unforum

[rose]

[META] 1-18-08 and design flaws

[Andrhia]

If I may play the devil's advocate here... you could make a case for all of this disinformation and gamejacking being seen as a positive thing by the Cloverfield producers. Free publicity! And there's no such thing as bad publicity... is there?

Here's the thing; people are talking about the campaign, and even false sites perpetuate that conversation. People who are trying to decide if Site X is legit are people who are engaged in the marketing campaign.

Rumor is a powerful thing.

I'm not implying that the designers intentionally set out to create a powerful user-created content rumor mill, mind you. That's so many layers of marketing doublethink in that it makes my head spin. But... while it might not be the experience you're looking for, it could be a fun little diversion for other people... couldn't it?

(I'm not sure even I agree with what I'm saying here, mind you. I'm just making the case for it in my head to see where it goes.)

[Blue K]

To my eye, it looks as if the powers that be are making the same two mistakes that everyone who is not truly 'Net savvy makes: They're trying to move this thing along at meatspace speed when, as we all know, teh internets move at the speed of light -and- they're severely underestimating both the intelligence and the abilities of the people playing along (or, possibly overestimating their own intelligence and abilities...probably a combo of both).

The producers would be well-served by picking up the phone and giving GMD Studios or Jane McGonigal a call.

ETA: After re-reading your post, rose, I think JJ Abrams would be well served to hear from articulate folks like yourself. He's always represented himself as fan...a Comic Con nerd. If that representation is true, my guess is that he's simply too far removed from what's actually being done. If that representation is true and he was playing along as a fan, I think he would be as equally frustrated, or bored, as the rest of us seem to be.

[FLmutant]

This is a tough one, Rose. Maybe I'm too in the weeds -- if I think about "movie marketing" I don't necessarily have the same problems with gamejacking as I do if I know I'm making a "game". That's what is the most interesting aspect of the question you're asking, hidden underneath the explicit question.

Some people's "play" is diminishing the fun of other people's "play" and the structure of the game doesn't seem to consider that a major negative and doesn't seem to do enough to correct it.

If you're a marketer, that statement is a really strange one. Try this on for size as a translation:

"Some people's fandom for the advertisements is diminishing the fandom other people have for the advertisements and you should do something about that."

Yup, that's a hard one to swallow. Now try the same thing with a filmmaker's hat:

"Some people's enjoyment of the film is interfering with other people's enjoyment of the film and you should do something about that."

That almost sounds like the filmmaker should be making people stay quiet in the theater and not talk back to the screen ("Oh, no she didn't! She didn't just go outside where the ax murderer is! You are so dead, girl! What? Shush? You can't tell me to shush!")

That's part of what makes this hard, I think. I'm a part of community, and I just BARELY understand what everyone means when they same "game jack" (and I'm still not sure the label isn't used to describe both activities that I would consider "game destructive" and fan behavior that just doesn't fit the expectations of this community, like Fenwiching.)

Ultimately, JJ's team is likely to be only more confused by the term, because if they aren't thinking like "game designers" it might be ambiguous to them if what you're pointing to is a bad thing. A marketer would describe it as word-of-mouth and it doesn't look like MOST of the tone is negative. As a linear storyteller, you might write all of that off as fan fiction and again see the total set of it as good for the film (even if individual pieces might not be.)

I think others in this thread are probably right -- marketers, PR people and linear storytellers are used to being in complete control over the pace of advancement and reveal. They probably had no idea what it meant to feed this kind of community for six-months.

For me, the take away though is that the community could stand to have a better definition and series of essays on gamejacking ... but probably the most important people to have understand those concepts are marketers, PR people, and linear storytellers (more so than game designers.)

[imbri]

Great points, Brian, but I don't think that they negate the design flaws of the experience.

[rose]

Gamejack to me is pretty simple. People create fake sites solely for the purpose of confusing the audience and using (abusing) the popularity created by the game for their own profit, ego, fun, etc.

In Year Zero there was a woman who created her own site as if she was a character. In her blog she made clear that she wasn't part of the game or trying to be part of the game, it was just her way of playing. I would call that "fandom."

Making fake photos from a film and presenting them as stills you found is a gamejack. Having them on a site so where audience can't tell if the photos are real or not, and allowing that to continue, creates confusion, division and frustration in the audience.

As I said, the marketers of 1-18-08 may be gleeful at the number of sites about their movie that have sprung up. What they don't see is what they could be doing with that level of interest, how they've managed to lose a lot of fan interest by ignoring or not understanding what is happening with those sites, and how they could be creating a fan base that will serve them or even Paramount, for a long, long time. I mean you can disrespect or make fun of people who listen for clues in the audio..because you've led them to believe such clues might be there...or you can look at their level of interest and say "if we make something amazing here, these people will not only tell all their friends, they will remember it forever."

