a voyeuristic experience into the lives of the characters, as players piece together their lives through emails, voicemail messages, and the various artifacts left to explore. But it's the interactive nature of alternate reality games that bring players back, and developers must remember that there is no such thing as people "playing wrong" -- the ideal development experience can be compared to Dueling Banjos. Each party calls and responds in turn, modifying aspects of the conversation to generate something special.
Finally, the FEAR factor. Players should not be afraid of the design team. The reverse is not necessarily true. For the Vanishing Point game, players often got videos of the live events online faster than 42 Entertainment, and solved most puzzles in a matter of hours, if not minutes. With such fast response times, players have to trust the puppetmasters not to ask them to do anything stupid or dangerous. And that's a healthy responsibility.
Be prepared for the unexpected, whatever that may be. Even if the unexpected is a flexing, tattooed bodybuilder flexing in nothing but a banana hammock and sunglasses.
Check back over the next few weeks for the video of this panel when it is released.
Click Here to learn more about the flexing, tattooed bodybuilder that made a surprising appearance at the end of Steve's presentation
Posted by Michael Andersen at 11:33 AM | Comments (1)
July 24, 2008
ARGFest 2008 in Review: Serious and Independent Games (Move Over, MoveOn)
This article is the second in a series, providing summaries of the panel presentations at ARGFest-o-Con 2008 in Boston
The second panel discussion featured Ken Eklund of World Without Oil as moderator, Brian Clark (GMD Studios), Alice Leung (BBN Technologies), and Dave Szulborski. The panel discussed a little of everything, from projects born from passion to penny-pinching PMs and politics.
Dave Szulborski noted that independent games are the mainstay of the genre, and kept it alive when marketing executives were questioning its effectiveness. He noted that successful games of any type tend to inspire new developers to try their hand in development. Independent ARGs also encourage developers to innovate in new and surprising ways. As Brian Clark noted, "the riskiest things we do are those we do for ourselves," and grassroots games are the ideal testing grounds for aspiring developers, as long as the project doesn't serve as a resume of technical development skills that avoids the critical "fun" factor necessary for independent and serious games alike.
One of the main challenges facing alternate reality games is the perception of a hoax. Brian Clark notes that some hoaxes such as the Man-Eating Chicken circus sideshow can be healthy in moderation. However, a serious question needs to be raised: if we embrace the ability of games to effect positive change, isn't it necessary to embrace the corollary - that games are capable of manipulating players? Clark noted that in many ways, MoveOn.org (and many other political organizations) are alternate reality games. They have their own narrative that they control, manipulate, and drive. They even have the occasional mailing and live event.
ARGs have the potential to educate players in critical skills such as relationship building and trend spotting that have to be experienced over extended periods of time. The goals of these types of games can be myriad. For instance, Szulborski mentioned he entered discussions with a university regarding the development of a 3-year long alternate reality game for its undergraduate students, with the goal of fostering a sense of unity and community that extends beyond team spirit at sports events. As Alice Leung explained, however, the inverse pyramid model of player interaction provides a challenge to serious game designers. While learning how to leverage shared awareness may be integral, the game must still attempt to reach the less-engaged players so that everyone internalizes the intended lessons.
Alternate reality games may not be the best mechanism for teaching facts, even though information retention can be enhanced when transplanted into the gaming context. However, alternate reality games are eminently successful at giving facts both meaning and context. World Without Oil addressed a real-world issue, and crowd-sourced the game's creation to process information regarding the ongoing oil crisis into a digestible form. Further, the team released lesson plans to high school teachers in order to facilitate the game's distillation to students. BBN Technologies, on the other hand, develops highly regimented simulations for the military on long-term projects.
The challenge of alternate reality games, especially independent and serious ARGs, is to create an experience without telling the players they have to do something. And while the desired results may differ from game to game, that impetus remains the same: a sense of "fun".
Check back over the next few weeks for the video of this panel when it is released.
Posted by Michael Andersen at 9:20 PM | Comments (0)
July 23, 2008
ARGFest 2008 in Review: Extended Media Experiences (The Mustache Strikes Back)
This article is the first in a series, providing summaries of the panel presentations at ARGFest-o-Con 2008 in Boston.
The first panel discussion featured Evan Jones of Stitch Media as the moderator, Yomi Ayeni (Expanding Universe), Elan Lee (Fourth Wall Studios), Lance Weiler (Seize the Media), and Blair Erickson (Millions of Us). The panel explored the challenges and advantages that arise from cross-media productions.
Blair Erickson started the discussion with a description of an early project, an alternate reality game promoting World Wrestling Entertainment. Recognizing that a major draw of wrestling is the love of a fight, Erickson moved the rivalry between two wrestlers onto virtual worlds, with a game that played out over more than 100,000 threads, with players contributing in support of their favored athlete. The game culminated in Summer Slam, a pay-per-view match between the wrestlers. More recently, Millions of Us developed an ARG for the Sarah Connor Chronicles, which delved deep into the franchise's mythology.
Yomi Ayeni discussed his work with Violette's Dream, an ARG running as part of the upcoming video game, Velvet Assassin. The video game is based on the true story of a female soldier in World War II. The alternate reality portion of the game operates under the assumption that the game's protagonist repurposed Nazi gold to help undercover agents in need. The aim was to make the game as real to life as possible: the first gold bar was found by former ARGNet writer Dee Cook in Fredericksburg, Texas, a town with deep historical ties to Germany. Ayeni described the project as a "fingerprintless" project that runs parallel to the video game.
Lance Weiler followed by talking about how his revolutionary changes within the film industry. For his film Head Trauma, Weiler charged $5,000 to bring the event to theaters, and split profits on the tickets. In return, audience members interacted with the film at unprecedented levels, exchanging phone calls and text messages with characters, seeing characters emerge from the theater, and following them home for a continued experience long after the film concluded. He is investigating using Bluetooth technology to heighten the audience participation in the film even further, and launched the alternate reality game Hope is Missing to promote the film's DVD release by Warner Brothers.
Elan Lee reiterated the importance of compelling intellectual property and a strong distribution mechanism, noting that when Bungie Entertainment approached 42 Entertainment to develop I Love Bees, they had a strong, compelling story to be told, but no distribution mechanism to support it.
A series of questions from the mustachioed Grand Inquisitor, Elan Lee, directed the conversation to the attraction of alternate reality games to marketers. In the face of increasingly jaded consumers, advertising methods such as television commercials and banner advertisements are blocked by complex technological and mental interventions. ARGs have the potential to offer a shockingly high return on investment, and can even become freestanding intellectual property in and of itself, as evidenced by Weiler's success with Hope is Missing.
Because of these advantages, business partners are often eager to jump on seemingly crazy proposals because they see the potential of the genre. Ayeni noted that his pitch for Violette's Dream boiled down to asking if he could start giving gold away. Despite these advantages, alternate reality games often provide logistic nightmares. Elan Lee recalled his experiences with a live event for Vanishing Point at the Bellagio Hotel, while Ayeni discussed geographic problems working with a production studio spread out on different parts of the globe.
Acknowledging that alternate reality games may very well turn out to be the "flavor of the week," the panelists voiced their confidence that the genre would continue to thrive since it meshes perfectly with the internet's search/aggregate/remix culture. At any rate, we still have reality television.
Check back over the next few weeks for the video of this panel when it is released.
Posted by Michael Andersen at 12:12 PM | Comments (2)