Disney has found that it can improve the experience and engagement of its guests at its theme parks by building deeper stories and light adventures into the settings and rides. In doing so, it brought lessons from movies and video games into the real world of guest entertainment.

The Imagineers wanted to reproduce in the theme parks the feeling of extended, engaged entertainment that people get from great movies or video games, said Asa Kalama, the creative director for Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development. Imagineering is responsible for creating the rides at theme parks like Disneyland and Disney World, and the job of the Imagineers is to find cool new technologies that can be integrated into the fantasy entertainment in the parks. He spoke about the experiment at the Interactive Storytelling Symposium on Friday at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. The event was sponsored by the University of Santa Cruz’s Center for Games and Playable Media. 

In the past, Disney moved into digital characters by showing off animated creatures such as the alien Stitch from Lido & Stitch in its Paris and Hong Kong theme parks. Those “living characters” held unrehearsed, real-time conversations in French and English with children in the parks. Disney used its own proprietary software to respond to queries in a different way for each show, depending on the questions it received from the audience.

“The guest feedback from the living characters was absolutely phenomenal,” Kalama said. “Guests didn’t just sit back and spectate. They go to actively participate. So we decided to take that same paradigm and apply it to everything. What if we decided to let our guests participate in ‘living stories.’ We have all of these amazing experiences, parks built with great play sets. Why not use them to tell our own emergent story experiences?”

The Disney Imagineers saw they had a big opportunity because they had amazing sets in the fantasy environments at the theme parks. It had staff that it called “cast members,” and so the situation was ripe to build movie or game-like experiences.

Kalama said the team envisioned experiences that were like movies where the character was immersed in a virtual world, such as West World, The Game, or The Truman Show.

“The guests get to live their own story, with a narrative overlay on the experience that can last a whole day,” he said.

“The critical thing is whether this is a fun experience,” Kalama said. “We had to test to see if this is something that our guests wanted.”

They conceived experiences like a multiday pirate adventure, where guests had to move to a certain location and dig up pirate treasure. There were activities such as fireworks roped into the story. But it was a pretty expensive experience, with a lot of staff workers involved. To make it scale more broadly, Disney had to consider how to automate the storytelling.

The team created a “story engine” using software. They needed an “artificially intelligent director” that could create narratives on the fly for the guests. It would write scenes for the guests as needed in response to what they were saying or doing.

They partnered with Georgia Tech University experts and filmmakers. They built a story-authoring tool. It would take an example of a good story and then remanipulate the scenes within it to create a unique experience for the different guests. Then they did a play test. They found that they were initially creating stories with way too much backstory that the guests didn’t want to learn or read. Those backstories just got in the way of the experience, and so the Imagineers scaled that back.

“We didn’t give our participants enough credit for creating their own backstories,” he said.

They also made use of their live cast members to participate in the stories. In the stories, the guests were assigned goals that had to be reached. The Imagineers didn’t care how those goals were reached, so the guests could create their own paths to reaching the goal. The tests showed that the guests didn’t really want to change the ending or influence it. They were happy to reach the desired ending, but they wanted to get their in a different way. They could pursue a bunch of tasks in any order they wanted.

Then they tested it. The results were enthusiastic. They also started taking the stories that people performed and using them for future stories.

Kalama said, “The guests loved the experience. Our experience showed you had to have a clear qualitative and creative vision that was entirely guest focused. You pick the right tools for reach the goal that you know the guests want. Don’t choose your tools first.”

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Noted game developer Warren Spector has a long list of things that game designers can do to improve storytelling in video games. But one of those the force behind Deus Ex and Epic Mickey wants is to improve the quality of non-combat artificial intelligence characters.

These computer-controlled characters are just too dumb, especially in comparison to the more refined and flexible combat A.I. characters that try to kill you as the player. Once the non-combat characters are fixed, game designers will be able to make big leaps toward better stories in games, and that could lead to a wider audience — and a less bored community of hardcore gamers.

Spector spoke at an interactive storytelling conference at the Computer History Museum. The event was sponsored by the Center for Games and Playable Media at the University of California at Santa Cruz. The aim is to guide the next generation of video game creators. Spector’s annoyance with non-combat AI is a pet peeve.

“Can we please start working on non-combat A.I.?” he said in his keynote speech. “We spend all of our cycles in each new hardware generation to create graphics people expect. But how do we make characters act better?”

If you’re a male character and you walk into the women’s bathroom, the characters around you should be smart enough to react to that. If you spill a drink, and it splashes on another character, that character should react, Spector said. More difficult still are tasks like creating A.I. characters who act like spurned lovers or would-be lovers. (The AI experts are working on this).

Creating better stories in games might seem like a solved problem, given the success of titles like Heavy Rain, The Walking Dead, and BioShock Infinite. These have been huge commercial successes.

“If that was enough, I would not be here wasting your time,” he said.

But these are still the exceptions. Spector spent most of his time talking about what game designers can learn from other media such as movies, TV shows, comic books, and tabletop role-playing games — and how they should avoid the pitfalls of those media and truly exploit what is unique and different about video games.

