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[Gbutton]

Gaining credibility in the ARG community.

[Jas0n]

Anyone can start making good games at anytime no matter what their credibility level is, making those good games is what raises the credibility of the developer. As long as you have the ability to create good and interesting content you will draw an audience. I don't see any reason to have games critiqued prior to launching - there will be plenty of critiquing during the game and after the game.

I think people limit themselves if they think they're not going to be great because they're small. Gotta dream big and then do the most you can with what you've got. Credibility will come (as with any other profession - you cannot be a master electrician until you've done it, done it right, and you will be bit a few times in the process).

[Nighthawk]

The best way: create a "grass roots" game that people like, and they will follow you to the next one.

When LGL launched, nobody knew who was behind it. Or who the hell I was, for that matter; nobody knew anything about me the individual other than what I've expressed through game involvement on these forums (until the post-game, nobody knew my real name here).

Now it seems I have a following... like lemmings to a cliff...

Because of the nature of an ARG while it's in action, it's impossible to "Beta" it. Sure, you can Beta individual components of it, but it's a whole different thing compared to when it goes live. I Beta tested the hell out of LGL and still had some major issues.

And I don't think that ARGs lend themselves to criticism while being played. A lot of things can change during a game's lifetime, so the material that is being criticized can radically change from one day to the next.

[Jas0n]

definitely nighthawk - everything will change during the course of the game, but that doesn't mean that people won't still be critiquing it... I wasn't referring to a professional critique.

[pancito]

I think there's a sort of inherent critique in the meta comments that are made while the game is running, but these tend to be weak on the reflection and deliberation that are usually associated with critique as critique. The difference between this sort of in game critique and a post-game review is immense, of course, but that comes with the nature of the beast. ARG is a sort of performance art in that each occurence is unique. I suppose it would be possible to run the same script more than once, as it is possible to do a performance piece more than once. But while performance relies on different audiences to make the piece repeatable, I don't think ARG can do that very well.

It's possible to do critiques that are useful to a potential audience with movies, plays, concerts and so on because there is a high percentage of repitition in these events. I think I can argue that as we move away from the highly repetitive end of the scale (movies) towards the unique (Performance, ARGs) critiques become less useful for potential audience members, though no less interesting as critique.

Yet curiously it is the in-game critique that can make or break an ARG. From simple critiques ("I don't understand that puzzle"), to analysis of game mechanics ("This blog system blows") to criticism of the PM ("I find that insulting") each has an effect on the audience/players, and potentially the game. As audience/players we're willing to put up with a lot to get our fix, but there are limits. We vote with our posts, and as an ARG sinks off the front page or its post count remains low (or the reverse) you can see the effect of that vote.

As to whether or not critics are good for the field, I'm not sure ARG and its criticism is a mature enough art form for that to even be meaningful. Besides player/audience involvement, what makes a good ARG? What are our criteria for critique? I think we are still in the process of developing those. This doesn't mean that criticism isn't possible, and if there is to be a criticism of the form it has to jump in and get its feet wet and try out different criteria to see if they work. Which brings up a practical point. How can you critique an ARG you haven't played? I don't think you can recreate that experience simply by reading the threads and viewing the sites post mortum.

[Star Spider]

I think critiques and honest reviews are essential to growth and forward movement for any project and industry.

ARG's may be unique in their elements and game play interface, but essentially (and I would say ideally) they still have to have a basic structure in order to function properly and lead to play that is involving, understandable and meaningful. At their core ARG's are systems and in my opinion should be reviewed as such. There are a couple of different layers to the systems (in most cases) which can be broken down by way of the various components.

For example:

1) Game play system (which is basically the combination of all the elements and how the entire game play flows and functions)
2) Individual puzzles
3) Narrative
4) Character interaction
5) Real world drops or interactions

Each of these elements can be broken down and objectively critiqued if some basic criteria is applied such as:

1) Game play system (objective) - How did the game flow? Was everything in place? Were there any gaping holes in the logic or the system of play? Were all the elements integrated in an elegant and well designed manner?

