Kick this thing off!

[Dan Lyke]

So, I suppose you're wondering why y'all have subscribed to this list
(thanks Cameron and Wes for the links!)...

(And, yes, Todd, I know I owe you a response to your other message.
It'll come tomorrow.)

I believe that the interactive industry is where movies were a century
ago. People are just getting over the novelty and starting to realize
that we have to turn this into a real medium, with story and
characterization, if we're going to differentiate our products.

We're also at the stage where we've saturated one market, the 13-30 year
old males, but to move on we've got to be able to hit other markets. One
of my favorites is the genre which gets 13-45 year old females,
accounting for half of all paperbacks sold: Romance novels.

To do that we've got to redefine drama, to figure out how to involve the
audience while still entertaining them. This obviously means that we
can't go blithely off like the Surrealists, we've got to build on
modern-day entertainment structure, but neither can we stick to the
formulas that work in television and movies, because even without a new
medium to go to audiences are getting tired of those. I've read a couple
articles recently about the decline of the sitcom.

But to redefine drama we do have to examine the core of what we're
doing: Interactive story can mean everything from pacing a shoot-em-up
to improv theatre. So, some questions to get things going:

Who's defining the story, the content creator or the audience? Can the
audience alter the story, or just the manner in which it's told?

If they alter how it's told, does this include temporal changes? How
does this apply to audiences of more than one? Much of storytelling
involves what portion of an action is shown to the audience, how does
giving them free reign over the camera change that? Note that DVD
already allows this and assorted porn titles are using it (so I'm told).

How does the nature of building community and a shared experience relate
to all of this?

Can "Choose your own adventure" work in this medium when it's failed in
all the others?

The origins of the idrama list were that a couple of us got together
with the idea of making some vision of interactive storytelling into a
commercial venture. We eventually decided we had a whole lot more to
learn, and we want to learn.

So, introduce yourselves, give a quick rundown of where you are and
where things are going, and let's get some discussion happening!