Borrowing from other media has its dangers. He said that cinematic games remove the control of the story from the player and place it in the hands of the game designer. Sometimes it works, like in Heavy Rain, but often it bores the player and fails to exploit one of the advantages of video games: the notion that every player can create or experience their own version of the story.

“When you [as gamer designer] take control of the story, you remove control from the player,” he said.

He noted that David Cage’s Heavy Rain had enough story in it for the equivalent of five movies. Games tend to have six or more hours of game play, requiring a lot more story material than two-hour movies.

Games depart from movies in offering players choices. They can branch in different directions and deliver consequences for the choices. Players can learn a lot about themselves that way.

“Games offer the chance for players to find themselves,” Spector said. “Why would we deny them that? I tell designers is your job is to get yourselves off the stage so players can get on it.”

Spector recently stirred a controversy when he said that there was no need for Bethesda to create another first-person shooter game based on Wolfenstein. He didn’t repeat that notion, and in fact he clarified those remarks later.

But he said, “I am saying there is more we can do. Janet Murray observes that games include more building blocks of storytelling than any single medium has ever offered us. How can we not use it?”

Those building blocks include words, images, sound, space, skill, thought, and choice.

Here’s some of Spector’s other suggestions for improving storytelling:

• Characters have to be better. He had high praise for Elizabeth, your constant companion in BioShock Infinite, but he says mainstream media still views a lot of game characters as flat.
• Create worlds, not sets. Spector said, “Games are about telling a story through the exploration of space.”
• Create the equivalent of a virtual dungeon master. Much like in Dungeons & Dragons games, where you had a smart human game master, stories should be changed on the fly and adapt to the player’s level of success. To make a game feel real, the game has to change in response to a player’s choices and progress.
• Tell deeper stories. “Stories should be more than just what happens on the surface,” he said. There should be a subtext, or something below the surface. “Don’t waste my time as a player,” he said. “In Deus Ex, it is about what do you want the world to be like.”
• Games can transport players to other worlds. You can immerse the player in those worlds, respond to the player choices, and repeat the actions in different ways in real time.
• Ask questions. Game developers can raise questions for gamers to answer. Spector said, “The question is how much authorship do you share with players? How much creativity do you set aside to let the players express theirs?” Game designers don’t, however, have to answer questions in the same ways that movies or TV shows do with their story plots.
• Make games about more than skill. Older players won’t be the best at mastering game controls. If you reduce the skill required to play a game, you can reach more people.
• Game stories can vary from the roller-coaster game (where you feel like you are on rails, restricted from moving off a linear path) to sandboxes, (like Civilization), where you can do anything you want. A hybrid of the two can work, where the game designer defines the end points to Act I, II, III, etc., and then lets the player figure out how to get to those end points so they can progress to the next part of the story.

To inspire game designers, Spector said, “We are living through the birth of a new form of storytelling,” quoting Jonathan Gottschall, a literary scholar.

“Video games have been around for 40 years, but you have a chance to drive it and change it as a medium,” Spector said. “That chance comes along once or twice a century.”

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Julia Gifford works with the Draugiem Group, a Latvian incubator.

Infographics have become an outdated method of data visualization. Recent developments in technology have allowed a new breed of data visualization to emerge — a prettier, more informative, easier to understand, and more marketer-friendly version. These new, more interactive graphics are about to push infographics out of the limelight.

Introducing the webgraphic

Infographics have enjoyed large-scale popularity over the past few years as an accessible means of data visualization. And with good reason. Infographics were great for displaying large amounts of data, making sense of complex information, and engaging readers more in the discovery of new patterns.

But those days are over. Now, infographics are being replaced with an even more visually appealing, effective, story-telling agent — the interactive infographic.

Ross Crooks, the creative director of Column Five, an agency, saw this coming. He wrote about the death of the traditional infographic well over a year ago, predicting that the future would lie in making infographics interactive. Props to him, because a year later we see that he was right. Over the past year we’ve seen visually stunning, animated, and interactive infographics pop up around the web.

This new interactive infographics differ from static infographics in that they let the viewer interact with them, discovering more on their own. They include elements such as animations and clickable links, which increase the viewer’s engagement as well as the credibility of the infographic itself.

But the phrase “interactive infographic” is a hassle. How about if we call it what it is: a “webgraphic.” That’s right, we’re coining a term.

Why webgraphic? Because an interactive infographic by definition must contain code. That means, instead of being a static image, it’s embedded in the web.

Why now?

Some might argue that the concept of the webgraphic was technically realizable many years ago, but they have really only surfaced in the past year.

This is the result of responsive design, an increase in technical capabilities, browser improvements to accommodate hardware acceleration to better support animations, and the availability of more options at designers’ fingertips, courtesy of HTML5, CSS3, jQuery, and increased computing capacity.

Not to mention the accessibility of interactive infographics on tablets, considering that mobile devices account for a growing segment of Web usage in the U.S. and internationally.

