We're sick of viral marketing, and ARGs are why.
by Vladimir Cole 
{ Nov 4th 2005 at 4:44PM }
We're fed up with viral marketing campaigns. Plain sick of 'em, in fact, and ARGs are to blame. Here's
why:
They're predictable. All of this Alternate Reality Gaming crap (ARG for short, say it out loud for an aural clue as to how it makes us feel) has been done before. The ilovebees.com ARG worked for Halo 2 because it was fresh and unique… at the time. But now that we've all seen a few of these, we're jaded. We KNOW that marketers will eventually give us all of the details on their products if they want to sell them, so why should we care to solve silly puzzles in order to learn trivial product details? Seriously: why?
They’re not entertaining. This is viral because it’s got all the elements of a successful clip: attractive girl, tension (she’s being loud and annoying in an office environment), a surprise ending, and slapstick violence. It makes us want to pass it on. This is viral because fat kids dancing are almost always funny (sorry, fat kids, but it’s true). ARGs are neither funny nor entertaining, therefore we will not pass them on. Therefore they are not, by definition, viral, except amongst those communities that specialize in solving ARG puzzles.
They’re superfluous. Nothing we do to solve an ARG is going to change your launch date, the amount of information we inevitably get about your product, or even our cost to acquire the product. Some ARGs are based on the premise that those who solve them will win the product, but really, for the campaign to be successful, marketers need to get millions of people interested in the product through word-of-mouth. If millions are involved, your chances of winning are pretty much the same as any old sweepstakes drawing, and a helluva lot more work.
They’re artificially difficult. It’d be a little more bearable if marketers were to create solvable puzzles, instead, they post only parts of the puzzle and release key pieces of the puzzle week by week. Have you ever tried to solve a puzzle with pieces missing from it? It’s not just maddening. It’s unsolvable. That’s what many of these ARGs are like, and that’s why we don’t bother to pass them on to friends. Friends don’t forward unsolvable puzzles on to friends. No forwarding = not very viral.
They’re delayed gratification. Why should we bother going to a URL that has no immediate gratification, no punch line, no smile juice? As rational animals, we’ve learned not to click on links that provide us with no reward. We will instead click on URLs for items that promise an immediate kick to our pleasure centers.
We’re done with these so-called viral marketing campaigns. We’re sick of them. We’re not going to forward them on anymore. We’ll let some other blog play marketing patsy and forward on uninteresting, boring, predictable, superfluous, artificially difficult ARGs. Make some funny clips with cute girls, fat boys, lip-synching college students, whatever. Just stop with the games, already.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
rocko @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
CAN I GET AN AMEN!?!?!?!
Grudge @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I agree with you, but someone might say that there is fun in 'playing' these games and learning things. But yeah, what you said.
Akz @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
ARG!
(Get it?..... No....OK i will shut up now!)
WebPimp @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I can agree with all of you, but wouldn't mind playing them if I knew I would be getting something out of it. Know what I mean?
JW @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Ilovebees was good because it actually had an incredibly involving story. Even if it isn't Halo canon, it's damn good fanfic at least.
THX8612 @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Though I have to admit I agree somewhat with your point about viral marketing campaigns, I feel I must also suggest that the rest of your review feels a bit misinformed. The genre of ARG's includes many others game types that I believe you have over looked here, such as the interactive narrative. You should actually do yourself and your readers a favor, before you report on a subject, you should really come to understand it first.
If you wish I would be happy to expand on this further. Drop me a letter if you would like to discuss this further.
startled @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Just because MOST games suck, doesn't mean ALL games suck. It's the same with ARGs as with video games.
All of the ARGs since ilovebees have been shit. Mostly, that's because they've been much cheaper. ilovebees had great voice acting. It had a plot. It had well-developed characters. As a work of fiction, it was exceptionally well-executed and highly compelling.
Now, compare that with the offerings since: artificial stringing together of mediocre puzzles. It's like the difference between reading a novel and a phone book: which one's going to be more entertaining?
ilovebees was likely very expensive, and people are testing to see if they can get the same impact for much less money. I suspect the answer is going to be no. If someone does put together another phenomenal ARG at the level of ilovebees, I'd love to hear about it.
OTOH, if it's just going to be a crappy web page with a tree on it, please, don't bother to pass it on.
RM @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
ARGs are HARD! Let's go shopping.
You need to do more research and get your terms straight. Not every ARG is a promotional tool. Not every "viral" campaign is an ARG. Not every ARG is of equal quality.
Most importantly: No ARG is compulsory. A marketing tool disappears when people stop paying attention. How can something by its nature separate from your reality and available only through direct effort be annoying to you?
vc @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I don't think all ARGs suck. I think that ARGs used to shill video games have sucked since ilovebees....
