ARG Netcast, Episode 53: Rise of the Independents

 

 ARG Netcast, Episode 53: Rise of the Independents [60:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (524)

All hail the indepenents, or so say co-hosts Jonathan Waite (ARGNet) and Sean C. Stacey (Unfiction, Despoiler). Joining them for this spirited discussion on labyrinths, rogue cops and what it takes to be an independent puppet master is Celina Beach, writer at ARGNet and all-around cool chick.

Emails from our topic discussion

Jason Chrest, CEO of Aporia Cross-Media Entertainment:

Thanks for the interest in life behind the scenes. I wanted to address a few of the questions you had regarding how things tick(ed) back here.

Propping open the curtain for a few I decided it would be best to address three projects I have publicly worked on and contrast each of them for you. The focus of this response will be on budgets, time commitments, number of staff in each game, obstacles we face and various gems that help us be who we are.

With these three games that I can openly discuss, I have had a good variety of experiences from the grassroots/independent perspective. My first game was a catastrophe even though I still love the concept I had for the game. The level of experience I had with the genre itself was absolutely minimal, thus I had no idea about the amount of time required of me to produce a good product. I was overwhelmed by the amount of work (10-12 hours per day 7 days a week for I believe it was 5 weeks) and the stress caused me to alienate a huge player base (unfiction.com). The cost of the game was minimal at the time ($10/mo with a hosting plan at 1and1.com with a free domain registration) as I only had domain hosting/registration costs to worry about. I did, however, have a “grand prize” for players ($.99 for a toy car + shipping to Canada) suggesting to the players that they would win a brand new Pontiac Solstice which I neglected to point out was a brand new toy Pontiac Solstice. My major obstacle with this game was the fact that I had no idea what I was doing or an appreciation for how rewarding pulling off a successful game would be.

It took me a little while after that game to decide to begin producing my second game, Ny Takma. With Ny Takma I reached out to an experienced player base and pulled in individuals who were interested in helping to create the game. We had started with a particular launch date (3 weeks of planning time) and went through a large number of changes to the original story before we launched. The staff for Ny Takma was a decent size at about 7 I believe, but we only had 3 individuals who made major contributions to the development of the game. For the 3 of us we each spent between 4 to 10 hours per day, 7 days a week for 3 months total creating the story and acting out the various characters. The 3 of us worked diligently as we all had too much pride in what we were doing to let it fail because we didn’t work hard enough. Two of us have/had full-time jobs during the development which made our work days between 12 and 18 hours, the other individual was located in Australia and was a full time student who had the opportunity to do a good bit of graphics work while at school. One of the largest obstacles we faced in the creation of the game was our proximity to each other, the distance and only being able to communicate electronically proved to be a challenge at times. The budget for Ny Takma was small, but it potentially has a larger cost. For me I felt the need to archive the main website for the game so I retained hosting beyond the initial running time for the game ($10/mo for nearly 24 months now with $10/yr domain renewal). I do have other websites running on the hosting package so I can claim to offset that cost.

Now before I get into the Aporia Agathon Project which is still in development and has not launched yet, I wanted to clarify some points with Aporia Cross-Media Entertainment, LLC. Aporia CME is a small development group with no permanent full-time employees. I created the business with desires to build it into a larger entity with goals to create entertaining experiences for corporate entities. It has allowed me to work on several smaller projects as a consultant (primarily helping create storylines for proposals) while building up our own identity. I use the term “our” as even though Aporia has no full-time employees it does have a few people under its banner such as Jessie Greene who has recently become successful in her own adventure at LagTV.com. The other staff members come and go as needed. They are put under contract for paying jobs and others volunteer for projects such as the Aporia Agathon Project. Even as the manager/CEO of Aporia Cross-Media Entertainment, LLC I have to maintain a fulltime job, though I do enjoy the extra income from the consulting jobs.

The Aporia Agathon Project is something that I personally feel is a major project for myself and Aporia CME. The success of the game is something that can contribute to Aporia becoming a self-sustaining entity without the need for its management to have other full-time jobs to support it. The budget for the game is fairly modest for the scale we are trying to build the game to. The hosting costs have been covered at approximately $500, the masks that we sent as a reward had an undisclosed cost while the shipping for them was approximately $100. Other expenses for materials to ship at launch time have been and will be accrued in the upcoming months. There will be more expenses throughout the game as we have plans for live drops, live event activities, and other things. This budget has come solely from the pockets of our development staff who have all volunteered their time on the project. We have opened the game for sponsorship of events, swag, and other expenses. The expenses for covering the staff would be tremendous if they had not volunteered as we would be paying a minimum of $10/hr for labor expenses depending on the duties performed by the individual.

The staff is relatively large, especially if you consider the number of actors. Beyond my personal contributions we have a lead writer, an actor/writer, two programmers, a video director, a research specialist, a consultant for our interface, two beta testers, and several actors. That’s 11 individuals working diligently on the project. Some are contributing significantly more time than others such as the writers and researcher. The major contributors would total 4 who together put in around 80 hours per week (total) working on the game (primarily the creating the story, websites, and such). These contributors would be paid a minimum of $20/hr if their services were not volunteered ($1600/wk since August 2007 – approximately $83,000 worth of labor by this August). We still have a casting call coming for some more actors, another budget expense incurred by our lead writer.

