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How Much Does It Cost To Make A Successful ARG?
Posted by Leigh Alexander at 10:20 AM on June 4, 2008
At the Games For Change 2008 festival in New York, the key topic was creating games as agents for social change - and included in events today was a panel on alternate reality games (ARGs), defined as collaborative, primarily user-motivated events that make the distribution of information into an entertainment experience.
You may remember World Without Oil, which invited people to visit a website to share fictional stories that imagined their lives in the event of a severe oil shortage. Player ideas were incorporated as part of the ongoing narrative on the site, and players could add photos or mail letters to the game operators. It's considered groundbreaking, because it was one of the first ARGs that attempted to address a real world issue.
So how much does it cost to make a game like that? Sounds easy, right?
According to World Without Oil writer Ken Eklund, the cost of developing the game was $US 88,000. That's a lot for a game that ran on user-generated content!
It was funded by ITVS, who normally works with documentary filmmakers who produce PBS specials. They wanted to move into the interactive and online space, and had allotted $US 100,000 for the internet game proposal they liked best — and that was Eklund's.
Incidentally, World Without Oil's began only a year ago today - and the first stage of its fictional fuel crisis scenario was gas prices over $US 4 a gallon, a number many analysts have suggested we might see as soon as this summer. Yikes.
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
Cloral
Posted 10:47 AM 4/6/08
@Palladium: Programmer time is pricey. A few programmers working on this for a couple of months would easily add up to this high of a cost.
Cloral
mhlaxp
Posted 10:44 AM 4/6/08
More than a MacArthur grant, I can tell you that much.
mhlaxp
Herabec
Posted 10:42 AM 4/6/08
You know, as a military brat I've had the opportunity to live around the world.
America has it easy, price wise. Germany? 5 bucks a gallon. Japan? 8 dollars a gallon.
It may be true that in these countries the distance you have to travel is smaller, but the places where fuel is reaching 4 dollars in the states are geographically similar to the aforementioned countries.
Herabec
pharcotix
Posted 10:42 AM 4/6/08
Gas passed $4 a gallon weeks (months?) ago where I live.
Connecticut gas taxes FTL
pharcotix
Palladium
Posted 10:42 AM 4/6/08
Wait, soon? Here in So-Cal, it's $4.30 a gallon.
I hate you all.
As for the 88K cost? I'm assuming it's all server related.
Palladium
ReidKimball
Posted 10:38 AM 4/6/08
It's disturbing to see how familiar the headlines are from the game to what I'm reading in the papers on a daily basis. Lots of protests in other countries by fishermen and food shortages/price increases in others.
ReidKimball
Game_Munkee
Posted 10:36 AM 4/6/08
@Krondonian:
Its simple economics...Non-Profit Orginazaton versus profitable MMo.
Its the same as comparing NBC's yearly budget too PBS.
Game_Munkee
Krondonian
Posted 10:31 AM 4/6/08
I vaguely remember that game...
It seems a shame that APB is getting a $50 million grant when these guys are making do with $88000. It's not going to pay for wages for very long, that's for sure.
Krondonian
Green-clad Gamer Dude
Posted 10:26 AM 4/6/08
I was about to say that maybe they should just make a game promoting the use of alternative fuel sources, but then it occured to me what this game was probably about. Lol.
Green-clad Gamer Dude
Krondonian
Posted 11:07 AM 4/6/08
@Game_Munkee: Yes, I don't expect World Without Oil to be getting multi-million dollar funds any time soon.
It just seems that with so much drive on profitability, and such high development costs, the whole concept of ARG's and their progress seems to be very slow.
If a large publisher could help out with a project, perhaps even by giving the minds behind this the reigns of an existing IP to get some awareness...progress may speed up, and help to diversify the nature of videogames as a whole.
Krondonian
AoE
Posted 12:03 PM 4/6/08
um.... I paid $4.25 at the pump last night.... and that was at the cheapo gas station... Leigh, I have no idea where you live... but wherever it is, I'm envious.
AoE
The_Catalpa
Posted 12:02 PM 4/6/08
"...the first stage of its fictional fuel crisis scenario was gas prices over $4 a gallon, a number many analysts have suggested we might see as soon as this summer."
Yeah, er, I gassed up at $4.41 yesterday. Still, relatively inexpensive by most international standards.