THX -- I checked your blog and see that you're very much into the ARG community. This was not written for an insider or a fan of the ARG genre. This was written from the perspective of an average Joe in video game land who thinks that marketers are giving your beloved ARG games a bad name. You'll see more and more backlash against ARGs if they continue to be used for marketing purposes.
Well, actually, you won't see any backlash. More and more people will just ignore them.
vc @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
RM -- you wrote your post when I was responding to THX. I think both of you have the wrong idea about the point of the post. The point is that we're sick of viral marketing through crappy ARGs. We're not fans of the ARG genre, so our exposure to it is limited to what the good folks at various games publishers do with it, and what they've done with it is severely disappointing.
They're making ya'll look bad.
And yes, we are already ignoring it. We stopped reporting on the Origen thing, and we've ignored several attempts to get us excited about various Viral ARGs since then.
You think I'm reviewing the ARG genre. I'm not. I'm reviewing its implementation as a marketing tool within the video games space. It's poorly implemented and boring and has probably turned many people off of the games entirely.
SetupWeasel @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Ignore what?
dys @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I couldn't care less in viral marketing. If I know the game in question will be released, that's all that matters.
Dignan17 @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I don't know much about these ARGs. But I do know that if you are as sick of viral marketing as you say, you wouldn't be talking about it. You were the ones who made an individual news post about every single change to that stupid XBox tree. I can't tell you how annoying that was after about four posts.
So apparently you folks at Joystiq take a lot longer to get tired of something than I do.
Oh, and was that video of the singing girl supposed to be marketing? If it was, then I still have no idea what they were selling or who was selling it, so it must not have been a very good ad campaign...
vc @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Dignan: we posted half the updates that most other sites did... but we agree with you. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. That campaign made us sick of all such campaigns.
The video of the singing girl wasn't marketing. It was viral, however, as it's been passed around, and around, and around.
Danny @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
they do it to stay in the news. nothing new happens from day to day with the product so they come up with crap like this to keep people talking and keep interest high. that's it.
Mason Wheeler @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Want another "viral" marketing campaigne? Well, while searching on Google for a company to make a custom faceplate for our Xbox and Xbxo 360 Live Clan, I came across this website that has all the ermarks of another viral marketing campaigne. It appears to be related to xbox as it has the bonsai tree and a rabbit, not to mention a countdown timer. the website for this new campaigne is: http://www.facetags.com. A link for this web site can be found at my website: http://www.puzywagonxbox.blogspot.com
PS. You run a great website, and I frequently reference articles posted from this site (with links of course).
Thanks,
Mase
nojok3 @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
AMEN
matt @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I Agree a lot,I did that one for Xbox 360 and we got nothing excepyt seeing xbox 360 an hour early.
Ilovebees you got Halo 2 early
varin @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Just to make sure there isn't any confusion, the xbox "bonsai tree" viral marketing wasn't an ARG. An ARG not only has puzzles, but also a storyline, characters and interaction between the players and the characters. If it lacks those latter elements it's simply a bit of viral marketing with puzzles.
Adrian @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
As an ARG developer, I'd like to point out that not all games in the genre are promoting other products. They're not all viral marketing. Some ARGs are simply entertainment products in and of themselves - take a look at Jamie Kane, Regenesis or Perplex City (the latter of which I am involved in).
As for so-called ARGs like Origen Xbox and Our Colony, I don't think that they even deserve the title. They're pure viral marketing campaigns, and pretty shoddy ones at that.
Rufo Sanchez @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I think the problem here is there's a difference between a true ARG and a viral marketing campaign. ilovebees was a true ARG: there were puzzles, a story being told, people interacting and communicating towards a common goal. The viral marketing things like Origen and Ourcolony, and a few others... they're not ARGs. They're a lame attempt at page-grabs. ILB was a complete, immsersive experience. I lived and breathed it for two months; practically the only thing on my mind was what was going to happen next Tuesday, or what interesting tidbits we'd be dropped on Friday. I went out and talked complete strangers into saluting next to payphones to get the next sound file. I sang Happy Birthday to the repressed childhood memories of a crazed AI crash-landed on a webserver, and laughed along with her. I had to compose myself and keep from crying in the middle of a business appointment when I checked the website and found out one of the main characters had been killed off. I took a day off from work to gallavant off to NYC for the special event, and have made friends that I hope will last me for a lifetime. None of the other game-related so-called "ARGs" have come anywhere close to being such an experience; I couldn't even log into OurColony and figure out what it was about, and Origen doesn't even deserve the title.
Viral Marketing = crap. A true ARG = worth the experience.
willie @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
actually the ARG for shadow of the colossus was brilliant, made it look like some discovery channel thing and eventually u see one of the colossi buried in a glacier
Grudge @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
"Most importantly: (...) How can something by its nature separate from your reality and available only through direct effort be annoying to you?"
___
I definitely agree with this point as you're making it. If people don't like something, then don't watch/listen to/click on/rent/etc. it.