Along the lines of design flaws, I say they don't care about the fans based on the low quality of what they have produced. That ridiculous video from a site that could have been made by a fourth grader (I thought the characters were sophisticated New Yorkers) is a good indication of the low regard they hold for the audience.

Too bad for them.

Luckily for us there are people who do understand it. Those people are the ones who will be winning the loyalty of an audience while people like these marketers are still trying to figure it out.

/end rant.

ok, not quite the end, as I recall JJ Abrams himself specifically made statements that increased the fan level of expectation to be more than what they have delivered. He definitely fed the flames. He also said, while dismissing the internet reaction, that he wanted to concentrate on making the movie. Good for him. I hope it is a good movie because he is going to have to produce something great to justify the hype and to reenegize fans that have been disappointed with the marketing - those who thought he said they were getting a game and not just a Slusho website and some myspace pages.

[Andrhia]

There's something about all of this troubling me, and I think... I think... it's judging something against what we want it to be instead of what it wants itself to be.

I don't think this Cloverfield stuff is trying to be a full-blown six-month intense every-day-updates ARG. It's a lighter, less time-consuming experience. Somebody can check in every couple of weeks and not miss much. And its design goals are to generate interest in the movie, and get and keep people talking, presumably for the smallest amount of cash possible.

So... if that's what it wants to be, and that's what it's doing, then sure, it isn't going to please the ARG community. But why does it have to? Isn't there room out there for less-intense, less-time consuming experiences?

I mean, if I'm reading Paddington Bear, and I'm disappointed because it doesn't have enough graphic sex and violence for me, is that a failing in the book? Or is it my fault for wanting the book to be something it isn't?

[imbri]

[xnbomb]

A double-edged sword?

[rose]

I understand your point Andrhia.

Here is what JJ Abrams said earlier this summer about the online stuff to Aint It Cool News:

[lestat5891work]

I personally don't view 1-18-08 as an ARG. What I do think it is, is a very very clever way of advertising his movie.

The reason there are so many gamejacks is partly, I believe, because of the Ethan Haas debacle. Non-ARG players were drawn to the mystery and intrigue of the puzzles and the messages in video that they wanted to believe so bad that was directed towards them. They didn't want it to stop, so some folks made gamejack sites and all these rumors about basically nothing at all because they just needed more intrigue, more mystery.

I would assume JJ Abrams knew exactly what he was doing when he released a trailer with no title, no other information but the release date, production company, and studio. He knew people would be drawn by curiosity to find out exactly what it is. And since the trailer generated such an outrage, it fueled his creative mind, and he's holding out and letting the movie advertise itself.

ARG or not, it's still fun to follow all the speculation and hearing all the ideas about what's going on. I'm surprised he hasn't thrown the proverbial dog a bone, but at the same time, I'm not.

If it's not an ARG, I wish it was.

[HetMasteen]

Wow. I feel that if my post is under 5,000 words, it won't quite cut it in this thread .

As someone who was sucked into the ARG subculture and UF by 1-18-08, I think the major problem is that it looks like an extended experience that was marketed as an ARG. Whether this was done on purpose, by accident, or just because the people behind it didn't know what they were doing, I do not know.
However, this may present a future problem:
If we assume for a second that this was intentionally marketed as an ARG in order to attract as much cyber attention as possible, then we could be facing a future full of "lesser" experiences marketed as "major" ones. I use quotation marks here because I think there is nothing wrong with just having a nice extended experience to go with your TV show/movie/book/comic/new triple bacon beef bonanza burger. I just like to know this in advance (or at least after a reasonably short period of time).
I like comedies, for example. But if I were to go to a movie, expecting it to be an action movie, or horror, of sci-fi, and got a comedy instead, I would be disappointed.
Once again, returning to the great sage xnb's quote. It really is about managing expectations. I just hope that expectation mismanagement supervisor is not a post currently up for grabs in the dark halls where ARGs are born from a cauldron of geek culture ooze.

Another likely problem that this could cause, regardless of the intentions of the 1-18-08 people is that it might inspire other companies to give their upcoming promotions the old anabolic treatment to make them look like something bigger than they actually are.
I wouldn't put it past corporate bigwigs to propose something like this just to get people to eat more Krispy Kream. (oooh, a krispy kream ARG! Count me in!)

[aliendial]

[JaeDom]

 

[Rogi Ocnorb]

I wonder, sometimes when we, as a worldwide society will reach that point when the internet is truly the primary driving factor in mass marketing and, for that matter, world affairs.
I believe it will happen. I'm just not sure when. Probably sooner than most of us expect.
For something like this, going on now, there's pretty much nothing the internet can do that a few million spent on theater/TV trailers couldn't fix.
But, sometime soon (Maybe when all the $100 laptops have been deployed)... Mob rules!