Justin Gibbs » Interactive Drama

The iPad screams for a new form of entertainment to compliment it

justingibbs — Sun, 02 May 2010 15:54:36 +0000

I spent most of Saturday playing with my new iPad at WordCamp San Francisco 2010. Of course it was a bit odd playing around with the famously proprietary device while Richard Stallman was on stage, but oh well. I have to say I’m very impressed with the iPad. I bought it mostly as an e-reader and excuse to test games, but am surprised at how the device fills me with a desire for other forms of interactive entertainment.

At home I love streaming Netflix movies through a Roku. Equally I was happy to see I could stream the same movies on the iPad as well. However I haven’t been able to sit more than a minute watching any of them on my iPad. My thumbs are right there, I want to interact, I want to do more than just watch. For me static media isn’t going to be enough, I want more.

Sure I can jump on Twitter or some other social media apps but I find even those don’t capturing my attention. I want more, I want entertainment. So I download a few games. Yet even these don’t keep my attention for long. Sure they’re clever how they take advantage of the iPad’s novel interface but I just don’t find them that compelling. Maybe it’s a consequence of that very novelty? Maybe it’s still early in the evolution of these games? In either case I find myself wanting more.

What I want is a mashup of Netflix and games – interactive drama. It would be more akin to visual novels or dating sims. Sadly the only visual novel I could find in the App Store was in Japanese and there are no dating sims yet. After spending the day with the iPad I find it to be as revolutionary as Steve Job’s attests and believe it should find an equally revolutionary medium to complement it.

Joining Playdom and the social game phenomenon

justingibbs — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:56:35 +0000

I start at Playdom on Monday. I’m incredibly excited to dive head first into the social game arena and with a company like Playdom. The market is wide open, it’s the Wild West and I feel incredibly fortunate to be getting in at this point. Being the Wild West I hope to test the medium’s potential for interactive drama. Unlike virtual worlds, social games have the audience and they’re hungry for something new, for interactive entertainment.

Hollywood meets A/B split testing

The opportunity is also exciting because it’ll allow me to use my experience as a Product Manager building online apps and apply that toward entertainment. Imagine applying the type of feedback loops we see on the Internet to movies? Split test a movie or video game in real-time? I’ll also get the opportunity to leverage my years of studying screenwriting. It’s a very different world from trying to optimize a feature in Yahoo! Messenger to trying to figure out what game feature or story twist was more entertaining. It’s a different game and one I’m desperate to get into.

Saying goodbye to Visual Purple

It’s with some trepidation that I say goodbye to Visual Purple. I learned a lot about interactive story from the seasoned team there. Their roots are in interactive movies from the 90′s, producing such hits as Silent Steel and Blue Force. Beyond that they’re experience with interactive story goes as far back as Leisure Suit Larry.

I’ll miss reminiscing about Hollywood’s multiple attempts to make the medium interactive – from games or interactive drama. I remember returning from the 2009 Screenwriting Expo where Anthony Zuiker was pitching is digi-novel Level 26.

Scene from Leisure Suit Larry

I mentioned it at the office and was met with tale after tale of similar attempts to merge Hollywood and interactive story. From Mr. Payback and the doomed CSI Second Life tie-in, to expensive startups we’ve never heard of.

It was great learning about the convoluted history of interactive story and actually build training simulations that almost crossed over to interactive drama. I’ll miss it, but I’m hopeful social games will open up a new chapter for interactive drama.

Interactive drama won’t be about the technology

justingibbs — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:38:00 +0000

Tim O’Rielly recently posted about a dream he had for augmented reality and fiction.

I share this dream as a reminder that the fiction and entertainments of the future may have a very different form than the fiction of today. The first metamorphosis is just to change the medium, in the way that the paper map or atlas morphed first into online mapping sites.

In a lot of ways what he’s describing in his post is interactive story, or more specifically interactive drama. The technology is usually what draws people to interactive drama, but it’s the story that makes them run for the hills.

Story is hard

As Robert McKee has a funny line comparing aspiring writers to aspiring music composers.

