The more I work on virtual worlds the more I see our profession has in common with Walt Disney Imagineering (the people in charge of designing the theme parks) and urban planning. It’s easy to see the similarities with the physical space, but it’s more than just that. It’s about creating – an experience largely based on storytelling. But who does the storytelling and how much storytelling do they do?
With Walt Disney Imagineering it’s clearly Disney. The only real part we have in the creative process is feedback – we vote with our feet as they say. Build something like the Rocket Rods and it won’t last long. With urban development the public has a lot more input. In most cities urban theorist create a master plan, mapping out development decades into the future – where schools will be built, new mass transit will run, etc. The idea is to create a harmonious city but also to do a little storytelling. San Francisco is proud of it’s heritage so when they wanted to build a highway through the city in the 60′s citizens formed a group to fight the plan - SPUR (San Francisco Planning + Urban Research Association). They won and San Francisco is one of the only major cities with no highway cutting across it. If it was a just about efficiency they would have gone for the highway, but they didn’t want what happened in Boston, where the new highway cut the city in two, to happen in their city.
Then there is cities like Las Vegas. Many compare the city to Disneyland, being run more like a corporation than a traditional city. When I lived there the rumor was that a new law restricting water use prevented the Bellagio from having the famous fountains and lake in front of the hotel. So the city government simply took the law off for a day, passed the Bellagio building permit, and put the law back in place.
Now lets tackle the second part of the question – how much storytelling is going on? San Francisco tells a story but I’d argue that it is quite varied and appeals to a wide audience. Las Vegas too tells a story but is more focused - gambling, clubs, food, adult entertainment, special shows, etc. Disneyland even more – children and fantasy.
From all of this we can pull some interesting conclusions.
- The more storytelling you do the more focused it becomes – it’s difficult to appeal to the widest audience if you’re also strong on story
- If you’re story is strong its difficult to control its development within a democratic process – you can’t have strong story if you turn everything over to the users and hope for the best
All this begs the question of how strong of a story does a virtual world need to succeed? Metaplace, like Second Life seem to be aiming for story but are going about it in a democratic way. Club Penguin and WoW are much more in line with Walt Disney Imagineering. In the end, which will prove more popular with users? And as a virtual world developer do you limit the number of audiences you appeal to or try and stay wide open while risking story depth?