But they still piss me off, and here's why: I do think they are - in general - more creative and entertaining than a normal ad campaign (so to speak) but, much like videogames, there is so much creative potential we only see slight glimpses of. It's a shame, but this crap is the closest we'll come to it at the moment. In terms of balancing interest level and entertainment in just the right way, I mean.
mat @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
real viral marketing is word of mouth marketing. Not rediculous gimmicks.
MaMbo @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I thought maybe I was the only one hatin those ARG. But if solving stupid puzzle's, like rabbits on speed, like to get spam and your friends like it to and then give away your homeaddress(To recieve a gift, you never gonna get). Well then theres noting holding you back. Thinking of origenxbox360. Wot a load of crap.
Michael Heilemann @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Sounds to me like someone got annoyed that they were unable to tell an ARG from reality :)
soco @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Your comments: this is silly. Mario Kart is entirely predictable, but we get screenshots of that? most games are predictable as well, but this blog is entirely about them. plus, the web is never about instant gratification. rarely in simply one click do you get something that pays off, even coming here. half the time it's some silly rumor, which is just as likely to be some shit spewed by a marketting exec somewhere. any reasonably intelligent marketting person can find a way to get their information onto your blog. i mean, this is the same site who just days ago, published a link to the first xbox360 commerical, the same joystiq who is going to start reviews in exchange for free things. yeah...
so why not join the two and make it a game? some people do actually enjoy them, not for the information, but for the gratification of solving the puzzles with a team, or following the story or whatever. to be the first to see the little bits that come out, like the memory cards of the 360.
Jez @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I think Rufo has hit the nail on the head. The sort of depth of story and immersion possible in ilovebees has been trivialised by marketers going "Ooh, buzzword, bandwagon" and jumping. The reason many ARGs have been advertisements, as Maureen McHugh recently said at the Game Writers' Conference, is simply a matter of funding. It's easier to get money for a game about a game, and *good* ARGs hook into the global consciousness in a way that product placement and traditional ads don't. Young people aren't watching TV, they aren't listening to radio, and they're entirely resistant to product placement and bus shelter sidings; they hang out on the Internet, and new types of advertising are the way to grab them.
The problems arise when people see how well things like the Beast and ilovebees have done, and instead force the marketing down the collective throats of the tired public. Making ARGs that are ostensibly ads just does not work, and the marketers haven't realised this yet. There is only space for a "good" global ARG every few years, and the 360 launch stuff is crowding the marketplace with shoddy imitations which are too blatantly adverts to ever work. And yet the way that ILB appealed to the masses means that many people have fond memories of Dana and Melissa, and are hoping that the next mysterious website will grant them similar experiences, which gives these viral sites (which aren't ARGs in any sense of the word) uncalled-for exposure.
I agree that the current state of viral marketing is tired and overblown. I don't agree that ARGs are to blame; rather, ARGs are doing great things for advertising, if only marketers would bother to understand what they were before putting out a mysterious website and telling an intern to update it weekly.
Tony @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Based on the experience of ONE ARG, you condemn the rest of the genre. Can I ask how long is the confining eye tube you are veiwing it with?
ARG games come in all shapes and flavors from viral marketing to brain teasers to interactive madness. Something for everyone, and at all levels.
A VERY small percentage of ARGs are marketing schemes, maybe less than 1%. Those are the most well funded and get the most attention. It is the independant creations that really and truly gain the most interest as they are made with the blood, sweat and beers of hardworking PMs who do it for the sheer creativity and artistry of the game.
and as a past and present PM, it IS a creativity urge. Like advertising designed to grab your attention, viral is amarketing tool to grab the attention.
Ironically, as an arcade game pgorammer for 2 companies, we had never used viral marketing for our products. And now, am into the ARG scene like there is no tomorrow :)
But please, the next time youi wish to rant on a subject, PLEASE look where you are coming from, and take a look at the bigger picture, willya? Thanks.
Tony
Thaddeus Longstreth @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Hmm. Here's yet another shoddily-written ("This is viral because..." Please.) article with an angry, uninformed, "we're so sick of XYZ" lede from Joystiq, a site which has managed to transform itself in just a few months from a useful aggregator of videogame news to something like a "console wars" Op-Ed seemingly written by and for teenaged boys.
I can only hope that this change in direction was prompted by the recent ownership shift of Weblogs, Inc, and will be reversed shortly.
In any case, does anyone remember the name of the former editor, the one that preceded Mr. Cole? Is he or she still blogging about games?
Thanks much,
- Thaddeus Longstreth
vc @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Tony: I'm not condemming all ARGS. I'm condemming their use in marketing in an attempt to be "viral." I know that this post has been linked-to by forums where ARG-o-philes hang out, but ya'll really don't need to defend your hobby from the likes of us. We're not trashing your hobby: marketers who have coopted it are trashing your hobby. It's the curse of success: ARGs are interesting and have been successfully used by some viral campaigns, therefore less skilled marketers will jump on the ARGwagon and completely mess up.
