I discovered this video through Armen Antranikian, a cracker about the power of being an artist over a “careerist”:

I find it interesting that there has predominantly been two types of responses to this website. Beginners always ask how they can avoid ending up here, how they can avoid sucking at transmedia; while people who have worked in the area for a while are really excited about the idea of sharing the times they suck, their “war stories”, “lessons learned” and so on. This, and a few events in my life, has got me thinking about the weird but (to me) undeniable reality of working in transmedia (or perhaps any area really): things will always go wrong.

I remember when I started in this area, I thought that if I could learn all I can about the craft of transmedia I could therefore create great stuff. But I then realised that you don’t get anywhere in this industry/artform (or any) without also understanding the business — working with people, the politics, marketing, and so on. That is why you have services like Marvin Acuna’s Business of the Show Institute, helping writers understand the business side of screenwriting.

But another thing it took me a long time to realise was that no matter what level of knowledge and amount of experience you have in the area, things will always go wrong. There will always be things that happen that are outside of your control, like weird occurrences, client decisions, things you didn’t foresee, technical failures, unplanned audience responses, and so on. And just about every member of the team (including yourself) will make some mistake some time.

On reflection, I realise that I also had another assumption working in the back of my head. I thought that if I follow my dream, my life will become easier. I’ve learned that I am more satisfied with my life when I do what I want, but things do not get any easier. In fact, I’ve found the more unique and different your ideas and methods, the greater the obstacles will be thrown at you. Things get harder, they really do. (Or maybe it is just me?)

What is the point of all this? I want to highlight something that I think many people who work in the area already know, but those new to the area are trying to avoid: without a doubt, things will suck. Do you best to avoid what you can, learn to recognise when something is sucking, respond and learn from what is sucking immediately, and try not to repeat it. And in the end, the best thing you can do is enjoy the ride. Don’t wait for a time when everything doesn’t suck, because it will never happen. Instead, make identifying what sucks and dealing with it part of the reality of your process and not some uninvited imposter. And then ultimately, you’ll be more likely to enjoy it all.

In response to Nicholas Lovell’s book How to Publish a Game, Phil Stuart of Preloaded wrote a detailed and helpful post about how they publish online games. He includes the following points:

Seed your game smartly
- Seed your game smartly
- Time poor seeding
Integrate with Portals
- Adapt to the environment
Work with the ‘Pirates’
Listen to your players
Analytics rule
Be SEO friendly
Conclusion

I haven’t seen someone be so honest about their approach for a while. I hope this inspires others to share their experiences. It doesn’t have to be your strategies, it can just be the stuff you learned. I know many of you are keen to do this but have troubles with NDAs. I hear ya. But you can post general lessons without mentioning a project or client, and I’m happy to publish posts under a codename. Anyway, check out Phil’s post.

I’ve been a judge on plenty of awards ceremonies, both public and private (internal to an organisation or corporation). I’m always surprised (and disappointed) when I assess the material submitted for a ‘cross-media’ or ‘transmedia’ or ‘multi-platform’ etc project. Why? Because nine times out of ten the assets provided are for one media. I cannot tell you the amount of times I’ve been given the trailer to a game or film to assess an entire franchise with. So what I’m really looking forward to seeing more of is pitch videos that describe the entire experience, not just one medium, and ultimately, for the audiences, trailers for an entire experience. A fan-made video I saw recently excited me to this possibility (see The Matrix Trilogy – sans the other transmedia elements – below).

We’re seen some great videos created to describe the experience of alternate reality games and extended reality experiences etc too, such as the Why So Serious campaign for The Dark Knight, The Art of the H3ist campaign video, and the online narrative for True Blood. All of these describe the experience across all the media.

Art of the Heist Campaign Video from Baldwin& on Vimeo.

True Blood Case Study from Campfire on Vimeo.

There are many examples of these types of videos that explain the transmedia-native experience. But you’ll also notice that these videos don’t include the feature film or TV show they’re a part of either. They can’t, that is not their role. These transmedia experiences deserve their own videos as well. But I’m keen to start seeing more media-encompassing videos. I have seen some good pitch videos but they are not for public display, and I’m sure I’ve come across other on the Internetz. Do you have ones to share?

This is another post about what other people have written about. I’m just still head down in the middle of run time for a project, and so that is the reason for my lack of personal contribution. But I’ve been seeing some awesome stuff out there, including these notes from a special workshop run by community and gaming legend Amy Jo Kim (I’ve recommended her Community Building book to many people) for (what looks to be a very exciting company) Big Door. Geoffrey Nuval now works at Big Door, and he shared his notes from Amy’s gamification workshop. Here is a summary of the headings, but see his site for the full post:

I. Identify and Address your Audience

II. Member profiles are very important

III. Types of Users in a Gamified System

IV. Random quotes heard that I felt important enough to write down…

– “Make it easy for everyone to understand: How do I win?”

– “Iterative Development”

– “Show them what they can eventually achieve upfront… establish goals.”

