Majestic ARG

Leslie McMillin
October 2, 2008
“The Game that plays You”
You only use 12% of your
brain. Mind if we play with
the rest?
EA Fact Sheet for Majestic
 Game Play/Interactive Elements
► Phone
► Email
► AOL Instant Messenger
► Fax
► Visiting special websites

Official

Player generated
► Majestic search engine
Actual IM from Majestic
 Game Play/Interactive Elements

► “Majestic Alliance Application”

► Videos featuring the game’s cast (webcam
recordings)
► Interactive streaming audio and video clips
► Online newscasts
► “Revelations”
► Akami platform
 Statistics
Quoted numbers Forum posts Google Hits Duration
Art of the Heist 125,000 - 500,000 3100 16,289 90
The Beast 0.5 to 3 million 43,000 88,536 120
I Love Bees 10,000 to 2 million 54,000 102,748 100
Jamie Kane 20,000+ n/a 15,400 n/a
Last Call Poker 10,000+ 6000 22,235 90
Lockjaw n/a 4100 520 100
Majestic 13,500 to 800,000 n/a 93,100 n/a
MetaCortechs 12,000 to 125,000 13,000 65,580 80
Perplex City n/a 36,300 283,000 200 - 500
ReGenesis 20,000 918 1392 90
Urban Hunt n/a 4600 708 90
 Demographics
► “Of the 800,000 people who started to
register for the free, first installment of the
game, only 71,200 completed the process.
That number fell to 10,000 to 15,000
subscribers when it came time to pay.” -
CNN
► “Majestic currently has 13,500 registered
players.” - Gaming Age
 Costs/ROI
► $10 million investment
► Approximate loss between $5-$7 million
according to CNN Money
► Development to be an estimated circa $20-
$30 million International Game Developers
Association
 Post Mortem
► Marketing Majestic as a Game

Publicizing launch date that was not met
► Launch date after Beast concluded
► Absence of TINAG principle
► Flow and continuity of the game

Modes of player action- Standby, act, acquire

Production delays
► Subscription based
September 11, 2001
 Accolades
► PC Innovative Design Award- E3, 2001
► Best Original Game, E3, 2001
► Game Innovation Spotlights (1 of 5 awards),
Game Developers Choice Awards, 2002
► Young was the IT Gamer, on Entertainment
Weekly’s annual “It List”
"Maybe the consumer didn't get it," said Jeff
Brown, vice president of corporate
communications for EA, "but in five years,
everyone's going to be making games based
on this engine. I'm not apologizing for
anything!"