If your dream to compose music, would you say to yourself: “I’ve heard a lot of symphonies… I can also play the piano… I think I’ll knock one out this weekend”?

McKee’s message – story is hard and it takes study. I’ve spent the last 10 years just trying to write a good screenplay. I’ve written lots of screenplays, none of them good so who cares. If the story can’t hold an audience no amount of technology is going to change that. It might prompt some posts on TechCrunch but the buzz will fade and the artist will move on to more rewarding projects.

Adding technology only adds to the difficulty of creating story

A few people have been plugging away at the interactive drama conundrum for nearly two decades. I’ve been plugging away for 5 years and have nothing to show for it but half-finished scripts, mock-ups, and this blog. Chris Crawford is probably the most dedicated in a field where I’ve seen more than a few come and go. It’s a tough problem to solve and it gets old when no one finds mainstream success. To this day when you explain interactive drama most people reply, ”You mean like those Choose Your Own Adventure books from the 80′s?”

Choose Your Own Adventure diagram by David Sky

There’s a reason Choose Your Own Adventure books were for kids, they’re really hard to write. David Sky does a great job of mapping out the branching storylines. Seeing it laid out you can better appreciate when Chris Crawford discusses the problems of branching storylines. The author had to keep everything in their head and resolve every storyline in a satisfactory way. It’s hard enough to perfect one storyline, try multiple intermingling.

Even though branching is the most common method for creating interactive drama there are others, or at least other theories. Chris Crawford has his approach. I think there is a lot that can be done with perceived agency.

Unanswered question

In many ways those of us in the field plug away with one unanswered question hanging over our heads – do audiences actually want the interactivity in their stories? The question has probably been the impetus for more than a few to leave the field as we can’t get the answer we want until we find mainstream success.

I know personally that it was the interactivity that drew me to the Choose Your Own Adventure books as a kid, however I also remember jumping back and forth to see how each storyline played out. Was it the interactivity that I enjoyed or was it the story? It all reminds me of how for years people told ATT they wanted picture phones. Hundreds of millions of dollars and decades later they gave them the Picturephone, but all people did was dial and walk away.

What we need are more artists

Film pioneers first occupied their time filming Vaudeville acts and oncoming trains. It wasn’t until the discovery of continuity editing that artists created the modern film. And when you really look at it, modern film doesn’t make much sense. We know logically that Superman will win in the end, he always does. But we still go along and emotionally feel that he might not. The artist is able to weave his tale and play with our emotions.

I hope the same will be true for interactive drama. Right now we mostly have technologists in the field, what we need are more artists. And I think they’re coming for a few reasons:

There’s a captive audience thanks to Facebook – artists can get feedback and social gaming companies are looking to feed that audience anyway possible
Hollywood model is dieing – they need to find a new model
Technology is cool – it draws buzz

Remember, it’s about the story

All that said, there are some examples of succesful interactive dramas – just from Japan. Look at visual novels and dating sims. To some these might only be scratching the surface of what the technology is capable of, however remember that it’s mostly about the story. I hope we see more variations, but it’s more about the story. Dan Hon said pretty much the same thing in his piece about ARGs – it’s not about the tricks and games but the story.

Social gamers aren’t looking for games

justingibbs — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:48:14 +0000

Talk to most hardcore gamers and they don’t consider social games to be games at all. Talk with many social gamers and it’s likely they don’t consider what they’re doing a game either. So what exactly are they doing? Facebooking, that’s what.

Urban Dictionary defines Facebooking as a verb:

To check your facebook profile, search for something on Facebook or use one of its many apps.

Social games are apps, so social gaming is Facebooking. Daniel James, Co-founder and CEO of Three Rings spoke about Facebooking at a recent panel on social gaming.

They are mentally Facebooking. They are not there to play games, they are there to Facebook. And as a part of their Facebooking they are engaging with game experiences.

However that might be a little out of context as even he points out that the big question is if they think they’re playing games at all?

The big question that no one really knows yet is when someone is on Facebook are they in fact mentally, in there little mind, playing games at all?

