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Forum index » Meta » Puppetmaster Help

Free/Cheap resources?
Moderators: imbri

Page 1 of 1 [2 Posts]

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MrvnMouse
Boot

Joined: 02 Aug 2004
Posts: 22

Free/Cheap resources?

Right now, the biggest wonder I have re: these ARGs is the fact that they seem to have unlimited budgets for resources (SOme hire people to answer phones, others have 1-800 lines, etc.)

Are there free services for the following somewhere that will not be overly suspicious: fax, phone? Or how exactly do the people making the incredibly complex ARGs pay their bills? Is this just altruistic behaviour, and these people are really just being generous?

Any help would be appreciated.

Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2004 10:29 am

MageSteff
Pretty talky there aintcha, Talky?

Joined: 06 Jun 2003
Posts: 2716
Location: State of Denial

Re: Free/Cheap resources?

MrvnMouse wrote:

Note: Not all Args have the big budget you mention. Lots of things can impact the look of an arg

1. Corporate sponsorship - this gives a bigger budget and is usually to tout one or more products and generate hype among an established fan base.

2. The incredibly complex grass roots args don't pay all the bills. You have to be willing to put up the money with no hope of recouping your expenses. The moral of this is not "Don't do an ARG" - rather it is put in more time to make the sites etc. that you can afford look the best they can. A few sites with subdomains can go as far as lots of domains, provided you have the time/people to put in to making the sites look wonderful.

In my opinion (worth whatever loose change you want to toss in) the amount of effort put into creating storyline, puzzles, characters and how the web sites LOOK, are more important than having a gagillion sites and phone lines with little content. It also makes the few telephone calls you do make (if at all) that much more special in the context of the game. There are plenty of ways to contact the players, E-mail, IM, snail mail, blogs, in-person, that the telephone is just ONE of many ways contact can happen.

Haunted Apiary (I love Bees), Syzygy, and the Beast have larger corporate budgets, but others, Chasing the Wish, Project MU, Acheron, ran on smaller budgets but still had interesting games because of the time and effort put into everything else.

Sure there are ways to make some money from the game, donations, cafe press store, auctions, but from what has been discussed in chats with previous grass roots Puppet Masters is that you will probably not recoup much of your money.

Several People have offered a few domains for grass roots ARGs, do a search and you should be able to find them. You or your development group may have a few of your own domains that you can give a temporary make-over for the arg, plus there are lots of free web sites out there to use for blogs and personal web sites that can fill out the few paid domains you have.

Ask around and search this PM tutorial section for more ideas.

_________________
Magesteff
A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead

Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2004 6:52 pm

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