– “Designing a game site for entertainment is very different from gamifying a system”

– “Give new users lots of sugar in the first 15 minutes.”

V. On Building a Community

VI. Mechanics in a Gamified System (what AJK called: “metagames”)

VII.  On Creating a Social Moment

VIII. Gamified System Monetization

A new website is having fun helping/playing: What the Fuck is My Social Media Strategy? It is a random generator of strategies, well, “common wisdom” (whatever that means).

The massive social game experience created by Jane McGonigal for the World Bank, Evoke, finished a little while ago. But the team is currently having a debrief and will be sharing their lessons learned online. The first post outlines what went right and what went wrong. I’ve summarised the headings here, but go to the post for the full description, solutions, and section on education outcomes.

Top Ten What Went Right:
1. We created an extremely active, productive community from scratch, virtually overnight.
2. We focused on real, intrinsic motivation and real activity.
3. We defined and bounded the experience very clearly: “a crash course in changing the world”, brought to you by the World Bank Institute: 10 Weeks, 10 Missions.
4. We made it social.
5. We designed multiple win levels.
6. We invented the Leader Cloud.
7. We created a highly addictive activity feed.
8. We created a super-satisfying feedback loop: runes automatically lighting up for completed quests and missions.
9. We designed a great hero’s journey (the quests).
10. We created a real “game-changer.” We took full advantage of media opportunities to create an extremely high-profile project – and to tell an urgently optimistic story – and as a result, EVOKE changed what people think is possible.

Top Ten What Went Wrong
1. We failed to start the gameplay soon enough – ideally, during registration.
2. The social world wasn’t bounded enough.
3. Weekly missions and the final EVOKATION weren’t connected enough.
4. We didn’t design meaningful SMS gameplay.
5. We missed the opportunity on real-time mentors.
6. The +1 voting wasn’t fun or meaningful enough.
7. The quests would have been more valuable if they were more integrated with the missions – players using unique strengths and vision to respond to the URGENT EVOKES.
8. Overall, the collective experience of the EVOKE network subsumed the individual journey toward social innovation.
9. We needed more meaningful opportunities for strengths-based collaboration and teamwork.
10. We definitely want to do a better job presenting the EVOKE Code of Ethics and getting player buy-in.

Thought I’d share a preso I did at The Pixel Lab in the UK for film & TV practitioners. In this preso I’m trying to help new practitioners not suck at transmedia story (and game) design. Feel free to share other ways people can not suck (or even say how I suck!).

I had a friendly query from a colleague the other day. He wanted to know the range of projects that will be covered here. He probably forgot that I have championed all types of transmedia for years, from any industry. But his query alerted me to the fact that perhaps should overtly outline the range that will be covered here. so, here are what I consider the four key types of transmedia. I discuss these types in my PhD (I give them big word terms, so we need to come up with industry-friendly terms as well), and I will be discussing the different story design techniques one employs for each one of these types when I mentor at the Pixel Lab in the UK in July. But here is a quick overview:

Clear as mud? That is why I spoke about films and live events, as well as ARGs in my first two posts. That is also why I’ll talk about and encourage discussion about projects that are designed to be transmedia at the very beginning, and those that become transmedia after a mono-medium one has been created.Let me know if I should elaborate or if you have some other views.

I also want people to know that if you post here, you can cross-post on your own website at the same time. Also, I’d be happy to repost some of the great posts that have already been published by others elsewhere, but which may not have reached the readers of this site.

Anything else suck?

Righto! Looks like we already have some questions rolling in. As a default I won’t publish names of the person who asked the question (so let me know if you don’t mind!).

• So, first, one person wants to know “if anyone can provide ‘measurement’ with their experiences…personal opinions are great…but at the end of the day…clients all want measurable results or findings”. Aha! As a start I’ll refer you to my ol’ resources pages on alternate reality games and extended entertainment experiences: ARG Stats & ARGs Around the World. These need updating and of course they don’t give the whole picture, just what people are prepared to publish. In other words, you suck at publicly published measurements of transmedia projects! So, what is needed is a discussion about lessons learned in measurement.
• From some discussions, it also seems a chat about the iterative nature of many transmedia projects would be a good topic.
• In another discussion space there has also been a query about how medium specificity operates in transmedia.
• Lastly, a question in the Solve my Suck section is about “where is the best place (or what is the best way) to find like minded lunatics who want to spend countless hours working on a project”? I’ve pointed out the Unfiction Unforums, but there may be some people on this site that contact the questioner directly, or there may be another place on web. This question has been asked at many industry events too. So, if it doesn’t exist (cannot recall any place right now), then someone needs to make it happen.

OK, so these are topics to be explored. I’ll put together some posts, but there is plenty to be said about all of them, so if you have any thoughts or would like to write a post – do it! But a reminder: this is not a site for posts explaining things for newcomers. There are plenty of sites that take care of that now. Instead, here is where you talk about things that suck in your own and others projects. You’re addressing your peers. Oh, or you can talk about whatever you damn well please.