Universe Creation 101

Please distribute the following call to places you think appropriate:

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Needed: Academics who have investigated Alternate Reality Games

I’m writing a section on ARGs and Academia for the upcoming International Game Developers Association Alternate Reality Game Special Interest Group Whitepaper (IGDA ARG SIG). I’m after approaches from all fields using all sorts of methodologies, and by researchers at different levels of candidacy and postdoctoral status. Since there are many investigations in development around the world I’m including unpublished insights and findings along with published ones.

For your information, here is part of the abstract of the section:

Alternate Reality Games have captured the imagination of players and academics from its beginning. Academics have analysed the form through comparative analysis with other arts types both contemporary and historical; have employed the aesthetics of ARGs as illustrations of cultural phenomena; have utilised ARGs to interrogate the nature of reality and fiction; utilised ARGs design for pedagogical applications and have also proposed reframings of methodologies in light of the unconventional form. Consistently, however, they have tried to understand the emergence of this form. Some of these academics are players, some are not. Some are independent scholars, some have made ARGs a subject of a PhD, the PhD or a post-doctoral investigation. Papers have been given at conferences, in journals and articles offered online. Their investigations into what an ARG is, the implications of the form on entertainment, the design of ARGs and the creative heritage of this form provide well researched and measured considerations that offer unique contributions for the benefit of players, designers, researchers, industry and media.

I have already contacted some academics around the world but I’m sure there are those I have overlooked in error and those I am not aware of. Either way, if you’re an academic who has investigated ARGs, in any capacity, I want to you to contact me! I’ll be gathering this information over the next month. Email Christy Dena at cdena @ cross-mediaentertainment.com.

Hope to hear from you soon,
Christy
http://www.igda.org/

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Thankyou!
Christy

How do you get information from a poster, a billboard, a product on a shelf or a tree to your mobile phone? Well, here are some ways:

• Bluecasting: Viacom Outdoors launched a bluecasting campaign for Channel 4’s Four Docs program (I’ve spoken about this before). There is also a company called Hypertag offering the same service.
• Software to read QR codes have been used in Japan and help people access URLs for products; like Semacode. Both of these have generators and decoders on the web as well.
• Using existing technologies: SMS and email is PayPal Mobile and mcode (that I’ve spoken about before).
• And then there is RFID. Though I cannot recall how the information gets to a phone…
• And then there is also GPS devices, or ones that track what mobile tower you’re using, that trigger an SMS when you’re in an area.
• Taking a picture of a barcode and having a barcode on your phone that can be scanned.

I haven’t bothered to go through the tons of locative arts projects I’ve got catalogued but is that all? I’m interested in which are the most effective commercially, than for a one-off art project.

Ubisoft will be bringing out the Lost videogame next year. I’ve been looking at game adaptations a lot lately and found Alice’s comments at Wonderland interesting:

I think TV conversions make far more sense than movie conversions, seeing as the movie’s shelf life is often mere weeks, whereas a successful show series can run and run. Episodic gaming sounds interesting. There’s all sorts of opportunities for weaving storylines across platforms, and embedding clues or whatnot in each, pointing to storylines in the other. Tricksy, but different. And if anyone’s likely to make a tv-to-game conversion interesting, it’s the Lost folks: their attention to detail is magnificent.

Although she may of missed the news about the Lost ARG (I’ll drop a line just in case), the point about TV to game adaptations making more sense. Especially if you have episodic gaming alongside TV episodes…and if you get them to change each other, then you’ve got something really interesting.

A sign of an area maturing is the presence of parodies. I don’t have any cross-media parodies, but I’m sure there are plenty parodies of franchises. Take this one from the webcomic Penny Arcade (thanks Jeremy): Tycho, the in-comic character, has been hired to write 13 fantasy novellas based on a game franchise. He explains in the news section of the site:

So, as you can see, I’ve supposedly been “granted a contract” to write several novellas based on Epic Legends of the Hierarchs: The Elemenstor Saga. This is a “popular franchise” that began life as a CCG but now has a boardgame, a pen and paper variant, a Saturday morning cartoon, a series of limited edition busts, a CG animated direct to video feature, and upcoming MMO and a line of “totally street” hip-hop fashions - all of which strive to remain canonical.

This week I’ll be populating an extremely sparse wiki with a few of the basic touchstones of the franchise and its timeline. It begins with the birth of the first Magic Sword King, Ronard - and it culminates in the betrayal of Princess Crystalcrown at Mount Wor. There are other items in the middle there - like the discovery of High Elemenstation by the wizened Harbinger Portent - but there is also the execrable (some might even say blasphemous) Wizbits, an ill-advised foray into tween programming where four young wizards and their collectible familiars introduce no less than fourteen retail products per episode.

Well, in a recent post, ‘Tycho’ informs us that he has competition, but you can check out the wiki of his dastardly cross-media creation: The Elemenstor Saga. Very, very funny.

And then there is the bloody funny Young Guns versus Old Ones: a game where young marketers use new media tactics against the old media approaches. Very funny too.

Does anyone out there know of any other franchise or cross-media parodies? I’d love to hear about them.

