Rule 1: You only want what you can’t have. If you have it, you don’t want it.
If you lusted after some trophy for years, only to now have it sitting dusty on a shelf, well, you’re human. The potential was endless – the reality is limited. Maybe it’s sea monkeys, maybe eurorack, maybe it’s a now hated job, perhaps even a relationship you once had.
This leads to the Limited Edition, the Chase, the Now Or Never. It seems an obvious trick but tell people too bad you missed out and watch the boo hoo. Make something easy to get and … crickets. Because easy to get means ‘maybe I’ll get it later’.
(Plenty of boo hoo over Severed Heads right now. ‘Maybe I’ll get it later’. Nup.)
But moving on – let’s develop something positive out of this.
I’ve previously made things that were very limited, not through spite but simply because they were difficult to make. That gave the illusion of success, but really, it’s neurotic marketing – if it’s marketing at all. Nilamox will never be Taylor Swift, but it should hold its little head up high. It deserves to succeed at a reasonable level. On the other hand, how many of us have unsold stock under the bed? C’mon … hands up … I thought so.
Limitation needs to be designed.
Somebody has explained this before better than I can, but this is my take. The audience is a continuum between don’t give a shit and having your babies. For convenience I’m going to divide them into four groups.
- AT THE DOOR they are looking in and aware that you have something going on. They might stop and look in for the 5 seconds of a Facebook video. Most will move on.
- INSIDE they see some entertainment value in what you are doing but not invested. Might watch a few videos and steal as much as they can of your work. Hell, might even pay $1 for something.
- SWIMMING they like what you do and have a few of your things. You are one of many things they like and part of a vibe that they enjoy. If you ask for a big purchase they’ll likely smile and say no thanks.
- DIVING they’re into it. You come up with some luxury items and they’ll pre-order. Get ready to sign it. You are the best thing that ever happened and need to have an unlisted number in case they track you down for your pelt.
Yeah it sounds like a public swimming pool, I don’t know how that happened.
Sevcom took care of the SWIMMERS and DIVERS. It was not very good at the other groups, possibly because it grew up inside larger record companies who did that part, or it never felt confident about getting people in the door. Sevcom believed the praise the DIVERS gave and made mistakes. Nilamox is supposed to be a fresh approach, with new ways of entertaining people. That won’t work if the refresh is targeted to a small part of the audience – we have to get people through the door to become a new kind of diver.
Every person that encounters Nilamox has to feel like their trophy is somewhere further inside. AT THE DOOR needs to feel like they are diving just that little bit.
Let’s look at a concrete example. One of the ambitions of Nilamox is a “Teleport” project to broadcast music around the world with accompanying 3D visuals. At the highest level that would need great audience commitment – VR or AR display, high speed connection, financial contributions. The DIVER is there, but AT THE DOOR is not going to make that commitment in 5 seconds. They need to be shown something quickly, for free, but with the potential that the trophy is within their reach. “Teleport” has to scale drastically – but how?
Another project involves a game world, a kind of screwed up Disneyland where you’re going to have a really strange time. That’s being made in Unity, and again it needs people to dive in to be a success. Can we make it an experience for the 5 seconds audience and the people just inside? Can they learn to dive into something that’s not a standard live show?
Here’s Rule 2: People like people more than anything else.
The band may be great, the sound clear, the lights intelligent – but we’re there to be part of the crowd. The other site might be well designed, the tools excellent – but we’re on Facebook because that’s the crowd. You might not even like the people you meet; you might feel worse for having been there, but damn you’ll go back because people.
Being at the show with the crowd while wearing a AAA pass is the best.
A long time ago in the Multiuser Dungeons you would strive to be high status character – a level 10 Wizard or some such, on the Apple Support Community you strive to be the arrogant RTFM Level 10 guy, on Facebook you need 5000 friends. To be with other people and own that lanyard is the best trophy of all.
The sad reality is that gamification is the key to getting our DOORS to DIVERS. The same thing as Fly Buys and Mileage Points is how we’re going to get the people into the pool. The design of this gamification is crucial, difficult, it must reward the guest with real happiness. You can see that none of this can be done simply and quickly. Sometimes I doubt it can be done at all.
Where are we?
- Designing the realms. Of course, the sound and vision have to be priority. Why do this at all if it going to be dull? What is the beauty? What is the threat?
- Scaffolding the realms. If you know what the DIVE looks like, then can you make a DOOR? If you have a DOOR, then what could be the DIVE?
- Society how? Are we a crowd, or CB radio or a MUD or Instagram?
- The technology. HTML5, Unity, lions and tigers oh my.
- How will we eat? You can’t box an experience can you? It’s not an LP or a cassette. Do we have to sell books like Dungeons and Dragons? Have you been in a shop that sells glossy magazines recently? It’s wonderful.
- Every day the fear and the impulse to just give up and fall backwards like the rest of the aging, shrinking scene.