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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: General » ARG: Zoe's World
THE END - New email - sorry@pemesent.com
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Russell
Unfictologist


Joined: 11 Feb 2005
Posts: 1571
Location: London

 		THE END - New email - sorry@pemesent.com
Ipod adverts are everywhere these days.

Sadly this isnt one.

http://www.pemesent.com

--

When you go to the site the pop up box displays:

Quote:
8th September 2005

Sadly after much deliberation this website and the whole ARG have been suspended. There are several reasons why this decision has been made.

Firstly this game was intended to be played on the streets of London, sadly after the events of the 7/7/05 security is now a serious issue. Underground stations were a large part of the game and now obviously they cannot be used.

Secondly the number of players playing "Zoes World" is not enough to constitute us continuing. This game was not a "grassroots" game from the start but this was assumed, we have a budget but not enough to complete the game for a handful of players.

Sadly we have also struggled to get any support from the major ARG websites as they seem absorbed in new games or larger projects, which this could have easily been.

We are very sorry your experience has ended this way. We hope to launch the game once more if its possible, but the current climate online and off-line doesn't permit it.

Personally its been a pleasure working with all of you and I hope to again

Tom Andrew

Head PM / Creator

N/A Productions UK

You may email your questions to pmSPLATimfriendly.co.uk

All questions will be answered in the space below as we receive them.


Well after the umpteenth game disintegration I think I will be bowing out from Args for a while, its been fun working with you guys and wish you luck on future ARGS Smile

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 7:10 am
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Withe Bartbi
Veteran


Joined: 30 Aug 2005
Posts: 125

 		ARRGH!
Arrgh!
Evil or Very Mad
I can't express how frickin bad this sucks.

Terrorists suck azz.
The time that I put into this game is now wasted and that sucks azz.
Meltdowns SUCK AZZ.

If they're gonna end it, they at least coulda been a little nicer instead of insulting the players they DID have playin the game, not to mention the jab at the major sites...
Quote:
Secondly the number of players playing "Zoes World" is not enough to constitute us continuing. This game was not a "grassroots" game from the start but this was assumed, we have a budget but not enough to complete the game for a handful of players.

Sadly we have also struggled to get any support from the major ARG websites as they seem absorbed in new games or larger projects, which this could have easily been.


If it's not a grassroots game, then say so. Not that I cared even if it was, the storyline was appealing. The PMs left us high and dry in the middle of a puzzle, of all things. The terrorists won.

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 8:15 am
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Russell
Unfictologist


Joined: 11 Feb 2005
Posts: 1571
Location: London

 		Personally I dont think it has anything to do with terrorists, if you are going to leave mysterious packages anywhere you might arouse suspicion. I personally feel its a rather poor list of excuses to stop it but if they dont want to do it then thats the case.

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 8:44 am
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Mudbrother
Decorated

Joined: 09 Jun 2005
Posts: 160
Location: Virginia USA

 		frustrating without a doubt. Sad We were starting to get more players active with the reawakening of the puzzles too.

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 8:51 am
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automaton
Veteran


Joined: 18 Mar 2005
Posts: 148
Location: London, England

 		I hope they do relaunch.
Leaving a bunch of puzzles and plots in the air is not healthy, especially after the amount of work that has already been put into this game.

If they were concerned about not having a greater audience then why did they not try to advertise further after pre-game had been completed?

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 8:55 am
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Russell
Unfictologist


Joined: 11 Feb 2005
Posts: 1571
Location: London

 		Exactly, they only got one puzzle into the new game and give up, erm look at most Args, it starts off as a snowball then avalanches the more interesting it gets thats the nature of it you cant just expect 200 odd people to immediately start a game of which they have no idea whether its going to asplode like most others shortly after launch or not..... Rolling Eyes

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 9:20 am
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Withe Bartbi
Veteran


Joined: 30 Aug 2005
Posts: 125

 		Russell, I agree that mysterious packages left in public would be suspicious, in light of the attacks and security measures taken to prevent future ones. But I feel that I must clarify my previous statement. Terrorists seek to instill fear and disrupt the lives of normal law abiding citizens, and because of the attacks, yet another "normal life" activity has been disrupted, thus, in a way, they have achieved their goal.