There are a number of potential obstacles with this game. The major obstacle is the fact that it is funded solely out of the staff’s pockets, limiting much of what we would love to be able to do. One of the obstacles for Ny Takma was the inability to interact with other staff members face to face, this is much less of an obstacle for us this time around and has even been a positive as it has helped us find individuals (such as the actor for Diego and the lead writer) who are amazing at what they do. Other obstacles remain budget related as we have not found a steady individual to handle our graphics (we could hire that out if we could afford it) and other specific programming needs would be much easier if we could hire someone.

With the diversity of the staff we have we have been able to create professional looking websites for much of the content within the game. We have been able to look at the game from a number of angles allowing us to pick apart fallacies with individual thinking on several approaches which have been considered. Each of the staff members and actors we currently have on board, plus those who had to leave for various reasons, have contributed tremendously and are individually the gems that are going to ensure this game is the best we can possibly make it.

jan Libby, creator of Sammeeeees I and II:

hey guys

so happy to have you and the netcast back this week! woohoo!

okay, so… funding indie args.

a great resource is the archive section of many indie games on unficiton. i would look at various games and check out the elements they use for great ideas about free resources.

free was key for me for Sammeeeees since i did not have a ton of money for the ARG, but i did spend a bit.

ONLINE

websites

i used blogspot (which is free) for both Sammeeeees and Sam II. i picked it for several reasons. the biggest reason being there are no ads or banners that would take you out of the “storyworld”. (you can remove the side banners) it’s also very easy to use one account for many, many different pages. (which made organizing so much easier) for Sam II i used blogspot again for the above reasons and also because i wanted to create a place where the players would enter the story and create their own “cells” (if they chose to) and blogspot seemed the best pick since it is so user friendly and it wouldn’t require a huge amount of skill for someone who wanted to participate.

social platforms

i used myspace for my character pages. it was, for me, a great way to have a place where the players could check in with individual characters and since myspace is really a spot for self expression, i thought it was a perfect avenue to flesh out a bit more of each character’s personality for the audience.

i also used the very free flickr as a way for the audience to receive visual information as well as text with characters.

livejournal was used during Sam II. i picked this for several reasons. the first reason being that i felt we needed to move into a new space with the new storyworld. livejournal is also a great place for character’s to express themselves. i also moved here due knowing that many players were not myspace friendly.

emails

i cruised the web and found endless resources for free email. i selected each one based on what i thought each character would select. (all had different reasons for the various emails)

podcasts

i used gabcast. it was simple to use and free.

video

youtube was chosen for both. at the time it was not only the easiest to use but also most dependable. (and again with some of the youtube pages i had yet another place for the characters to interact with audience and to express themselves and move along our story)

ingame forum

i used proboards because they were free and easy and best of all suggested by players to in-game character.

(i’m sure i’ve forgotten some platforms but you get the idea - my online world was free)

OFFLINE

(cost for Sammeeeees)

i did most of my storyworld creating and organizing offline. to plot out the storyline and puzzles i use storyboards. these boards are created on foam core with index cards and vis a vis pens. cost 30.00

the props and supplies for Sammeeeees, including the ancient Spoocheeeee disc and snake, the boxes for the rabbithole, and the mailed puzzles, cd, book (the Day He Died by Lewis Padget), candles and costumes for seances, the way translator for hooooo pssssst puzzle , happy’s tin hat, flowers, lights, box and key for piece 5, mini video cassettes and various costumes. cost 160.00

i did not pay the actors for either Sammeeeees or Sam II.. but i did feed them at every meet-up or shoot. cost 200.00

i had sammeeeee t-shirts for the core players and the cast members. cost 480.00

fed-ex and snail mail for t-shirts, puzzles, disc piece to london, and rabbithole. cost 120.00

in-game phone calls cost 10.00

(so about 1000.00)

the time that it takes to create, design and plot out an ARG is something to seriously consider before you dive into this genre of storytelling. i spent a year and half working on Sammeeeees before i launched. i would say i spent maybe 20 to 30 hours a week during that time. as i got closer to launch the time i spent went up considerably… to about 50 hours a week for the last month. after launch it was 24/7. (i did have friends and family assist me at times with mailings, creating props, holding lights, etc.) i was lucky because my part-time job at the time was in public relations writing and i managed to scoot thru my work while writing character emails and posting puzzles. i also saved a ton of money by using my work fax machine, copier, paper, and scanner. the game ran from the end of September thru mid December of 2006. so, time is your biggest expense. this is something all first time PMs should seriously consider. once your game world is “live” you and your team are responsible to take it to endgame. if you cannot make the time commitment needed, i would find another way to tell your story. but i must say that the experience of creating an ARG is totally worth all the effort. there is no other genre of storytelling/gaming that is as rewarding.

hope this info is helpful!

xoxo
Jan
(labfly)

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