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[djs4000]

My business model. Need Suggestions.

[zeldafan8626]

Well, play to pay ARG's have been run in the past (but I can't seem to recall the name off hand, EA did it I believe)

From what I know they offered a free trial and if you liked it you could pay a monthly fee. A few people did it but at the end it was a failure (I'm not sure but I think they opened up to anyone by the end)


If I could play it for a bit and get a feel for the game, then if I liked it I might be willing to pay, but without any type of trial, I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole.

Anyway, Good luck.

[taozero]

The game in question was called 'Majestic', which featured a beta testing period, and may or may not have had a free trial. It was cancelled shortly after 9/11 (and that's about the extent of my knowledge on the subject).

While in theory a pay-to-play ARG could run successfully, you would take a very definite hit in the pocketbook before returns started showing up. For a game based on 'Assassin', you would probably do well to also have an attorney on hand (read - more money out of pocket) to make sure you don't get slammed with a lawsuit when an overzealous hunter breaks a victim's nose, or something of the like.

However, it does sound like an interesting proposal, to say the least.

[rowan]

I agree that you would need some sort of trial run. Not only would you be looking for something high quality to lure players in, you also need to prove yourself trustworthy as a PM. It's one thing for players to get into a free game not knowing who the PMs are. It's something completely different to pay for an experience when you know nothing about who is doing it.

[djs4000]

Here's a bit of a revised concept:

The game will start purely as a pay-to-play assassin contest. That has been proven to be succesful (though not quite an arg). Several of these could be run each time recruiting more people. After a while, when a bit of reputation is built, players could be invited to play again (again, pay-to-play). Only this time there would be side-missions. Missions could be used to score points for side prizes but would be risky because everyone would know where the target might be. The missions would hint a greater plot than just a game. Missions could also include the recruting or promoting of the game, hence earning reputation and player base.

[MageSteff]

[SirQuady]

Besides Majestic, both Search4E and TerraQuest were attempted ARGs that tried to use the pay-per-play model. It is interesting to note that all 3 of them failed. I'm not trying to discourage you, as the pay-per-play weren't the only reasons each of these ARGs failed (for both Majestic and Search4E, one of the big reasons for their failures was that the gameplay was erratic, and there were long periods of inactivity). Unfortunatley, the pay-per-play model, may have contributed to this failure as well (one of the main reasons behind the failure of TerraQuest was that there weren't enough players).

Thus, like MageSteff, i suggest you play some ARGs before getting into this stuff. I suggest you do this so that you don't repeat the mistakes of all the PMs of the past who have had games implode upon themselves. if you're serious about this, i'd also suggest you get your hands on a copy of Dave Szulborski's book, "This Is Not A Game: A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming". It's very informative. As well, i also suggest that you find other people to work with in making this game.

But in any case, i wish you luck with your endeavour!

[mbhulo]

I'd like to restart this topic in light of Perplex City.

While their business model is genius - you're not paying for content, you're paying for an addition to the content - people are still paying for the game.

What are our thoughts on this?

[AngusA]

It was definitely a clever idea to tack the puzzle cards onto a game to generate revenue. But will people keep going back to buy each new wave of cards as it is an expensive pasttime? Especially when you can play the game for free. Will the card buyers be happy to keep subsidising the game for the non card buyers? I suspect that Mind Candy have some other ideas on revenue streams - the MC website says they are looking to work with other companies, so there may be possiblities for product placement or advertising in the game. Having a working game with a large following makes it a much more attractive proposition than an idea on paper. So, maybe we'll see that shift over time.

[MageSteff]

[AngusA]

Bringing it back to business plans and how to finance a game, how many cards do you have to sell to finance: 17 staff, London offices, office equipment, events, bills etc etc and then generate a return on the $4.5m VC? To my mind that's a lot of cards. If it was my VC money, I'd want to see other revenue streams than just cards.

I'm not sure the Magic analogy is necessarily accurate here as once a card has been solved, the silver bit scratched and the game completed, what value does the card have? (Seems more like the football stickers I used to collect as a kid). A Magic card can be used over and over as long as you have an opponent. The game never finishes.

If I was putting a proposal together for serious money, I'd think about how to leverage the game to bring in other sources of revenue. How about Violet's Poker rooms

[MageSteff]

[AngusA]

How about getting sponsorship for the live events? That way they could be bigger, more widespread and involve more players. Everything is sponsored these days so we're all used to it.

I like the idea of selling extras that enhance the core game. That could be a route that djs4000 could look at rather than a pay to play game. Even if it is initially as simple as "Play the game - buy the T shirt".

[sago]

The big question in my mind about whether it was 'genius' or not is this: how much does the whole-ARG thing fuels the sales of the cards?

Only a tiny proportion of the people who've bought and solved cards on the site are active in any forum of the game.

Would Perplex City have worked as a new collectible card game with some extra bits of story, one big puzzle and a $200,000 top prize. Would it have worked if the Perplexian story had been used as a short backdrop to a range of other commercial ideas? Would it have worked just as well if the phenomenal personnel cost to run the zero-revenue ARG side had been put into marketing the revenue-generating cards?

If the answer is yes, then Mind Candy's business model has been terribly un-genius (other than the fact that the team have obviously enjoyed the ride)!

On the other hand, if Mind Candy hadn't been able to talk about this 'new cool ARG thing' to investors would they have raised their tranches of VC backing?

This isn't the best place to get an unbiased analysis of this question, of course, but its important.

My suspicion is that initially the momentum generated from ARG-fans sold a good chunk of the initial waves of cards, but now I'd guess from the leader-board/forum use patterns that a very small proportion of new players 'catch up' with the story and turn out to be play-drivers (just as in most other ARGs, those there near the start often drive it to the end). I'd guess that the senior Mind Candy team have got good at selling the ARG concept in a way that has been good for them to raise money.

[MageSteff]

It could have just as easily have been "we have this cool new Card Game Puzzle. We want to generate buzz about it, how do we generate talk that sets us apart from other collectible card games that have offered prizes?

How do we gain customer loyaty so that even if they don't win the main prize, they will come back for more cards and perhaps more series of cards after the first prize is won (i.e. expanding the decks if the first planned release goes well)?

How much they took to Mind Candy of the story that might have been packaged as a static story before it became an ARG we may never know.

Even if the cards are scratched some people like to have complete collections and will buy "used" cards just to fill out the set. there are card collectors that simply will buy the cards because some aspect of the game (the prize money, the story background, the cards themselves etc.) caught their attention and the collector nature compels them to buy the cards (I still haven't figured out why some people MUST own complete sets with at least one of every card for Magic the Gathering). SO in that way they are tapping the Card collectors and not the ARG.

What the ARG does: Generate talk. Generate free press. Notice how the live events for Last Call Poker got mentioned in both local and National News outlets
SFgate

CNET

Game Zone


But these are where the ARG was not the intended product. Here the blending of the product (cards) and the ARG story mesh very, very well. But you have to ask... without the cards, would there be a story? The genius is in making the Card product blend seemlessly into the ARG and the ARG blend seemlessly into the Card product line. So far it seems to be working.