2) Individual puzzles (objective & subjective) - Were the puzzles well designed and elegant? Were there technical/logic flaws? Were the puzzles varied in scope? Did the puzzles fit in with the narrative in a logical way?

3) Narrative/Character interaction (subjective) - Was the story compelling/immersive? Were the characters believable and likable? Were there any logic holes in the storyline? Was the outcome satisfying to all the players? Is the story worth repeating?

4) Live events (objective & subjective) Were the live events/drops coordinated properly? Were there any on-site logistical problems? Did the real world events carry the narrative? Were the real world events immersive and entertaining?

The more you start to break it down into digestible chunks the more you can see that ARG's are still, at their core, game/story systems and can be reviewed/critiqued as such.

Objective and subjective opinions are very important to a critique because (unfortunately) we are not all robots and we need to take into consideration the emotional needs of the people who are playing the games. As a GM I am always interested in growing and I seek as many opinions as possible - I always request brutal honesty as I believe that is the best way to grow.

As the designer you can take and leave what you want - but I think it is vitally important for the information to be available and I would hope players would step up and give real, honest critiques - as there is no better way to learn and grow.

[pancito]

Without getting into the whole issue of whether or not objective critique is possible, I have to say that this looks like a workable starting point. The criteria make sense. There probably should be a sort of meta category as well. I usually think of critique as a process that tries to answer these basic questions:

1. What is the subject of the critique trying to do?
2. How well does it do what it tries to do?
3. How meaningful or difficult is what it tries to do?

The first question needs to ignore the larger perspective... So in answering it we don't say a restaurant is trying to sell food or a movie tickets, although this is undoubtedly true. Instead we need to focus more narrowly. This restaurant is trying to make really good chili dogs, this other one is Asian-Italian fusion. In ARG this would translate as the type of story it's trying to tell and the ways it tells it. A good ARG doesn't necessarily have to have drops and live events, for instance, so if it doesn't have some element it shouldn't be judged on that lack. This would be the equivalent of critiquing a black and white movie on its use of color. We can say that a movie should have been done in color though, or that an ARG would have been measurably improved by the use of live events, but we had better have very good reasons for doing so.

The second question is where all those criteria really come into play. Given that an ARG uses live events, how well was that carried out? And I think Star Spider's list of criteria are good ones, at least as a starting point. This category can also be used to look at how well the entire project came together. We have all seen movies that had good actors, a fine script, adequate budget, etc., but still didn't work. The same is probably true for ARGs. And while we may be able to point to some overriding flaw (bad editing, e.g.), frequently these are as much symptom as cause. In ARG you have the additional problem of the audience not "getting" something, though fault there is certainly debatable. So there is the synergistic factor, I guess, which is not entirely under anyone's control.

The last question is where we can meaningfully look at the largest aspects of the work. Did it try to do something difficult or was it yet another 'Save the Cheerleader?' Was the scope small or epic? How long did it run? Was it enjoyable for most of the players? And probably most important from a genre perspective, did it push the envelope of what the genre is or can do? Did it make us see ARG, or the world we live in, in a new light? Did it teach us something about the human condition? Did we think in new and interesting ways? Citizen Kane isn't one of the great movies of all time because it had great acting or a great script (though both were good), but because it redefined how we looked at (and saw) movies.

I know I've doubled some of Star Spider's points here, and maybe even muddied the waters a bit. That wasn't the objective, but rather to add another layer to the perspective or another angle of approach. While I think player reviews are necessary and helpful, I'd also like to acknowledge that writing good critique is an art to itself. In post-game recaps you get ten "Great game, dude!"'s for every insightful, helpful comment, whether positive or negative. People who participate in a game and are capable of writing even halfway good critique, should. It would benefit everyone in the community.

[cfreak]

Do something original. In the case of Deus City people either loved it or hated it. The one thing we learned though was there was no such thing as bad publicity.