Already the recipient of an LACP Spotlight award, last fall’s WWE SummerSlam in Gaia campaign has been recognized as an Honoree by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, best known for putting on the Webby Awards, aka “The Oscars of the Internet.”
Millions of Us recently launched an ARG experience for a major network television show. I want to take a moment to discuss the experience of producing an ARG because I found it fascinating. First, designing an ARG is a lot like playing an ARG. It requires imagination, razor-sharp attention to detail, creative and collaborative problem-solving, a knack for detecting subtleties, and complete suspension of disbelief. I also find myself comparing the experience to being in a co-dependent relationship – a really intense, committed, delusional, romanticized, verging on obsessive relationship where both parties track each other’s every move, check in religiously, and are determined in making the partnership work… like marriage maybe? ; ) The happy couple in this case was the puppetmasters (Millions of Us and the fictitious entity known as Enitech Research Lab) and the players (the web community). A healthy relationship would require consistent effort, communication, compromise, collaboration, commitment, and most importantly, some imaginative role-playing to keep things interesting and evolving. Could we both deliver what the other was looking for?
Unlike most of the projects we work on where we design and deliver a tightly controlled experience, producing this ARG required us to design an experience around a lot of variables and in collaboration with a massive and distributed online community. Since the success of the ARG hinged on player participation, and especially since our narrative relied on this aspect, creating a well-defined plan of action was tricky. How do you create a detailed roadmap for producing a viral thriller where audience participation is uncertain but critical in establishing the storyline? We were in a risky position of assuming the audience would respond. Other unique challenges posed included figuring out how to make the gameplay explicit, yet discrete, as well as figuring out how to launch the ARG and seed it in the right online communities to gain visibility, interaction, and virality without compromising the perceived legitimacy and “reality” of the underlying story. Resolving these issues was a bit of an experiment - forming a hypothesis on what we expected, then testing, measuring the results, and recalibrating whenever necessary.
The other challenging aspect of producing this ARG was producing the weekly video series. Since we needed to tell a story where we took into account player feedback and content and had to inject these elements into our storyline, we had to keep the creative flexible, adaptive, and somewhat improvisational. In order to guide the ARG experience, we created a tight feedback loop between us and the players, responding and communicating diligently and often directly to a growing online community of invested players all over the country. Through emails, blog posts, video posts, and more subtle forms of communication such as subliminal messaging in our videos or through affiliated fictitious sites and entities, we endeavored to drive the experience, but also invited the randomness and chaos of a massively multiplayer design in the storyline. It was entertaining for us as the puppetmasters to be entangled in a complex process of trying to anticipate the players’ moves, respond to it in kind, and stay in-step in this weekly frenetic dance. Lastly, and possibly the most difficult challenge was generating the gameplay. Designing these highly complex puzzles within the framework of our story and delivering it with clever subtlety to a super discerning community of Terminator geeks was an ARG in and of itself (thank you Evan!). These puzzles included everything from cracking code, to assembling cryptic diagrams, to digging up geocached “cameras-of-the-future,” to adventuring into real world venues and interacting with the right people to retrieve a hidden item.
Capturing the essence of an ARG experience is a lot like trying to capture the essence of a healthy relationship. You can map out some of the key elements in advance, but ultimately, you have to feel your way through it. You have to intuitively understand your players and feel this vague thing called “chemistry.” Working with Blair Erickson, Creative Director at MoU, and Evan Jones of Stitch Media, aka ubergeeks, we had an intuitive understanding of what our audience wanted and were able to effectively anticipate what would keep them engaged. What was pleasantly surprising, however, was how increasingly engaged and excited we were by the players and the content they were producing as the ARG progressed. It was a great relationship. Without a doubt, we had chemistry!
Though the campaign has ended officially, fans continue to create, distribute, and promote content inspired by the ARG, a testament to successful campaign virality. This experience has taught me some valuable lessons as a marketer. You have to know your audience (target market). You have to anticipate their needs (market research). You have to deeply and genuinely care about the relationship (engagement versus reach). And if you do all this, it’s truly rewarding (high ROI).
Special, special thanks to Blair Erickson for all his effort, vision, and diligence throughout this campaign. You’re inspirational.
Recap of ARG via BoingBoingTV:
Questions
Contact - Eliana Sur
eliana(at)millionsofus(dot)com
Join Millions of Us for a Second Life ribbon cutting for Virtual Palomar West: Hospital of the Future, a previsualization of Palomar West: Hospital of the Future. The virtual hospital – a simulation of a real world hospital campus due to open in 2011 in Southern California - gives visitors the opportunity to tour the facilities years before its doors actually open. Enjoy an immersive experience combining video, scripting, and architectural innovation.
Event Information
Palomar West, Second Life
Monday, February 25th, 2008
8 - 8:30 AM PST (SLT)
Contact me, Lyra Millionsofus in Second Life for event access.
Millions of Us and¬†Crayon¬†realize the winning design for Coca-Cola’s “Design a Coke Machine” Contest, concepted by Second Life resident¬†Emerie May.
Electronic Musician Kirsty Hawkshaw and Second Life Filmmaker Rob Wright Collaborate
We are launching an artist-in-residence program to discover and celebrate the work of emerging artists in the virtual world and social network space.
The first artist-in-residence will be UK-based Rob Wright, known as “Robbie Dingo” in Second Life. Wright has won widespread acclaim for a short film ‚Äì a 3D interpretation of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” ‚Äì that was produced entirely in Second Life. His first project commissioned by Millions of Us is a film interpretation of the song “Meteors” by Kirsty Hawkshaw and produced by Ulrich Shnauss. Kirsty is a prominent figure in electronic music known for her distinctive vocals and her work with the band Opus III. This video can be seen above.
Millions of Us’ artist-in-residence program will sponsor a number of artists in the coming year. The artists will collaborate informally with the Millions of Us creative team and work independently on their own projects. The relaxed atmosphere, unstructured program, and technical resources provided by Millions of Us are intended to spur unconventional results.
“Millions of Us is committed to finding the best talent in virtual worlds and all new media in order to bring them to a larger audience,” said Douglas Gayeton, Chief Creative Officer. “This is in part because we want to bring the freshest thinking possible to our campaigns, but also because we are inspired by the rapidly evolving work being produced by today’s digital artists and want to give back to the community.”
For more information on how to apply for the Millions of Us artist-in-residence program, please contact Celebrity Millionsofus within Second Life or via email: celebrity@millionsofus.com.