Scheduled viewing—watching a television show or film at a particular time, tuning in to listen to a radio show, attending a theatre performance—has been the dominant mode of accessing entertainment since early (Roman?) theatre. Sure, we’ve had street-player performances, but they are not scheduled or on-demand for the audiences. Such entertainment is impromptu (for the audience), extra entertainment not intended to be experienced but decided at the moment to be so or not. It could be seen as “push” with an “opt-in”.

With the introduction of recording technologies, such as a the wax phonograph, cassette tapes, game cartridges, floppy discs, CD-Roms, DVDs and so on, audiences could “time-shift” their viewing: experience it beyond the scheduled viewing time. More recently, with the Internet, audiences can access the entertainment streamed through a website or download a digital file that they can then access anytime on their computer or mobile device. As an aside, the notion of “time-shifting” is relational: the viewing time can only be shifted if it was at some time fixed. The notion, therefore, is not technically appropriate when talking about content that never was delivered at a fixed time.

Another impact of the Internet has been the globalisation of content (bare with me, I’m getting to a point soon). The majority of websites are available to all users, regardless of what country or time they’re viewing from. Audiences are aware, therefore, of programs (tv shows etc) that are available OS and so try to access them immediately rather than waiting for their own countries release. They also form communities of interest around content they appreciate and so feel left out if some members of their community have access before them. People don’t congregate according to country, they congregate according to interest! There is an increasing trend, therefore, towards simultaneous global releases; region by region releases that are at least close to each other in time; and global internet “pre-releases”. The latter notion of a “Internet pre-release” is another example of old media snobbery/hang-over. A worldwide accessible Internet release has a potentionally greater reach than a television release. What is “pre” about that? Perhaps then a pre-release is in the context of broadcast or cinema being considered a primary/preferred medium/technology?

In the pivotal/first work on “play” Italian philosopher Johan Huizinga put forward that the first main characteristic of play is “freedom” (Huizinga, 1955 [1938], p.8). He elaborates:

Play is superfluous. The need for it is only urgent to the extent that the enjoyment of it makes it a need. Play can be deferred or suspended at any time. It is never imposed by physical necessity or moral duty. It is never a task. It is done at leisure, during “freetime”. Only when play is a recognized cultural function—a rite, a ceremony—is it bound up with notions of obligation and duty. (ibid.)

Juxtaposing this notion with the entertainment distribution trend of on-demand viewing, I was struck by how much of our entertainment has not existed within the domain of play. Until the last decade or so entertainment has not been something we could access as we needed it (unless you pick up a book), it has not been something we could defer or suspend at any time. It has a times been a task. Our “freetime” has been defined by others. Obviously this context is changing, but gee, I was quite surprised when I considered this notion. Have we been missing out on a whole lotta fun? How has this impacted the design of entertainment, our experience and expectations of it? I think this may be one of the reasons why we’re seeing a whole lot more UGC: entertainment is fun again. It is something we can call on whenever we want, it answers us, it is disposable, it can be shared. Engaging with it is a lot less serious business.

On May 11 Nielsen//NetRatings released their press release on the top social networking sites for the US [pdf].

“Social networking sites are the reality television of the Internet,” said Jon Gibs, senior director of media, Nielsen//NetRatings.

Top 10 Social Networking Sites for April 2006 (U.S., Home and Work)
1. MySpace
2. Blogger
3. Classmates Online
4. YouTube
5. MSN Groups
6. AOL Hometown
7. Yahoo! Groups
8. MSN Spaces
9. Six Apart TypePad
10. Xanga.com

In summary, 45% of of web users are reached through these sites. Good summary of some relevant sites, but I wouldn’t call them all “social networking” sites. What isn’t social on the web? They’re a mix of sites that try to encourage socialising, sites that facilitate self-publication, sites that facilitate finding each other, sites that facilitate grouping according to interests…a big mix which I think is silly to bunch together. I guess the list is more for advertisers to reach consumers, it is about sites that have the greatest reach, sites that people gravitate too. Anyway, quick stat and quick rant over.

On the 1st of April 2006, Foreign Media Group opened a cross medial publishing house in Amsterdam. Very exciting, it is this sort of studio approach that lends itself to true cross-media production. But it only works if talented people are also located in the same building, rather than being distributed across companies, in different countries!

The building is to become the home of the publishing companies Pimento, Rothschild and Bach, Uitgeverij 521, TM Publishers, Truth and Dare, HvR (Heleen van Royen) and Carry Slee, and of the magazine publishers Foreign Media Magazines and the music publishers Foreign Media Music (both classic music labels as well as pop music labels). In addition, the licensing and merchandising company LicenseConnection and Foreign Media Group will be housed in the Amsterdam establishment.

Foreign Media Group will open its own theatre in the basement of the new property. Foreign Media Group’s publishing companies will stage theatre performances, film-viewings, music evenings, and other events in this theatre.

Foreign Media Group is an international publishers group that operates in various fields of the media. Foreign Media Books has a unique position in the market with sixteen publishing companies, each with its own expertise. Reading, looking and listening in all possible genres from classic to contemporary and aimed at both children and grown-ups – Foreign Media Group focuses on a wide range of media products. The publications of Foreign Media Books are music CD’s, books, audio books, magazines, feature films, DVD’s, documentaries, games, and CD-ROM’s.

