Explorers
(This artifact is a work in progress, which I’ll expand over time)
💡Explorers are the people in the real world who inhabit your Open World. Some are long-term Fans. Some are first time visitors. They all have similar goals — inhabit amazing worlds.
Many will come.
Many will leave.
The best fit Explorers will stay.
The key is to make our worlds Open: free to explore with as many stories, characters, place, concepts, side missions, and rewards as possible.
Artifacts and Explorers are essential to Open Worldbuilding and should be the two key focuses for any Open Worldbuilder.
Artifacts simply make your world more immersive to Explorers of your open world.
Explorers discover artifacts while exploring the open world you’re building.
Think of it like the demo of an open world game
If the entire game takes 30 hours for a player to complete —
The FREE “Open Worldbuilding” demo may be an entire 15-20 hours of gameplay…
And maybe more…
Yes — that’s a lot to give away.
But think about this…
If a player has played that much and invested that much time, wouldn’t they happily pay money to play the rest and see how it all ends?
That’s one of the superpowers of Open Worldbuilding.
And what better to way to welcome a visitor, then by rolling out the red carpet for them!
The better job we do here, the more Explorers will stay for an “extended visit” and eventually become Guests…
More on Guests in a bit…
But first let’s talk about “Upgrading”…
Upgrading
Upgrading is an ongoing automated process where Explorers Upgrade themselves through the four phases of being a Explorer — ultimately enabling you to sell many of your Artifacts as products.
Here are the four upgrade phases:
Before I go into details of each phase, here are 5 key ideas we must grasp:
- Explorers Upgrade THEMSELVES from one phase to the next (Not us worldbuilders)
- Only Fans and Mega-Fans buy products from you
- Every Fan and Mega-Fan starts off as a Guest
- Every Guest starts off as an Wanderer
BONUS: You can still create revenue from Wanderers & Guests…
but that’s a topic for another day…
A key objective for building an Iconic World is to constantly fuel your army of Explorers with Artifacts…
And these Artifacts must be compelling enough for Explorers to “upgrade” themselves into Guests, Fans and Mega-Fans.
The magic words here are “FUEL” and “UPGRADE”
In the future, we’ll uncover the frameworks for fueling Explorers and upgrading themselves on autopilot.
It’s absolutely mind blowing at what’s possible today with a little technology and a little know-how…
Anyways….
The key factor that separates Guests from Fans & Mega-Fans is that Fans & Mega-Fans have purchased something from your world — they actually exchanged money for one or more of your world’s artifacts.
Gusts have not — yet.
Now…
Let’s go into more details you can get the full picture.
Wanderers:
Wanderers are anyone who inhabits your world — rather it be for a short time or for an indefinite stay.
Guests, Fans and Mega-Fans all start off as Wanderers — this is something that is key to remember.
When Open Worldbuilding, you’ll constantly be building on two engines:
- One that constantly attracts new Wanderers to your world
- Another that’s constantly surfacing new Artifacts and Side-Missions with “Upgrade” Opportunities
Don’t worry about how to build these two engines just yet.
The key is to understand the big picture first before zooming in on the engines themselves.
Eventually you’ll have Wanderers in your world “upgrading” themselves to Guests…
Guests:
“Motivating the committed outperforms persuading the uncommitted.”
Seth Godin
Guests are Explorers who have simply put themselves in direct contact with you, the worldbuilder.
They’ve upgraded themselves….
You didn’t twist their hands and make them upgrade…
They’re completely motivated and excited to get deeper into your world!
This is where Open Worldbuilders love to play, with Motivated Guests.
This means you’ve built enough trust with them to get their email and/or phone number.
They explicitly express that they want access to more of your world.
They have not purchased ANYTHING from you — Not YET.
But be proud of every Guests and treat them like royalty.
Treat each Guest like a paying Fan and eventually they’ll want to become one.
Read that 👆🏾 one again three or four times until it sinks in
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And speaking of Fans…
Fans:
Fans are Explorers who have become Guests and eventually decided to purchase something from you — even if it’s just a $1 thing.
You see..
In this day and age it takes A LOT to get a human being to pay for ANYTHING — there’s so many options and other worlds competing for your Guests’ money.
So EVERY FAN you get is a BIG DEAL for you and your World!
Fans tend to also buy repeatedly if they like what you’re offering.
And they love to get brownie points with other like-minded individuals so they often refer other Explorers to your world!
Isn’t this what every Worldbuilder dreams of?
To have Fans appreciate and financially support the worlds you craft?!
But there’s one thing that puts us Worldbuilders on Cloud Nine faster than Fans…
Mega-Fans:
Mega-Fans absolutely LOVE your brand!
You can spot your Mega-Fans a mile away!
Because they identify by your world — meaning they sport your World’s products, merch, bumper stickers, tattoos — Everything!
Mega-Fans don’t buy your products — They COLLECT them (even the stuff that makes no sense to outsiders)
(Pay attention to the massive distinction here 👆🏾)
Mega-Fans defend you and your World against any and all haters, trolls and naysayers.
They even create Tiny Businesses sub-communities based off your World…
⚡Next Steps
The concept of Explorers gets deep — really deep!
And truly understanding the dynamics between each phase of Explorers and knowing how to equip them with the right Artifacts is a science in itself.
I’ll be reverse engineering iconic frameworks for this soon.
For now, Check out Part II, Part III and Part IV of my Iconic Worlds Primer for deeper dives into other facets dealing directly with Explorers and how to the frameworks that motivate them to upgrade themselves…