Post by Terryfic on Feb 25, 2007 6:40:22 GMT -5
I’ve always been a big proponent of keeping LG and the ARG separated. They are very different worlds: one is grand in scale with assassination attempts, world wide organizations, espionage and secrets - it resembles a fictional world like one would find in a comic book or scifi film, the other is much smaller in scale and is a more true to life coming of age story with mysterious elements hiding in the background. These two types of stories appeal to two very different audiences and I think both work better when they are keep separated.
I scanned through a phorum thread today which started out as the common complaint about how the ARG (since it is meant to be optional) seems to be bleeding through to the LG story more and more, but goes on to discuss the ARG more generally. There is some bizarrely similar complaints about how the ARG has gone downhill since it be canon, which of course mirror our complaints about how LG has deteriorated since ‘the outing’. We both seem to conclude that the reason for such a decline is an attempt to attract more of an audience.
They also discuss how the ARG and LG relate to each other and most of them seem to agree with me that by making them both the same story they are in effect making them less appealing to their respective audiences. Some raise the idea that the ARG has to be closely related to LG otherwise what is the point of solving the puzzles if it doesn’t tell you something about Bree. This is countered with what I think is the obvious reason why this isn’t true. The ARG is a game, you don’t play a game to get the ‘congrats you win’ message at the end, you play it to play it. The act of playing the game (in this case solving the puzzles, going on the drops, etc) is the draw.
This is the fundamental difference in the two audiences. The LG audience is a passive one, interested in a story and a conclusion. The ARGers are interested in playing and interacting. They liked the puzzle because it was fun to solve. I found it lame because the results were some pretty stupid looking photoshop made images of nothing. But that is because I focused on the destination (the content) and not the journey (the interaction).
I scanned through a phorum thread today which started out as the common complaint about how the ARG (since it is meant to be optional) seems to be bleeding through to the LG story more and more, but goes on to discuss the ARG more generally. There is some bizarrely similar complaints about how the ARG has gone downhill since it be canon, which of course mirror our complaints about how LG has deteriorated since ‘the outing’. We both seem to conclude that the reason for such a decline is an attempt to attract more of an audience.
They also discuss how the ARG and LG relate to each other and most of them seem to agree with me that by making them both the same story they are in effect making them less appealing to their respective audiences. Some raise the idea that the ARG has to be closely related to LG otherwise what is the point of solving the puzzles if it doesn’t tell you something about Bree. This is countered with what I think is the obvious reason why this isn’t true. The ARG is a game, you don’t play a game to get the ‘congrats you win’ message at the end, you play it to play it. The act of playing the game (in this case solving the puzzles, going on the drops, etc) is the draw.
This is the fundamental difference in the two audiences. The LG audience is a passive one, interested in a story and a conclusion. The ARGers are interested in playing and interacting. They liked the puzzle because it was fun to solve. I found it lame because the results were some pretty stupid looking photoshop made images of nothing. But that is because I focused on the destination (the content) and not the journey (the interaction).