As far as packages are concerned, the PMs could have worked their way around that, using the post instead. (If in fact that was an avenue they were going to pursue).

I think it was just plain awful that the PMs updated us with clues up until what, 5-6 days ago and then they just drop it with no regards to the players who were still wracking their brains to solve a puzzle that would never be brought to fruition. Yes, I understand that they couldn't just give an answer to everything in the case of a relaunch, but still---they shouldn't have even started the cube puzzle if they weren't even gonna let us finish it.

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 9:47 am
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Russell
Unfictologist


Joined: 11 Feb 2005
Posts: 1571
Location: London

 		Well the answer is posted in the other thread if anyones interested. Im guessing with the speed of this reply that they are online and prob checking these forums so if anyone else has any questions then drop them a line.

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:06 am
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ItWasntMeISwear
Unfettered

Joined: 15 Feb 2005
Posts: 503
Location: Illannoys, USA

 		Lack of Players?
Okay, so they decided to launch at a really bad time, so what. What does the lack of players have to do with going through with the rest of the game? Finishing what you started?

If the PM decided to make the cruddy decision to make an agreement with a sponsor and lied to them by telling them "I can guarentee "X" amount of players" that's something that we have absolutely no control over and all the blame should then be put on the PMs shoulders. Everyone knows that you can not guarentee a certain number of players unless you have some games under your belt and actually have some numbers to go by. Even then you can run into guarentee problems.

There have been a lot of implosions in the ARG world lately. And they are mostly caused by bad planning. Let this be a lesson to any future PMs. Please plan everything out, prepare for the unimaginable and have an answer for as much as you can. Your implosions just don't cause harm to yourself, but to the community and this genre.

I, for one, am not willing to let this damper my spirits. I am sure that there will be a game along soon which will be something to admire. Something that will hopefully give ARGers, new and old alike, hope that the genre is still safe.

I can not guarentee that there will not be games that implode before that time though... sorry.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 12:01 pm
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Phaedra
Lurker v2.0


Joined: 21 Sep 2004
Posts: 4033
Location: Here, obviously

 		Re: THE END - New email - sorry@pemesent.com
Zoe PM wrote:
Secondly the number of players playing "Zoes World" is not enough to constitute us continuing. This game was not a "grassroots" game from the start but this was assumed, we have a budget but not enough to complete the game for a handful of players.


Please fill me in if I'm missing something.

1) Are we sure he understands the difference between grassroots and corporate?

Because if it isn't one, it's the other. And I wasn't aware that a corporation was sponsoring this game. Which corporation, precisely, was this game promoting? I don't see any corporation involved, which brings me back to how is this not grassroots?

2) Here we come back to the math of how many players a game aimed at the already-existing ARG community can attract. I haven't been following this one closely, just popping in from time to time and observing, but I didn't see anything to indicate that it was doing a lot to attract people who'd never played an ARG.

Please note: That is not intended to be a statement of blame of any sort. I don't know how one attracts all sorts of new blood without either (1) having tons of money to advertise one's game (and that sort of budget is generally limited to corporate games); or (2) doing a game based on a pre-existing world that has its own fan base (like Metacortechs -- or, for that matter, corporate games like ILB). I'm aware that it can be done -- Lockjaw and Chasing the Wish, for example, as far as I can tell, were both successful grassroots games not based on pre-existing worlds or characters. But I don't know what they did to get their new players.

Anyway, returning to the math of how many players you can get in a game, these days, if you aim it at the ARG community, I'll just quote from a post I made elsewhere:

Phaedra wrote:
As Imbri explained in one of the PM-training chats, this can backfire as far as player numbers. (Edited for easier readability and noise-to-signal ratio.)

