Re: Content

[Kenneth Lu <kenlu@MIT.EDU>]

Brandon,

I basically agree with what you said about how it's all about 
"content", but it can be about different KINDS of content.  In the 
case of interactive works, the mechanism is part of the "content". 
"Look!  If I build fewer factories, there's less polution and more 
happy citizens!"  That makes an effective political statement.  By 
playing simulator games, we can better understand how things work, 
WITH THE AUTHOR'S BIAS IN FULL EFFECT within the rules of the 
simulation.  This is content.  Think of the author not as 
Michelangelo, but as the Newtonian "watchmaker God" who creates a 
Universe for us to explore in.

I guess this is my personal bent in terms of interactive fiction.. 
Imagine an automated story-telling system that tells, say, 
stereotypical private-eye stories.  Can a human author write a linear 
story on the same topic better than a computer?  Sure.  Will a reader 
absorb more from reading a few human-authored detective stories than 
they will from playing through such a game a few times?  Not 
necessarily..

What the game can do that the book cannot is to allow the user to 
explore the consequences of various actions in the directions they 
find interesting..  The "author" of the simulation codes in rules for 
human behavior, and the player explores those rules within the 
various stories that the simulation generates.

A human author can write a single plot that focuses on a few issues 
(trust and betrayal, law-abiding and law-bending, etc.), but a 
simulation can be coded to simulate a larger variety of such social 
phenomena, and the reader/player might explore those phenomena with 
greater efficiency..

Still, note how it is the author who is in control, despite the 
individual runs of the game, or individual "stories", being written 
by the simulator.  The author places in their bias of the rules of 
the Universe.. the author biases the simulation to focus, still, on 
the interactions and concepts they find important.


What I'm saying is that interactive fiction of the kind I'm thinking 
(which is very simulation-oriented) is very suited for "content" that 
is focused on the mechanics of an issue.  It's still "content", but 
it's a somewhat different kind of content from what can easily be 
expressed in a static work.

-ToastyKen

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| Kenneth Lu - kenlu@mit.edu - http://www.mit.edu/~kenlu/ |
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| "Life is far too important to be taken seriously."      |
|                                                         |
|                                          -- Oscar Wilde |
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