I like to make a joke about ARG developers being descended from underpants gnomes. This is a joke that works on two levels, and one of them is on my mind a lot lately, so please bear with me while I deconstruct it and render it completely unfunny.
The first level is pretty easy. For those of you who run ARG studios, the business model of the South Park underpants gnome may seem uncannily familiar:
1: Collect underpants
2: ???
3: Profit! And sometimes that's exactly what it feels like we're doing, right? We're building awesome things and hoping that eventually, we'll work out how to make a living that way.
But the other thing underpants gnomes and ARG developers share, and the thing I'm here to talk about today, is secrecy. More specifically, that idea of puppetmasters hiding behind a curtain. Secrecy has been a constant companion since the giddy days of the Cloudmakers, when we didn't know what the heck was going on, didn't know who was doing it, and loved every delicious minute of that uncertainty. Part of the fun for us was trying to catch the people behind this game-that-wasn't-a-game! But this had a lot of pretty terrible side effects, from the actor at a live event who was followed into his off-duty life, clear to the internal strife over whether looking at packing slips for a return address was in the bounds and the spirit of the game... or not. It was exciting, I'll give you that. It was mysterious. But it has to stop. As alternate reality gaming reaches an increasing level of maturity and sophistication, not to mention pop-culture notoriety, there are a few incredibly compelling reasons that the habit and tradition of secrecy, of hiding the development team behind a curtain, is no longer sustainable. I'll even go further: That tradition has reached a point where it actively works against the interests of the genre, not to mention against the interests of any specific game. Here's a prime example. There's a familiar song I see in comment threads about ARGs on places like io9 or BoingBoing, or in private chats, or in emails from friends. "I'd love to play an ARG," the lyrics go, "but I've got no idea how to find one." It should go without saying that finding an audience is one of the top goals of an ARG. If you don't have an audience... well, you're just spitting into the wind, aren't you? So why has the convention persisted of not actually telling a potential audience that you're going to make something awesome and hey, you might want to pay attention, y'all? Because it breaks the curtain? Because it's alien to our viral-marketing heritage? Because it admits there's a game? Shh... I have a secret for you. They already know it's a game. There aren't legions of wide-eyed innocents out there who think they're really finding kidnapping victims, infiltrating secret societies, or collaring insane artificial intelligences. No, really! There have even been games -- sequels and serials like Chasing and Catching the Wish and the Eldritch Errors series spring to mind -- where the players already know who's behind the game, and it doesn't seem to have hurt anything. And here's another consideration, too, for those of us who are trying to build reputations, careers, and if I may be so bold, fan followings. If somebody is dying to see your next work, absolutely slobbering over the chance to participate in your next creative act -- go on, tell them what it is. You don't get bonus points for hewing to some pure ideal about rabbit holes and organic discovery of the experience. You just get a smaller audience to start with, and you risk the chance that a lot of people who'd love to play your game -- if only they knew it was your game -- are going to miss out. There's one more consideration, too. If you can be open about who you are and what your work is, when catastrophe strikes (as it always does), you can open a channel of communication to deal with it. You can provide technical support for a Flash interface that isn't performing as well as it tested. You can apologize because your ISP was struck by lightning and you're having to rebuild three days of data. You can tell everybody that the live event scheduled for tomorrow is going to have to be pushed back a week because, sorry guys, but I have to go to my grandma's funeral, and anyway the actor you were going to meet, that you've seen on video fifty times already, has broken both legs and is in traction for the foreseeable future. It's more elegant to write these things into the game. That should always be the first tactic. But some things really just won't work in the context of the story you're trying to tell... and that's totally OK. My experience is that your audience is going to be a lot easier on you than you ever will be on yourself. So cut yourself a break. Am I saying that everything about an ARG has to be broadcast far and wide before play begins? No, of course not. That's ridiculous. Movie studios keep production details under lock and key, even while promoting the names of the stars, the directors, the screenwriters. Video games announce release dates far in advance, allowing the players to budget their purchasing decisions (and for some dedicated gamers, time off work). There's not a lot of reason for ARGs to have a different standard, and a lot of reason not to.
The good news, of course, is that secrecy in ARGs is increasingly going out of fashion, anyway. I'm making a big show of calling out the practice, but the battle's already been won -- so much so, in fact, that I can easily name several instances where the cat's been out of the bag during the run, or even before, from the last few weeks alone. Obviously Six to Start announced The Shadow War ahead of time. True Blood had an article outing them in the New York Times. Luce's Lover's Eye, mere days after its ARGfest trailhead, was profiled by ABC News as being an effort by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Alpha Agency is experimenting with blogging about the run, during the run. Now we just have to overcome that underpants-gnome-like business model...
2: ???
3: Profit! And sometimes that's exactly what it feels like we're doing, right? We're building awesome things and hoping that eventually, we'll work out how to make a living that way.