#pmchat wrote:
[19:56] <imbri> well if you don't it's hard to have new players
[19:56] <imbri> and if you don't attract new players, you aren't going to have many players at all
[19:57] <imbri> because, let's say, the current "population" of unfiction is 1000
[19:57] <imbri> and of those 1000, 500 are playing the 'big games'
[19:58] <imbri> and another 200 are solelylurkers
[19:58] <imbri> waiting for the next 42 game
[19:58] <imbri> and 100 are pms/pms in training
[19:59] <imbri> you've gotta assume that there are about 400 potential players to an average grassroots game
[19:59] <imbri> and, right now, there are, what, 10-15 going on
[20:00] <imbri> and you've gotta share 400 players
[20:00] <imbri> the most you will get (and i think this is generous) is 40-50
[20:00] <imbri> unless you look outside the current arg community
[20:02] <imbri> how viable is a potential 40 player game... keep in mind that getting 10% out of lurking status is rough going
[20:03] <imbri> 40 player game = 4 posting players, tops
[20:03] <imbri> you have to think of your playes as an iceberg
[20:04] <imbri> 90% (or more) are underwater... they are just lurking there
[20:06] <NightWing> Yeah... 90% of them would just sit there and lurk.
[20:06] <NightWing> In the iceburg.
[20:06] <imbri> denounced, like most statistics... those were made up on the spot
[20:06] <imbri> but, with a bit of awareness
[20:07] <imbri> i mean, i've been observing for quite some time
[20:07] <imbri> and i've had access to a few studies (though i question them as well)
[20:10] <imbri> and i think important
[20:10] <imbri> yes, agreed that it depends on the game
[20:10] <imbri> but without visible players it's hard to recruit new players


So, let's revise Imbri's numbers to reflect the current population of Unfiction, which is 7236. According to the memberlist, 4961 of these members have actually posted.

Rounding the numbers, that means that of roughly 7000 players, 2000 are lurkers. Imbri estimated 20% lurk, but this puts it closer to 30%.

She estimated half are here to play the "big games." Either they only appear during the big games, or they play one game like ILB or Our Colony or Art of the Heist and then vanish (and while I don't believe Our Colony was really an ARG, I include it here because it did bring players to Unfiction. Or, there are people like me who half-heartedly try to play some of the smaller games but never really get grabbed by them.

So, 3500 are here for big games, but a few of them could potentially be interested in a smaller game. Another 2000 are lurkers only.

At imbri's estimate (that is, 40% of the total membership is part of a potential audience for grassroots games), that leaves us with about 2800 potential players.

And those 2800 have to be shared between the currently-running games (assume 10-15 at a time).

That's 280 potential players for each game, if we assume a fairly even distribution (which, of course, doesn't happen in real life as some grassroots games are more attractive than others).

As imbri noted, getting more than 10% of the players out of lurking status is rough going.

So, that means about 28 visible players. (Which is reasonably close to my estimate that there were ~30 regular players here.)

There's an explanation for your numbers question.

This again highlights the importance, for grassroots PMs, of looking outside the established ARG community for players. Especially, I think, with the launch.

I mean, they don't really need to worry about the Unfiction populace finding their game -- if it's out there, we'll find it. But aiming the game solely at Unfiction limits the potential size of your player base. And less players means less ability to solve puzzles and figure out the plot.

Also, I maintain that the larger the group, the easier it is to predict behavior, which is also important for a PM.

Anyway, that's my theory and I'm stickin' to it. Smile


Zoe PM wrote:
Sadly we have also struggled to get any support from the major ARG websites as they seem absorbed in new games or larger projects, which this could have easily been.


I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean.

I mean, what the heck did he want?

Sites like this are player-driven. For example, the admins don't high-handedly decide which games are "worthy" of having their own forum: they go by player response. They look at which games are getting the most player traffic. If a game is getting a reasonable amount of traffic and/or people are requesting a forum, it gets one. That's it. The admins don't try and influence how much attention a game gets. They just go by player response.