So if the users don’t feel like they’re playing a game, can it be a game? That might be more, if a tree falls and no one is there to hear it… We could turn to some of the experts in the field of games for more help. But according to Daniel, they might not have high opinions of social games.

A lot of people, especially in the game business have a very snooty opinion about Facebook games. They describe them as basically, they won’t call them a game, “that’s not a game, I won’t call that a game, it’s a distraction” is a term I’ve heard used.

Social games are just a distraction - really?

A distraction! Now that isn’t very nice. But given all this, it isn’t too much of a stretch to assume two things:

Facebook has found a captive audience
Social gamers aren’t looking for games

In a way it’s a captive audience

They’re all on Facebook and they’re looking for a distraction, that makes them a captive audience. They aren’t looking as much on AOL or Yahoo! these days but they sure are on Facebook. Facebooking might be the modern form of channel surfing.

They aren’t looking for games

If they’re just Facebooking and don’t consider themselves gamers they can’t possibly be looking for games. They’re looking for a distraction, for anything. Well not everything, they seem to gravitate toward interactive entertainment. From Daniel again (I love pulling quotes from this guy):

I don’t know if that necessarily plays to the person wanting to a have a deeper more engaging, generally social experience. If they are there for distraction maybe that’s all the large scale market wants.

The opportunity is bigger than just games

What all this means is the opprotunity to experiment is huge. Everyone loves a captive audience and we know what they’re looking for – interactive entertainment. That’s a pretty broad category however. You can throw games into that, but it’s not just games. If I go to GameStop it’s likely people there are looking for games, not so much with a random sampling of people from the food court. The same is with people Facebooking, we don’t know exactly why they came to the mall but it’s safe to say it was to shop. What we don’t know is what for. So shouldn’t we try to throw everything and the kitchen sink at them?

To see the opportunity for social games as just games might be missing a whole lot. What about visual novels? Dating sims? Both are huge in Japan. I know I continually harp on how we need more story driven stuff but this seems like the perfect fit.

A friend of mine is addicted to Professor Layton. The game is a series of puzzles and for each you unlock you get more of the story. It’s nothing new but apparently my friend has been hooked by the story. So much so that she read blogs about the upcoming games in the series all the while professing that she does not like games.

People follow stories, gamers follow games.

As humans we can all follow a story; we think and learn in story. We can all play games as well but they don’t grab all of us equally. Some people love games, others can put them down at any moment. If I’m at GameStop my captive audience is looking for games, if I’m on Facebook what they’re looking for is much broader. Currently we throw games at the that captive audience. For one, it’s what’s working and bringing in profits. Second, it’s a great way to enhance sociability. However there has been little experimentation in interactive drama – outside of Japan that is. The classic example thrown around in the United States is, “Oh do you mean something like those Choose Your Own Adventure books?”

Facebook delivers a captive audience for interactive entertainment and the opportunity to experiment is huge. It goes way beyond what we’ve traditionally thought of as games.

Hollywood, meet multivariate testing

Let’s say the social gaming industry begins to experiment with interactive drama, just imagine what they could do. This is an industry built on metrics, on split testing – think of what you could do if you applied those techniques to a movie? Continuous deployment? You could start with a minimum viable product that isn’t very good and over time evolve it into something worthy of an Academy Award. That might be stretching it, but it’s very different from the screen tests Hollywood does after shooting has ended. This would be the true digital revolution Hollywood has been waiting for.

Why are movie based games failing?

justingibbs — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:01:52 +0000

While Avatar the movie is a huge hit, it seems that Avatar the video game is a flop. What’s even more interesting is it seems the industry is turning away from licensed franchises. The game industry has a long and lucrative history with licenses, so why are they failing now?

“Our plan is to take more care of our high end franchises, we will leave less place for licensed games,” CEO Yves Guillemot said in a recent call to investors. “So the goal is to reuse the investment and licenses and put more emphasis on the making of our brands bigger and make sure they can come more often with high quality. So it doesn’t mean we will stop but we’re going to spend less in licenses in the future.”

In the days of Atari 2600 and ColecoVision game developers rushed to license content. Of course games in those days were sold based on the box cover. Look at E.T. the game compared to the box cover. They couldn’t be more different. But that isn’t what screwed up E.T. the game and consequently killed Atari, it was the game play itself. It’s practically unplayable.

