Re: designing socially-constructive spaces

["Andrew Stern" <andrew@interactivestory.net>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Galiel" <web@galiel.com>
> I have yet to hear a compelling reason why we have to devote so much time, 
> energy and budget to making artificial humans, when we have a potential 
> market of hundreds of millions of real humans with a multimedia PC and an 
> Internet connection, just dying for an opportunity to get involved in 
> network-mediated collaborate storytelling--but uninterested in the current 
> crop of "interactive" entertainment.

Because very few people are skilled dramatists / actors, who will perform 
for / with me, the player, on a moment's notice.  If I want to play an 
intimate interactive drama, with just a few characters (eg, something like 
Desperate Housewives or M*A*S*H or Six Feet Under or the O.C.), where I, the 
player, am one of just a few main characters, practically speaking I just 
don't see other human players able to play the other roles successfully. 
Especially if thousands or millions of people want to play and be a main 
character, in their own performance where they have lots of control.

It's not obvious to me that the power of the masses can be harnessed into 
much other than sprawling virtual world / group LARP type experiences.

Andrew