Showcase presentation at ARGFest 2008 in Boston.

2. Rules of Engagement Steve Peters Your audience can be your biggest ally, your fiercest adversary or your creative partner, depending on the design choices you make…

3. Rules of Engagement For Alternate Reality Games and all Immersive Entertainment, there’s a very unique relationship with an audience that’s available, unlike any other medium. Your audience can be specifically targeted, designed for and responded to. How do you initiate, build, and nurture that relationship?

4. Rules of Engagement To look at this, we’ll be looking at a game we did back in 2007…

5. Rules of Engagement Five F’s of Fantastic-ness:

11. Find: Let them find you….or at least think they did.

12. Find: -Down the Rabbithole

13. Find: -Down the Rabbithole Aiming at a very specific audience of bloggers, early adopters and community leaders, we threw out a challenge…

14. Find: -Down the Rabbithole O RLY? You think you’re smart? Prove it!

15. Find: -Down the Rabbithole In addition, key individuals got puzzle boxes and USB drives containing more clues, leading to the most compelling rabbithole today…

16. Find: -Down the Rabbithole In addition, key individuals got puzzle boxes and USB drives containing more clues, leading to the most compelling rabbithole today…

17. Find: -Down the Rabbithole No, not brunettes in distress… In addition, key individuals got puzzle boxes and USB drives containing more clues, leading to the most compelling rabbithole today…

18. Find: -Down the Rabbithole A COUNTDOWN! (teh internet loves ‘em)

19. Find: -Down the Rabbithole -Discovery Letting players find things themselves gives them a sense of ownership. Keys led to hidden pages…

20. Find: -Down the Rabbithole -Discovery Letting players find things themselves gives them a sense of ownership. Keys led to hidden pages…which gave puzzles which, when solved, revealed the “rules” and game intro …

21. ©2006 42 Entertainment, LLC.

22. Find: -Down the Rabbithole -Discovery Let players dig, and discover stuff on their own. If the find it rather than it being given to them, it’ll make them feel smart and give them a huge sense of ownership over what they find. And always, always monitor progress.

23. Focus: Let them focus on the level of experience they’re willing to invest themselves in.

24. Focus: -Create content for multiple levels of engagement.

25. Focus: -Create content for multiple levels of engagement. Level 1 (casual) Spectacle at Bellagio

26. Focus: -Create content for multiple levels of engagement. Level 2 (active) Puzzle Suites

27. Focus: -Create content for multiple levels of engagement. Level 3 (enthusiastic) Meta Puzzle (ARG): Who is Loki?

28. Focus: -Create content for multiple levels of engagement. -Create a structure where the experience promises them things and then fulfills them. There were even more countdowns here! Recurring update schedule of weekly Puzzle Suites

30. Fun: Be sure that, above all else, they have fun!

31. Fun: - Create a FUN experience. Anyone can make a difficult puzzle, but a lot tougher to make a difficult puzzle that’s FUN.

32. Fun: - Create a FUN experience. Create an environment where the experience allows players to learn and improve at the skills they’ll need as they go (don’t start off with the toughest stuff…keep a low barrier to entry at first).

33. Fun: - Create a FUN experience. Create compelling characters and give players voyeuristic glimpses into their lives. . Via emails, voicemail, video, etc. Show the results of your story, don’t just tell it in a bunch of blog posts.

34. Freedom: Give them freedom to explore your universe on their own…and to play in their own way.

35. Freedom: - Let players affect the experience (even if it’s only in small ways). In Last Call Poker, players helped Matt Viet out of a burning building…..or didn’t.

36. Freedom: - Remember that the experience really exists in the PLAYERS’ space. Absolutely stay out of player spaces at all times, no matter how tempting.

37. Freedom: - If players are “playing wrong,” that’s your problem to fix via design. You can’t control how players play. The term “puppetmaster” is a misnomer.

38. Freedom: - If players are “playing wrong,” that’s your problem to fix via design. You can’t control how players play. If you love someone, set them free

39. Freedom: - Let players make their own tools, systems, resources. Wikis, forums, etc. build community culture (let them play at home.

40. Freedom: - Player relationship The developer/player relationship could be compared to a game of chess: outwit, outmaneuver, outrun your opponent…

41. Freedom: - Player relationship … but that would be so wrong.

42. Freedom: - Player relationship Think of it more as a really good jazz session, or like dueling banjos. Dynamic, call and response.

43. Fear: Give them a healthy attitude of fear lessness. Give yourself a healthy fear of their attitude, and what they can accomplish.

44. Fear: - Instill trust and fearlessness. Give players a sense of safety. Don’t punish them for loving your game. Make sure they’re safe and don’t ask them to do anything humiliating.

45. Fear: - For live events, make sure that there’s something for both the on-the-ground players and online players to do (preferably together).

46. Fear: - Don’t forget, they’re smarter than you.

47. Over 1 million active players took part online, and according to Nielson Metrics, Vanishing Point had a reach of 20 million people around the world. Results:

48. Conclusion: Without successfully engaging an audience, an ARG doesn’t exist . A true case of the tree falling in the forest with nobody to hear it. It doesn’t make a sound.

49. One last thing: Don’t forget to use cheap media tricks. An unexpected phone call in the middle of the day does wonders.