Similarly, sites like ARGN are news sites designed for the non-ARG-expert. ARGN announced Zoe's World's launch. I'm not sure how the PM can reasonably expect it to do more, unless the game gets a lot of player attention. ARGN is not there to aid PMs in promoting their game. It's there to aid players and potential players in knowing what's going on in the ARG world.

It's the PMs' responsibility to make their game attractive to players, not that of the "major ARG websites". This is not the old days when there were only one or two games running at a time. This is an increasingly crowded market where games are beginning to have to compete for player attention.

If your game doesn't attract a large player base, it's not because the world hates you, or because ARGN and other "major ARG websites" have been unfair to you, or because there is a prejudice against grassroots games, or anything of the sort.

It's because your game didn't compete well with the others. And rather than complaining about it, it'd probably be more productive to dissect your game, and compare and contrast it to the others with which it was running simultaneously, and try to figure out the reasons why players found other games more attractive.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 12:12 pm
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mastrrob
Boot

Joined: 27 Apr 2005
Posts: 30

 		does anyone know number of people doing ARG's in the UK compared to the US?

I guess i just dont understand how they can want a huge player base but then not give opportunities to play the full game unless you live in a certain country.

I love to solve puzzles and help out in general, but now knowing where the game was going, im glad that im out before i got too excited about the game.



See ya in the next game...


Rob

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 12:56 pm
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mishumi
Greenhorn

Joined: 30 Aug 2005
Posts: 5
Location: Bristol, UK

 		damn. I was really hoping to get somewhere on this one....It's a shame.

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 2:38 pm
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CreativeEmbassy
Veteran

Joined: 12 Jan 2005
Posts: 145
Location: State College, Pa, USA

 		I was going to post something here, but realized it was going to be far more hurtful than necessary.

Oh wait. This is a post. Pwned.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 4:27 pm
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OrlandO
Boot


Joined: 20 May 2005
Posts: 64
Location: a lume spento

 		Out through the in-door
Hrmmpf, here I am back from a well-deserved holiday that sadly lacked palm trees, pearly-white beaches and more culture than you could shake a stick at (but I'm not complaining about that) and I find ... this. First I shrug my shoulders and go do the laundry, then I think "wait a minute, I seem to remember I invested quite some time in this game". So I go and read some of the post-game interactions (more time not doing the laundry) and I start thinking: I'm sure the PM(s) gave it serious thought, but the reasons given for the melt-down seem, ehm, somewhat unconvincing -- as already noted by everyone else.

Ok, terrorism may hamper the possibilities of real-life interactions, but ARGs are more than that. For one: why was the main character, and the only one we had significant contact with, killed off, but left unreplaced? A string of blogs does not fill in for that kind of contact. If the PMs are interested in why their player base dwindled, I can say that that was the point where my attention was lost -- that, and what I can only call internal inconsistencies: bad spelling (were they, or were they not kloos?), some unclear puzzles (but that might have been me), a game that suddenly morphed into pre-game, and an unclear storyline (but that might have been me again Smile).

Considering that this was the game that tempted me into dipping into this ARGing thing in the first place, I am left with a bad aftertaste to add to my sunburn. I am really sorry that it ended this way, I was hoping it would get back on track (but honestly, I had my doubts). Still, I think the genre is much too promising and succesfull to be severely damaged by experiences such as these -- I, for one, am still around. If the PMs are interested, I would be up for a reverse reconstruction/evaluation in one form or another, because I do like this ARG thingy, and Zoe did have promise. But since there may be a "relaunch", I doubt much will happen in that respect, as much as I doubt the possibilities of that relaunch.
Better luck next time, I guess.
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 11, 2005 6:57 am
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LadyLovelylocks
Decorated

Joined: 29 Apr 2005
Posts: 187
Location: Sweden

 		N/A Productions? That's suitable. Rolling Eyes
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 11, 2005 11:42 am
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