The publishing vision anticipates different media products and possible combinations. Foreign Media Group sets itself the target of investing as deeply as possible in creativity and rights and publishing platform independently.

Australian MMOG platform creator, BigWorld Technology, announced in March an adjunct to their suite that allows a virtual world to be played on a mobile phone. Using their technology you can create a MMOG especially for a phone or make your existing one also available on the mobile. Exciting. It would be good if you could get video calls from in-game mates from a mobile object in the virtual world, rather than trying to navigate a vast landscape on a small screen. Affordances and limitations.

The Da Vinci Code opening weekend raked in $77million, “the second biggest opening weekend ever among adult-geared pictures behind The Passion of the Christ” (source: Box Office Mojo). The $125 million film is of course an adaptation of Dan Brown’s novel that sold between 40-60 million copies worldwide, depending on what article you read. The film is an adaptation. Now, as a recap, I’ll republish my term-friendly guide (I’ve got a big-and-multi-word-version for academia) to cross-media content:

Repurposing: republishing the same content on each platform

Altering: commissioning, editing and redesigning content, in the same style as the “original content” according to the affordances and limitations of each platform

Adaptation: providing version of your property/storyworld in different formats on different platforms

Augmentation: providing additional, complementary and contradictory information in different platforms

Stretching: distributing a plot/message across platforms

Now, I won’t get into a lengthy explanation of this here. I just wanted to point out that there are other options beyond adaptation. The Da Vinci Code elements of puzzle solving, conspiracy, murder, suspense and so on provide alot of key elements that different producers and the same producer can have fun with over multiple platforms and formats. It has action and the motivation for action at its core, and this urge can be transported to the reader. The producers (lets call them franchise managers) have indeed indulged: the Google Quest I’ve mentioned before; the various workbooks, websites and so on and so on. Just check out the wikipedia entry. Wikipedia is, incidently, fullfilling the important function that I have spoken about many times: providing a pivot point, a one-stop guide to everything in your cross-media universe. The franchise has repurposing, altering and adaptation but little augmentation and stretching. Is this a problem? Yes.

Most critics have canned the film. Among the many reasons to not like the film is the fact that it is a faithful adaptation of the novel. Since 40-60 million people have read the novel, that is 40-60 million people (and more, counting the people who find out details through the plethora of information out there) that already know what is going to happen. Since the film doesn’t provide, as far as I know, much individual directorial flair (discourse), then we’re left with a story we know and a film that puts the story above the aesthetics. This is an important distinction. A film can be a faithful adaptation of the story but provide new information through its presentation. Dan Brown’s book is written in the style of a film, it isn’t linguistically unique. J.R.R.Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is linguistically unique and so Peter Jackson’s faithful (to a point, he had to exclude alot) adaptation still works because it is different enough on the presentation side. So, back to Da Vinci. A large part of the audience (those that know the story) is left, well, with an unsatisfying entertainment experience. But Brandon Gray, of Box Office Mojo, reports:

Sony’s exit polling indicated that 53 percent of the audience was under 30 years old and 52 percent was female. Nearly half of moviegoers had not read the book.

Nearly half had not read the book. Well there it is folks. The writer (Akiva Goldsman) needed to employ what I call polymorphic narrative techniques to recognise the needs of the multiple audiences. There needed to be enough of the same information to keep the newcomers to the story included and uptodate and enough of new information to satisfy those educated with it: adapt and augment. I am continually surprised by producers that don’t reward their current audiences. But, oftentimes it isn’t about providing a good entertainment experience. It is just about getting that opening weekend number.

“The book became more than a book and the movie became more than a movie,” said Valerie Van Galder, Columbia’s president of domestic marketing. “It became a perfect storm.” (quoted in The Australian)

A perfect marketing storm, the surround-sound effect (of bombarding your message to your audience on every platform) does get the money in. Hmmm. The upcoming game, however, seems to be offering some original content. It is based on the book, but apparently offers locations not listed in the book or the film. Thank God for the gamers. I’ll be speaking more about gamers and polymorphic narrative soon. But that is another post. For now, I just wanted to highlight with this perfect example, how it is so easy for producers to employ the lower end of cross-media techniques and not the others. I guess the others require skill to recognise and employ, something that we’re all learning to do.

Keynot address by Clint Stinchcomb, Senior Vice President of New Media, Discovery Communications, at the nextMEDIA event.

Stinchcomb will deliver his address, titled “Distribution in the Post-Modern Multi-Platform Universe” to nextMEDIA delegates on Day 3 of the event (June 11). He will explore how programmers must position themselves to build strategies and financial models for emerging digital distribution. Stinchcomb’s address will also examine how the market is currently responding to these strategies and how they are being monetized.

“Discovery is a leader in creating multi-platform new media content and services for mobile, wireless and broadband,” said Robert Montgomery, CEO of nextMEDIA. “We are thrilled that Clint will demonstrate to our delegates the best ways to position their brands in this era of digital content distribution.”