But the other thing underpants gnomes and ARG developers share, and the thing I'm here to talk about today, is secrecy. More specifically, that idea of puppetmasters hiding behind a curtain. Secrecy has been a constant companion since the giddy days of the Cloudmakers, when we didn't know what the heck was going on, didn't know who was doing it, and loved every delicious minute of that uncertainty. Part of the fun for us was trying to catch the people behind this game-that-wasn't-a-game! But this had a lot of pretty terrible side effects, from the actor at a live event who was followed into his off-duty life, clear to the internal strife over whether looking at packing slips for a return address was in the bounds and the spirit of the game... or not. It was exciting, I'll give you that. It was mysterious. But it has to stop. As alternate reality gaming reaches an increasing level of maturity and sophistication, not to mention pop-culture notoriety, there are a few incredibly compelling reasons that the habit and tradition of secrecy, of hiding the development team behind a curtain, is no longer sustainable. I'll even go further: That tradition has reached a point where it actively works against the interests of the genre, not to mention against the interests of any specific game. Here's a prime example. There's a familiar song I see in comment threads about ARGs on places like io9 or BoingBoing, or in private chats, or in emails from friends. "I'd love to play an ARG," the lyrics go, "but I've got no idea how to find one." It should go without saying that finding an audience is one of the top goals of an ARG. If you don't have an audience... well, you're just spitting into the wind, aren't you? So why has the convention persisted of not actually telling a potential audience that you're going to make something awesome and hey, you might want to pay attention, y'all? Because it breaks the curtain? Because it's alien to our viral-marketing heritage? Because it admits there's a game? Shh... I have a secret for you. They already know it's a game. There aren't legions of wide-eyed innocents out there who think they're really finding kidnapping victims, infiltrating secret societies, or collaring insane artificial intelligences. No, really! There have even been games -- sequels and serials like Chasing and Catching the Wish and the Eldritch Errors series spring to mind -- where the players already know who's behind the game, and it doesn't seem to have hurt anything. And here's another consideration, too, for those of us who are trying to build reputations, careers, and if I may be so bold, fan followings. If somebody is dying to see your next work, absolutely slobbering over the chance to participate in your next creative act -- go on, tell them what it is. You don't get bonus points for hewing to some pure ideal about rabbit holes and organic discovery of the experience. You just get a smaller audience to start with, and you risk the chance that a lot of people who'd love to play your game -- if only they knew it was your game -- are going to miss out. There's one more consideration, too. If you can be open about who you are and what your work is, when catastrophe strikes (as it always does), you can open a channel of communication to deal with it. You can provide technical support for a Flash interface that isn't performing as well as it tested. You can apologize because your ISP was struck by lightning and you're having to rebuild three days of data. You can tell everybody that the live event scheduled for tomorrow is going to have to be pushed back a week because, sorry guys, but I have to go to my grandma's funeral, and anyway the actor you were going to meet, that you've seen on video fifty times already, has broken both legs and is in traction for the foreseeable future. It's more elegant to write these things into the game. That should always be the first tactic. But some things really just won't work in the context of the story you're trying to tell... and that's totally OK. My experience is that your audience is going to be a lot easier on you than you ever will be on yourself. So cut yourself a break. Am I saying that everything about an ARG has to be broadcast far and wide before play begins? No, of course not. That's ridiculous. Movie studios keep production details under lock and key, even while promoting the names of the stars, the directors, the screenwriters. Video games announce release dates far in advance, allowing the players to budget their purchasing decisions (and for some dedicated gamers, time off work). There's not a lot of reason for ARGs to have a different standard, and a lot of reason not to.
The good news, of course, is that secrecy in ARGs is increasingly going out of fashion, anyway. I'm making a big show of calling out the practice, but the battle's already been won -- so much so, in fact, that I can easily name several instances where the cat's been out of the bag during the run, or even before, from the last few weeks alone. Obviously Six to Start announced The Shadow War ahead of time. True Blood had an article outing them in the New York Times. Luce's Lover's Eye, mere days after its ARGfest trailhead, was profiled by ABC News as being an effort by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Alpha Agency is experimenting with blogging about the run, during the run. Now we just have to overcome that underpants-gnome-like business model...
Amen, sistah!
I would like to point out that I'm not the first to be blogging during the game. Nighthawk's been blogging about his game (nicknamed Bringer of Light/Shadow in Darkness) over at his custom blogging service, at http://www.brainclouds.net/Darklight/
Posted by: Agent Lex | August 19, 2008 at 10:21
Oh, I'm sure there are even more examples than that, too. If you've got 'em, links 'em up for us. :)
Posted by: Andrea A. Phillips | August 19, 2008 at 10:30
Heya Andrea,
Very thoughtful post, and there are a lot of interesting points about maintaining a curtain. But I don't agree that "it has to stop" at all! :)
Two considerations here, (albeit one only applies in the "promotional ARG" category): First, there's the client. Typically there is actually a stipulation that, as a vendor, you *can't* announce publicly that you're doing the project (as is currently the case with a certain caped dude) . Plus, the whole point is to shine a spotlight on their property, not yourself. But the bottom line is, most times Game Developers don't promote themselves is because they *can't.*
Secondly, and this applies to all projects, I think there *is* validity to the idea that in stepping out to promote one's self, you're yanking players out of the immersion of your very game, since it's taking place in the same space (ie reality). To me, it's the same as if, while reading a novel, you were suddenly reading "Do you like this part? I wrote it while on the seashore in Maine - Love, Stephen King." It'd be like not being able to turn the commentary track off on a DVD.
