[arg_discuss] RE: [pm] Scalability

[Brian Clark]

> It seems as though in general, one can provide a very-high-production- 
> values kind of interactivity experience to only a limited number of  
> people. There's always a bit of a dynamic tension between the desire  
> to be inclusive and the desire to be responsive to your players.

I think that's an accurate description of a lot of the work that has come
before, but I'm not sure it is necessarily a truism. Let's assume for a few
minutes that it is.

> Do you feel like all of your audience is able to benefit from
> something that a group of five or even twenty people can physically do? 

Yes, if you can unlock those people as storytellers: their first-person
experiences become stories and narratives that impact other people, and part
of that impact is the knowledge that they could "reach through the screen"
too if they really wanted to. 

> How do you pick those five or twenty people while remaining fair?
> Is it all self-selection and convenient geography?

Heist was a combination of all of the above plus if they could survive a
background check.

> Is there a way to overcome this kind of restriction in the future,
> or will it always be the case? 

I think there are ways to overcome it. Some of the ideas floating around in
Heist that didn't make it into the flood of actual execution were IM-based
bots (couple with, essentially, the style of Eliza-underpinned AI that
drives MOO chatbots) that could be a lot more than just human labor to
relative level of convincingness. Similarly, we were also looking at
Bluetooth transmitters for a while that could have created "footprints" of
connectivity to data as a "virtual geography opportunity" beyond just
physical interaction. 

Can't wait to hear other people's thoughts, and thanks for setting up a cool
and much needed list,



Brian Clark
CEO/Founder - GMD Studios [ http://www.gmdstudios.com ]
bclark at gmdstudios.com
O: 407-657-8990 x40
M: 321-277-5293