Your point is well taken about the use of DMs to send a broadcast message to multiple users – I doubt I'll do that again. Thanks for taking the time to stop by and add to the discussion.

I'll be writing more on the direction of the documentary soon, but the intention for asking players to record their definition of ARGs was mainly to show that the concept of Alternate Reality Games is still evolving. My favorite quote from Michael Andersen is "If you ask three people to define an ARG you'll get four different answers". The clips of people defining ARGs was meant to be edited into a 30 second/one minute montage in the beginning of the film to give the audience a starting point to help them form their own opinion of the definition of an ARG.

The documentary will follow the making of three independent ARGs and their creators. The focus will be on telling those stories and should to appeal to a wide audience – not just the people who play ARGS (although that community would probably be able to appreciate it more because they would have a better context for the stories).

I will take your advice and try to make the challenges more diverse so that even people at the bottom of the pyramid (lurkers) would be more likely to attempt completion.

I think that, as an experiment in audience engagement, it was worthwhile to send the direct messages, but using that method of communication (with a generic message) should be kept to a minimum. I would have to spend a lot of time debating the use of that method of audience engagement if I wanted to do it again.

Everyone constantly evaluates the cost/benefit of their daily activities. It's the storytellers job to increase the benefit to the audience so that they believe it is worth the cost. I think, in this case, I didn't do a good job of emphasizing the benefits of completing the challenges. 

I am seriously short for time, so I wasn't just being polite.

But I will say too that perhaps you're spending your time assessing your techniques and not your content and audience? Is your documentary aimed at people who already work in ARGs, or people who are new to it? Your question about how they define an ARG seems something that is of concern to a newcomer perhaps. I personally am not worried about how anyone defines it. I'm more interested in knowing how they work and where they're going. But also, what do your contributors get out of their effort to participate (besides being in your documentary)? What is it all about? What would the ARG communities or people who don't know about get from your documentary. It seems you need to clarify your audience and content fit before making too many changes to your call to action strategy perhaps?

Hope this helps.

Best,
Christy

I don't know if I'll do them; I haven't even looked at them yet.

How many of your total followers fit into the category of "active players", those who want to get in and get involved whenever and however they can.

How many are like me and only contribute when they feel that what they have to give will improve the community. I for example was aware that there was "A" person who was being spoken about on unForums for what could have potentially been seen as a rules violation, but I didn't follow what happened, who it was etc, so I personally feel that I am not in a position to contribute to Challenge #1. Challenge #2 comes down to the fact I simply consider myself "non-photogenic".

And then the third category, those who just watch to see things unfold. The readers. If nothing is actually unfolding, or they feel the only way to really be involved is to contribute, you potentially have a scenario that would "exclude" them from what is happening.

Just a thought…

All communication has a transaction cost. The more immediate the form of communication, the higher the cost. The less we are attached to someone (personally, professionally, or through entertainment) the smaller a "budget" we have for them. Those 14 people had a smaller budget for you than the cost of a single DM.

They were either new and hadn't gotten anything from you, or they weren't your target audience and would likely have unfollowed eventually. You just reminded them that they followed you in the first place.

I've never personally gotten upset at a single DM unless it was an automated spammer. I doubt many people in your target audience will — a DM is "cheap." Making a habit of such personal communication that's actually on a large scale is probably a bad idea. At the very least it would be good to limit it to people that have shown evidence of their enjoyment. Perhaps keep a list of people that not only follow you but have @'d you at least once, or over n times. Those people probably have a larger budget for you.

That rant is based off of how MY brain works, and may not be others. I've often looked for the numbers behind such publicity, but they don't get published, unfortunately. Your single case, as isolated as it may be, just broadened my evidence.