unforum

[chulo333]

[META] ! Sprite !

[Jenna]

Yeah, this is really getting on my nerves, too.

[ladyindigo]

I actually don't see what the big deal is...

- SubLYMONal is a Sprite reference but only if you actually know what the ad campaign is and make the connection; I didn't until I looked on the boards.

- A song at the number mentions Sprite, but random songs on the radio make pop culture references all the time too.

- You were decompiling flash to find stuff and one of the files was named 'spritead'; were they supposed to call it something else for our convenience when they're more putting it together for theirs (and possibly not expecting this)?

- And having the Hanso ad paid for by Sprite isn't any more a removal from 'alternate' reality for me than having the Lost logo plastered on the cover of Bad Twin. Less so, in fact. Who's to say Sprite didn't donate some money to the Hanso Foundation ala a charity or campaign contribution?

Just my two cents.

[catherwood]

[MrBeefy]

To me it just reeks of corporate thinking.

"Let's throw some money at that VIRAL MARKETING thing that I keep hearing success stories about, and reap the infallible benefits."

They don't really care to understand it, nor care to play by the gentleman's rules of ARGing. I'm sure they hired a PM company that understands "right from wrong," but the folks footing the bill get the final say, for better or worse. Smart clients heed the advice of the specialists they hire. (Assuming a real ARG team was hired, as opposed to abc trying to pull this off "in-house")


Ultimately, it leaves me with a bad taste for this game. That's not to say I won't keep playing. But the sponsors' / PMs' method of integrating advertising is actually creating a negative reaction; in that they're transforming what was previously an indifference towards the Sprutkuk® brand lemon-lime soda, into an actual negative feeling towards the product where I will now choose a Sierra Mist when given the choice between the two.

Now that's not to say that the investors shouldn't support ARGing, but rather that they do it in the correct manner of making the sponsorship transparent to the game, and integrating it into the story as expressed in posts prior.

This sponsorship broke the forth wall for me. I hope they'll learn from (or care about) the community's reaction and do better the next time.

[RPGgame]

first of all I bet they dont even know that this group even exists.

Second of all I agree the lost sticker on the bad twin books was a very very bad move.

I am not feeling the connection that we are supposed to feel.

[Lyria]

I think the reactions to this are really interesting... My own reaction is kind of amusement; I'm so used to everything having a corporate sponsor these days (and not having a lot of ARG experience to compare it to) that this doesn't really faze me. It could also be that since I work in marketing/advertising, and know how limited budgets can be, that getting a sponsor for the game is a good way to expand the budget a bit - hopefully without impacting the game much (such as having to sit through a Sprite commercial before a site will load!).

I thought the sublymonal site was a kind of amusing way to reference the product without overtly mentioning it, although I was less thrilled with the "paid for by Sprite" in the commercial (but I'm guessing that it's like the political advertising "truth in advertising" thing; you can't just put up a Hanso Foundation ad that isn't a real corporation?)

But overall, the "corporate sponsorship" of the game doesn't impact my experience much; if I wasn't reading these boards, I don't think I would have made the sublymonal/Sprite connection until seeing the commercial was paid for by Sprite. And I think this game is really enjoyable; if the way to get access to hours of free entertainment is brief mentions of Sprite and monster.com without forcing me to sit through an entire commercial, I'm ok with it! (Would it be more immersive without advertising? Sure, but really, somebody's got to pay for this, since it's not directly bringing in revenue for the network but it's costing them money!)

(Disclaimer: ymmv I do understand the point of view that the commercial aspect is too distracting - I think the entire discussion is really interesting, and I wonder how sponsorship will impact the genre as a whole...)

[MrBeefy]

[DM]

The way I explained it to one of my friends is it's like running around in a Medievil themed game (I used Oblivion as an example) and coming accross a giant billboard advetrising Coca-Cola. The game feels less like a game or an interactive experience from there forward. You feel more like you bought something simply to have advertisements thrown at you.

However, in a game like, say, the Matrix Online, coming accross a giant billboard advertising Coca-Cola would deepen the experience. Like, "Wow, that's actually pretty cool". It's all about the context it is used in. Having Persephone direct you to a website like subLYMONal for a clue is simply not cool. Alternate Reality Games are supposed to be exactly that-an interactive story where you take up the role of one of the characters. We're investigating the disappearance of one of the worlds most powerful corporations leader (amoung other things), we shouldn't have characters referencing us to things like Sprite ads. It would be like getting a phonecall from Alvar Hanso himself that goes all in-character the way through when as the phonecall ends he says "Don't forget to watch Lost on ABC while enjoying a cold glass of Sprite!"

It's not IN CHARACTER. It's not immersive. It takes away that epic feeling. There's nothing like recieving a phonecall or e-mail from a person of importance in a story you have thorougly enjoyed for a long time. You feel like a part of the action, that is what ARG's are all about. You become a character in the story.

How could the whole thing better have been done? Simple, an ad on the Hanso page for sprite with some sort of disclaimer "Sprite, proud sponsor of the Hanso Foundation" or the like. THAT would be much more immersive. I'd look at that and not care. However, being directed by a character to a website that is a blatant (or even half-assed like subLYMONal) advertisement for something that somehow contains a clue you need to use to get more information... that makes no sense. Unless, of course, Persephone is an investigator that also works for Sprite.

The book? I loved the idea. It was brilliant. A fictional writer of a real book rather than vice-versa really makes you feel like you're in the Lost universe and taking part in an investigation of Hanso.

... then you see the Lost sticker on the book and cry because you just got booted back to the real world.

[Lyria]

[RPGgame]

as the poster said above we really do have no problem with advertising.

Lets go with the hanso foundation is sponsored by sprite. Ok, works for me there should be some reason that sprite plays in the overall scheme of things.

The best example of advertising and converting into money is last call poker. At the time we had no idea it had to do with a game called gun and a lot of players only preordered the game for a deck of cards which happened to play into the whole experience. This is just slapped together. But once again how do we get the pm's to notice what we are saying so that in the future maybe these mistakes can be fixed.

[DM]

[Lyria]

[Puppy_Zwolle]

I thought the subLYMONal was lemon as in

[Dr. Confoundo]

So far, this is less intrusive than General Motors' involvement in 'Who is Benjamin Stove?'... Unless we find out that the black cloud is actually a bunch of Sprite-powered nanobots, I'm ok with Sprite's name showing up here and there.