If you make them somewhat playable you could have a major hit as many developers have learned – Spider-Man, Lord of the Rings, etc. Avatar the game might not have the best reviews but it is no E.T. So why are they all of a sudden not meeting expectations? That might be for two reasons, which can be summed up as evolution.

Nick Saint points out that expectations have risen as game developers home grown franchises turn into brands.

But the biggest problems with licensed games is that more and more game franchises have been built into recognizable and beloved brands. No matter how popular a new movie is, a video game version will never mean as much to gamers as a new Mario, Final Fantasy, or Call of Duty title.

Makes sense, the industry has learned to support their own brands. Not only that, but the games themselves have evolved and learned to embrace the medium. Just as you would never see a beautiful sculpture and think “why don’t I make that into a painting”, you wouldn’t see a game and think that would make a great movie. Oh wait, we do exactly that. But the turning away from licenses is a sign that things are changing. I know Hollywood would love to turn every popular book into a movie, but audiences are learning what screenwriters have known for decades – some stories just don’t transfer well. Probably one of the best page for page translations to film was Watchmen, and see how well that did. Mediums evolve to embrace their defining characteristics and as such can’t support all types of stories.

As for games, look at LittleBigPlanet - the world it creates is wildly entertaining. Super Mario Bros. created a similar world with mushrooms, bricks, and sounds. Those worlds doesn’t transfer well to the movie screen as we saw. Most games also can’t support films, just look at Doom or the trouble Bungie has had trying to get Halo made into a movie. They’re two different mediums.

Avatar the game can put you in a similar enough world to the movie but lacks the story, the character development. I remember playing Spiderman 2, which was a very successful game, but being annoyed I had to save people. I know that’s what Spiderman does, but he does that in the movies if I’m playing him I want to take him somewhere else.

Social gaming’s next big hit – dating sims

justingibbs — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 18:36:38 +0000

The more I study the social gaming phenomenon the more I wonder why Zynga, Playdom, and other casual gaming companies haven’t launched a dating sim? Dating sims, also known as visual novels, are a big hit in Japan. Such a hit that a Japanese man married their girlfriend from a dating sim. Titles like Harvest Moon have even begun to crack the US market.

Dating sims seem to have a lot going for them that would make them appealing to social game makers:

Addictive – guy married his virtual girlfriend, need I say more
Require continual maintenance – most are structured around the passing of days, not unlike FarmVille
Ripe for virtual goods - already well established past time in Japan to buy a virtual girlfriend gifts
Appeal to women – It’s not just that it’s romance based, but it’s interpersonal relationships rather than a shoot’em up

So why haven’t the makers of FarmVille and Mafia Wars begun to experiment with dating sims?

One obvious reason is that dating sims aren’t exactly social. But then again what could be more about social media than a dating sim? Just play with the concept of a “social media character” a bit. The girl of your dreams could have a Facebook page. You can leave notes on her wall as part of the dating sim. The ultimate prize would be when she changes her status to in a relationship – with you. Of course others playing the game would be in direct competition for her affection, but that only adds to the simulation.

Another reason might be that social game makers think of dating sims as being too adult. Some of the titles in Japan are but the majority are more an outgrowth of the whole manga and anime culture in Japan. Where as there are a few adult oriented manga titles there are many more targeted for children. It isn’t like American audiences haven’t been exposed to teen romance novels before, anyone remember Sweet Valley High? Really what these dating sims allow you to do is deal with interpersonal relationships. In Harvest Moon you can marry but the courtship is little more than learning a character’s likes and dislikes.

As far as I can tell (not being able to play all the Japanese dating sims) it seems as if dating sims are taking over where anime left off. A natural evolution – as manga lead to anime, anime is now leading to dating sims. It brings interactivity to the storylines where games tend to be ancillary to it. Dating sims are the first truly successful form of interactive drama. They certainly seem addictive enough for someone to marry their virtual girlfriend, so why haven’t Zynga and Playdom begun to experiment with them?