I think there are a couple different ways to bring about better criticism/analysis:

1. [As Jay pointed out before me] In certain writing circles there is great peer analysis – however this mostly occurs during development stage. For example, I’m primarily a writer, and if I show a screenplay or manuscript around, every man and his dog will give me an opinion without too much concern for my ‘feelings’ – however, once the work has been produced or published, it becomes a bit “precious” and people are more likely to reserve their opinion.

Learning from this: perhaps the place for peer review of an ARG is at development stage. Just as we have assessment and editing services (paid or rope-in-a-colleague), perhaps a consulting circle could be created for PuppetMasters to look over and comment on projects in development, giving the chance to point out flaws in design or story early on.

2. From a post-analysis perspective, I think good critical case studies only occur when the person doing them has something tangible to gain from the experience. Puppetmasters themselves are usually busy working towards a next project, trying to earn a living… while an academic, a journalist, an author, or a documentary filmmaker would have the objectivity and may stand to gain from dissecting the ARG if it fits within their area of interest.

The ARG industry is still relatively young, and perhaps we can learn from industries such as film where there are tonnes of magazines, websites, dvds and books on ‘how to make a film’ – by creating an open dialogue with one of these 3rd party creators from early on to analyse the ARG in one of these formats.

As “Esteban” addresses in his comment, I think criticism can have a variety of uses, such as the professional industry critic, like Ebert for cinema, helping consumers to decided whether or not they might enjoy the product. As a monomedia creator (I predominantly write fiction with words on paper) who has participated in far too many undergraduate and graduate creative writing workshops (and who will be teaching them, as well), I’ve found peer criticism to be potentially quite helpful in many instances. I think, however, that peer criticism–which it seems close to what you’re advocating here for transmedia–seems to be associated with apprenticeship or the amateur creative. So, that might be a barrier and a reason for some of the closed doors and reluctance to be public with self-criticism.

To focus on the “real-time” element of many transmedia experiences, as Inquisitor Esteban mentions above, that might be one reason that transmedia/ARGs don’t receive the same type of popular critical coverage, if any at all. As I think about criticism in the perhaps academic sense, one of the issues that was recently brought up at THATCamp “Prime” with respect to writing about ARGs was the difficulty in defining the text, archiving elements. Though I wasn’t at this “unconference,” I’d imagine that one of the issues that was approached was whether to treat ARGs as a text or a performance, or both. Studying “The Beast” or “I Love Bees” might be easier, as there are extensive archives for these ARGs, but mining message boards doesn’t always yield the same level of archive, plus it relies on paratexts to resolve the text.

Thanks for the great post and the stimulating topic, Brooke!

But I do agree, case studies seem to have the feel of “Now that the project is done, we can disclose how happy we are about it. Even though we made X mistakes – we managed to accomplish all this!”
And like “Esteban” said, case studies seem to try to describe accomplishing some kind of the world’s “first” something; what it did to ‘innovative’ during its lifespan.

Personally, I’d love to see more discoveries, more lessons learned through problems and mistakes, citing specific examples. But the feel of the criticism really should be constructive (as hard as that may be for some projects that may generally be considered absolute failures). But coming from third parties, they can come off with a competing tone of “I would have done it this way”; as you said, more negatively, ending up hurting feelings – when that’s not the intent. It’s easy to be critical in hindsight, and it’s hard to be constructively critical, especially before the creator(s) have had a chance to come forward recognizing such problems themselves in hindsight.

Also, who is the study geared for? I tend to consider case studies as directed towards ‘creatives’ who are interested in the process and technical aspects of the project, rather than something more like an overview or review, which would be more geared towards the public, potential players and audience, etc.

Maybe the question is – what’s the etiquette for being constructively critical about someone else’s project, complete or not, in order to not come off with a sense of offense or destructive criticism?

Or should all critical case studies just end with a smiley and a bunch of XOXO’s? :P

That’s less of an issue for transmedia projects that do not occur live – thinking of projects like The Matrix, Eagle Eye Freefall, and Personal Effects: Dark Arts.

And yes, most case studies are bit like youtube comments…
FIRST!!111!1!!!! BEST.ARG.EVAR OMG!!!ELEVNTYONE!

And I for one would love to read your cake critique. :)