Do you like the bumbling way in which your hobby is being used for clumsy marketing campaigns?
Thadd: I've been writing for Joystiq since February. We have never, ever been an aggregator. We are a blog, and that means that we'll write all sorts of stuff. Some of it will be opinion, some of it will be mere summary, some of it will be polls, and so on. If you want simple aggregation, have a Google bot do that for you by entering the search terms you care about into Google search and having Google email you results througout the day. Aggregation is for robots. We're bloggers, and each of us has our own sensibilities that we bring to the table.
Even if you don't like this post, there are generally about 25 other posts made in a single day by 7 other writers, so I'm sure there will be something to your liking.
And to answer your question: no, the previous editor does not blog anywhere currently.
SuperJerms @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Are we all about to stop watching video game movies because of Uwe Boll? Some of us. So, should I dismiss the upcoming Halo movie because of Uwe?
Like you said, anytime something good is made, folks jump on the bandwagon and make something bad. There have been some terrible web games made in the last year. There have also been some terrible viral videos. How many bad CD's are put out each year for every good one? How many horrible movies come out for every blockbuster? Guess what--neither good nor bad ARGs are going away, either.
I don't see what makes Ourcolony an ARG. I'll give you the G, since there was a poorly coded and executed game, and I'll give you the advertising side of it, but where was there an alternate reality there? No characters, no story. Uwe Boll may as well have made it.
Hey, that's okay if you don't wanna talk about ARGs. It doesn't really hurt things. www.andadaughter.com (Last Call Poekr) hasn't even come up in this conversation, but over 10,000 people have registered there to play. It has beautiful lesbian ninjas, Chicago mobsters, ghosts, and we expect a visit from Billy the Kid next week. Gangs fighting cops, cowboys fighting indians, Willis from Different Strokes. Great writing, well directed movies, sound clips, free multiplayer gaming with scenery changing every week. But I guess none of that would be interesting to you...it's just the same old derivative junk, right? To each their own, I guess.
Merus @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
The whole point of viral marketing is that it attracts people to your product, which is why it's been so powerful on the Internet. Done right, it's invisible, because you basically create content. The Reebok video floating around of Terry Tate, Office Linebacker is a perfect example - there's the occasional Reebok logo, when it's logical, and there's a Reebok logo at the end, but it's content so no-one minds. Funny ads are much the same. ilovebees was content - there were puzzles, there was a community, there was content quite apart from the game, so no-one minds very much. Where is the content of Ourcolony? Where is the content of Beware Sam Fisher? Where is the content in 'advertorials'? They're basically advertising messages masquerading as content.
What people want is another ilovebess - they want a compelling experience that has some meat to it apart from the marketing. What they keep getting is Origen360 - traditional marketing using the language of ARGs but not the content.
Andrew Back @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Hey, I thought you might want to know that a site is ripping many of your articles off without due credit. Despicable copy-paste posts.
http://www.ps3vault.com/
Aftermath102 @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Ha Ha Ha!! I must have seen the SWF a dozen times. That giggle right before she gets clobbered with the book is hillarious.
Dragoneyes @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
I can agree on your comments of ignoring poorly-done viral marketing YET
if a great ARG is being financed by a company, I don't see the problem.
TMH @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM
Okay, so I've read all of the posts and I think I understand most of them. However, I am confused about one thing: and hopefully this can be cleared up for me.
"I Love Bees" (for Halo 2)- Good
"The Beast" (for "AI") - Good
All the rest, which would be... ummmm.. "Art of the Heist"? - Bad
Am I missing something or is 3 not a really large number of "viral" campaigns? Just to clear the air a bit, the whole "XBOX 360" thing was not an ARG, it was only assumed to be.
But maybe that's the point of this "topic"? Not that ARGs, in and of themselves, are "bad", but that those of us who play them (yes, that includes myself) assume some things to be ARGs that turn out not to be. And it's that assumption that leads to the "bad taste" in people's mouth that is being discussed here. That the marketing community will (if they have not already) view the ARG world as a way of getting people to their site by creating something that looks like it could possibly, at some point in time, turn into an ARG.
But whose fault is that? The marketers for trying to trick the players? Or the players, making the assumption that a site was really something that it wasn't?
We are slowly catching onto what looks and feels like an ARG (one hint: A countdown is probably a big no-no right now) and will start to ignore those things that disappoint us. Soon, the marketers will have nothing to do. No tricks to pull. Soon they will have no choice but to actually launch a game, instead of something that looks like it could be one.
This is a phase for a fairly new genre. And, as such, will surely die out before the genre does.
The bruises will heal and we will move on to great things. You can be sure of that.