Admittedly, this is a fine point, but still a valid one, I think.
Anyway, for your list above of ARGs that have outed themselves, I'd only gently point out five notable ones that maintained an iron curtain with much success (leaving the measure of success to be discussed elsewhere): The Beast, Metacortechs, I Love Bees, Year Zero, The Dark Knight.
Sorry, but I don't see any battle being won here-not yet, anyway. :) I think *both* techniques are still valid, depending upon the circumstances.
Posted by: vpisteve | August 19, 2008 at 13:59
Thanks for stopping by, Steve. :)
On your first point, there's an underlying philosophic question here; do we want to be more like ad agencies, or more like movie studios? What we're doing right now is often a hybrid of both worlds. That said, it's not even the standard in advertising for an agency not to be able to take credit for their work.
Viral marketing is the one big instance... and yeah, to some extent our client expectations are sticking us in that viral marketing cubbyhole. It's a struggle to escape it, but I think it's not a cubby we belong in anymore. Me, I'd rather be a movie studio.
I'd think 42 has enough star power now to negotiate contract terms a bit -- and I would imagine that your reputation is something a client might want to piggyback on. But that's an outsider point of view, obviously, and hey, there's a reason I try to stay out of that part of the business...
On your second point, yes, you're absolutely right. There's something I didn't make clear in that original post. I'm not lobbying for studios to make themselves freely available to players during a run, and certainly not suggesting that you pop the bubble of the game world by sticking your fingers in it. Keeping the story world intact and separate to maintain immersion is always going to be a high priority. But as far as I'm concerned, unless you're putting links to your dev blog into your character's podcasts, it's a totally separate issue. (And if you ARE doing that... well, I question your design, but I might be interested in taking a look to see what the heck you think you're doing.)
What I AM suggesting is that more studios be open about what they're up to. Send out press releases ahead of time saying, "Hey, we're going to do an awesome thing. If you want to join in the fun, keep your eyes on our.mysterious.url.com on Nov. 13." Keep a list of links to running projects on your home page. It's no mysterious package to Jonathan Waite, but it's honest. Those packages to ARGN ultimately don't scale very well. (Sorry, Jonathan. :)
And you don't have to blab about your design goals and whatnot to the press (though I think that doesn't hurt much when it happens, either). But getting to the point where you can acknowledge your own work and say "Yeah, it's ours, but we don't like to discuss a project until it's over," has a value.
That list of mine, BTW, is a list of games launched or announced or outed *just since ARGfest*, and not a comprehensive survey of the genre. Sure, there have been a lot of major games with an iron curtain. There probably will be more. The trend definitely seems to be pointing toward more transparency from where I'm sitting, though; and I find I like it better that way.
Posted by: Andrea A. Phillips | August 19, 2008 at 15:16
There are a couple of things I want to say here...
First, I've run a couple of projects where glitches expose my identity to players. I usually respond with something like "Oh, yeah, I'm hosting that strange application on my webspace but I don't know much about it so you'll have to contact those guys running it". The "nudge nudge, wink wink" is implicit. My point is, tearing the curtain has never seemed too harmful to me, because players *want* to preserve their own immersion and will happily go along with your excuses (as long as they don't feel like you're trying to manipulate or disrespect them). Not only that, I'm sure there are ways to reveal authorship without breaking immersion *too* much. Just a hair.
On the other hand...Why don't you try thinking about it in the other direction: If you want to create an anonymous work, ARGs are amenable to letting so.
Posted by: John Evans | August 20, 2008 at 01:08
"On your first point, there's an underlying philosophic question here; do we want to be more like ad agencies, or more like movie studios? What we're doing right now is often a hybrid of both worlds."
Ahhh, the good old 'we,' which happens to be made up of people who think ARGs started with the Beast, others still who think it started with Publius Enigma, and still others who have been telling stories for years and years who are now being told by people 'in the know' that what they've actually been doing is creating ARGs.
Trends and growth may be one thing, but it's fairly apparent that the game itself is the most important thing, and by 'game' I mean the player's experience with the story. The curtain issue is one that needs to be applied anew with each project.
To propose a blanket policy for a genre that has no real borders is really weird, and not very useful! I suppose it might feel good to be able to tout yourself and know that it will bring an audience, but ultimately the play's the thing, and we're capturing the conscience of the King -- er, the world the story lives in.
To each their own, honestly. But color me reluctant to put *anything* else ahead of the story (or, if it were a pro game, what the client wants).
Posted by: krystyn | August 20, 2008 at 12:10