Content

["Brandon J. Van Every" <vanevery@3DProgrammer.com>]

Passive stories:
> they all have in common that
> their authors remain firmly in control of the nature and sequence of all
> significant events.

Interactive stuff:
> I suggest that the opposite end of that continuum is defined by "dumb"
> simulators at its extreme,

I just finished "Thief II: The Metal Age," which is a game that allows one
to simulate being a thief.  There are pockets to pick, ropes to climb up,
people to whack on the back of the head with a blackjack, arrows to put
through people's throats, and most importantly, an extensive shadow model to
lurk in.  But as in all games, one eventually runs out of things to do.  I
could perfect my arrow shooting abilities to the degree the UI allows, but
at some point the feeling of "been there, done that" sets in.

How is this any different than reading a static piece of fiction several
times, like a book or a movie, then finally getting sick of it?  Content is
content, it doesn't matter if it's passive or active content.  It's a nugget
of something an author thought up for you to see or do, and when you've
seen/done it enough, you move on.  You buy another title to replenish your
stream of content, to get different content.

Philosophically, Yin and Yang are two sides of the same coin and this
atheist thinks it's our lot to simply be born and then die.  If this
framework has the remotest explanatory appeal to you, if you aren't on a
religious quest for magical transcendance, then I have to ask: why look at
entertainment as anything other than the delivery of "content?"  Passive vs.
Active is a red herring, a detour.  It doesn't matter.  What's important is
how "content" is produced.

The old fashioned, manual approach is a human author thinks of something
cool and sweats a lot to make it a production reality.  You can ask all
sorts of deep questions about how the human brain and creativity works, but
strategically, it's just authors slogging out content.  And it works.  We
know it works because we aren't bored to tears, we hunger for content, and
we have a slew of industries to provide it for us.  We can be sure that
content exists and we don't really need to put it in quotes.

What is the point of automated, engine-based approaches to content?  To do
it because it's there, like climbing Mt. Everest?  To speed up the
production of content, even though the end product will be similar to
manually created content?  To create works that have far more content than
what we manually produce?  How much more can there be?  As I said above, the
human attention span is limited.  When we are tired of the content, we move
on to something else.

In the current marketplace quantity certainly isn't a problem.  Variety may
be a problem, depending on taste.  Is an engine going to provide more
variety to the consumer?  Will it be easier to know you'll like something,
without actually having to try it first, because the engine is so smart it
knows exactly what kind of originality and creativity you most want to have?
Heck, will it know how to write your own screenplay better than you would!
Maybe it takes over the job of having life experience for you.  A
complicated perceptual drug, a Happiness button that is always pressed.

You can pursue quantitative improvements to content production.  You can
pursue qualitative improvements.  Why, as opposed to manual authoring, I
don't know, but whatever floats your boat.  Explain it to me, as you pursue
your storytelling engines: what do you think you're achieving?  I am
inclined to look at it as artistico-scientific self indulgence.  The best
content of all, entertaining yourself!  We don't have to write stories to
keep ourselves amused, we can write meta-stories, engines about stories.
The same brain cells get used whether you're making a far out engine or a
more "traditional" story, so why not?

Heh, maybe it's not self-indulgence, maybe you have an Orwellian social
purpose.  Replace Hollywood with something far more automated.  Soon
governments will run this software!  :-)


Cheers,                         www.3DProgrammer.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.