The_Catalpa
Tiger-Fever
Posted 1:14 PM 4/6/08
It's almost $5 in Canada right, and it's not as if we don't get screwed over by the American companies when it comes to everything else anyway.
Tiger-Fever
huginn
Posted 2:40 PM 4/6/08
I'm a WWO Allum. A superb ARG that really made you think.
alot of that cash did have it's use. The research, the videos, the web space, the content, the planning, the group of people who run and directly contributed to this. The marketing and the story.
Other games? Like Halo's. With complex videos, servers holding all of this info. Hosting videos and waves, I'm sure it gets expensive.
But look at the reactions, the fact we're still talking them to this day! How it hasn't been forgotten. That's Marketing GOLD
huginn
Crawl to China
Posted 2:34 PM 4/6/08
i wish everyone would use the convention of price per litre, since that's what we notice at the pumps (unless it's different in the States? in which case I won't try and impose canadian conventions). isnt $4/gallon $1/litre? its been over that for years now.
Crawl to China
Pal
Posted 2:45 PM 4/6/08
I think I paid around $4.19 this weekend, cheapest I could find. I sometimes like to look at GasBuddy and see where the cheapest pumps are at.
Pal
zgrowler2
Posted 4:59 PM 4/6/08
@Herabec:
YES. Fellow brat here. I'm vacationing in Thailand here, gas is approx. $4.50. Not as bad as Japan (it was 3.00/gal when I got there in 2000, I'd hate to see it now) though.
zgrowler2
therealzantos
Posted 5:58 PM 4/6/08
You all have it easy, I'll be filling up tonight here in the U.K., at £1.28 ($2.5) a litre. More than half of which is tax, and tax on the tax. I'd love to be paying American prices!
therealzantos
Eranmane
Posted 10:00 PM 4/6/08
Hmm, I want to see how much these games cost...
SilverLadder (Promised to feature over 52 characters, turns out the thing was ran by 3 people, shut down after 20 characters had been "revealed", now the guy who wrote it is looking for donations. silverladder.com)
Why So Serious? (Dark Knight viral advertising, done by professional studio 4orty2wo Entertainment (or the guys behind ILB). whysoserious.com)
ILoveBees (No Explanation Required, ilovebees.com)
Iris (Basically a piece of shit that tried to be Halo 3's version of ILB. Failed miserably. I still have the Iris swag here actually (w00t Halo 3 woolly hat!) Think that was just ran from halo3.com)
ChainFactor (Puzzle Game + ARG designed by Area-Code (remember those guys?) www.chainfactor.com)
4/5 of them were product placement and advertising. SilverLadder was probably the most impressive of the lot. Probably the cheapest to make too (but probably ultra-hard work for the team, which started out with only two people).
SilverLadder was an artistic experience. No doubt about that. It defied the rules of the standard ARG.
Eranmane
andystep12
Posted 1:56 AM 5/6/08
Already there.
4.09 was the cheapest place in town and I drove for four hours yesterday :(
andystep12
Krondonian
Posted 3:00 AM 5/6/08
@alzheimers: Do you have a link somewhere? Google can't find it...
Krondonian
alzheimers
Posted 2:54 AM 5/6/08
For the record, my successful (if not as widely known) ARG "Strange Dreams" ran on a grand total budget of $0.00.
(the sequel, which also ran successfully and had a wider audience) had a budget of a hundred dollars, which covered domain name registration, web hosting, and swag from Zazzle.
alzheimers
SquirrelPhister
Posted 5:32 AM 5/6/08
"$4 a gallon, a number many analysts have suggested we might see as soon as this summer."
ummmm, we're already there. I would be surprised if it didn't hit $5 a gallon by the end of the summer
SquirrelPhister
VioletArrows
Posted 7:38 AM 5/6/08
And my monthly transportation bill stays at a quite manageable $40 a month. :D
VioletArrows
DavinLengyel
Posted 1:30 PM 4/6/08
Or, you could make a successful ARG for thousands of people like the gamerarmy.com ARG for $200 :)
.. Just saying, a little creativity can really take the piss out of bloated budgets.
DavinLengyel
B. LU$H
Posted 3:29 PM 4/6/08
88k seems quite steep but I think it definitely adds a great amount of interest for whatever venture it is supporting. I've been following the Cloverfield ARG for a while and now I am completely hooked on the "bigger" story. I'd love to get into an ARG for a Resident Evil or Silent Hill release.
B. LU$H