Interactive storytelling

Infographics, in comparison to their interactive counterparts, help people focus their attention. By contrast, the narrative thread of interactive infographics can walk users through a series of steps, delivering information to help the viewer come to a conclusion.

Additionally, because the webgraphic is coded straight onto the web, it has the bonus that it can contain links to outside sources for increased interaction, credibility, and usefulness. This is all in comparison to a static infographic, which is simply an image.

A great example of using webgraphics to illustrate a point is the Daily Dose of Water webgraphic, which gives you helpful stats and lets you calculate your daily water use.

Increased traffic and social engagement

The benefit of your visual content being embedded on your page is that viewers will be directed to your website. This brings awareness of your URL. Later on, this can be beneficial in manipulating your visitors, converting them, and retargeting advertising to them later.

Locating a webgraphic on your web site has one primary benefit: Anyone sharing your amazing content will be directed to your site. The Future of Carsharing does this well. While this webgraphic provides interesting content, at the end it also links images to the parties who were involved in the creation of the webgraphic. It also includes a “share” banner at the top, which allows the webgraphic to be easily shared on social platforms (which then, of course, brings in more potential traffic).

One minus that must be addressed is that webgraphics are less user-friendly on social networks than static infographics. Because the webgraphic is embedded on a different webpage, the viewer has to leave the social platform in order to access the webgraphic. But once you get the viewer there, it opens the door to a world of possibilities in terms of converting the viewer to a customer.

Increase conversion rates and improve retargeting

The ability of integrating the webgraphic to a website has immense benefit to conversion rates. Infographics can only bring about brand awareness by putting their logo in the bottom, etc. However with a webgraphic you have so many more options.

Because of the ability to code the webgraphic, you can direct your reader to fulfill a goal. For example, DeskTime – one of the companies I work with at the Draugiem Group, a Latvian incubator — successfully added a “sign up” button at the bottom to capture interested potential customers. This is where you can take advantage and implement every conversion rate optimization trick in the book.

Because the webgraphic is on your site, you can add a re-tartgeting pixel to your site, and use it to target ads to people who have already checked out your webgraphic and are presumably interested in your topic.

Designers and marketers alike have understood the added benefit of interactive infographics. Those who are serious about getting the biggest return on investment have understood that the webgraphic is the way to go.

Julia Gifford is a Canadian-born Latvian technology enthusiast. She enjoys writing, and is currently with the Draugiem Group. You can find her on Twitter at @julijagifford.

Top image: A still from the Daily Dose of Water webgraphic.

Pinterest-esque Wanelo gets $2 million in its shopping cart

Shopping for the next e-commerce hit, investors have spent $2 million on budding startup Wanelo, an online shopping community where regular people share their uncommon finds. This $2 million round of funding was Wanelo’s first. Floodgate, First Round Capital, Naval Ravikant, Forerunner Ventures, Roger Dickey, Aayush Phumbhra, Andy Dunn, and other angels all participated. Read more on VentureBeat: Investors spend $2M on Wanelo, a social store that looks a lot like Pinterest.

Hail a cab in the 21st century with GetTaxi, which raised $20 million today

Israel-based GetTaxi has raised $20 million to take the hassle out of hailing a cab. GetTaxi places GPS components into taxi cabs, and provides customers with an application to flag down a cab using their mobile phones. Read more on VentureBeat: GetTaxi CEO actually a cab driver, sets sights on NYC.

Cloud computing gets a new chunk of money, $25M

Delphix, a startup that exists at the boring-to-consumers-but-otherwise-a-total-goldmine intersection between cloud computing and big data, has just dried the ink on a healthy funding deal — one that brings tech heavyweights like Battery, Greylock, and Lightspeed to the table. This is the startup’s third round of institutional funding, and it’s a whopper — $25 million and oversubscribed. Read more on VentureBeat: Big data + cloud computing = $25M from Silicon Valley’s biggest VCs.

Read all about it: Wattpad raises $17.3 million in capital

Six-year-old, storytelling and reading community Wattpad has raised the eyebrows of investors anxious to see how the startup’s plot unfolds. The cost for penning Wattpad’s next chapter? Just $17.3 million in cash. Khosla Ventures led the $17.3 million Series B round in Wattpad, the companies announced today. Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, Union Square Ventures, and Golden Venture Partners also participated in the round. Read more on VentureBeat: Storytelling service Wattpad raises $17.3M for next chapter.

Fanatics grabs money for foam fingers and stadium gear

Sports-centered e-commerce site Fanatics, owned by Kynetic, grabbed the attention of Silicon Valley venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz and Insight Venture Partners to raise a $150 million round of funding at a $1.5 billion. Read more on VentureBeat: Fanatics shows its team spirit with $150M investment.

Threadflip gets $6.5 million in a first round of funding

Online consignment store Threadflip grabbed $6.5 million first round of funding. Much like a traditional consignment store, the website lets you buy and sell gently used women’s clothing. Shasta Ventures led the round, with participation from Lowercase Capital, First Round Capital, Baseline Ventures, Slow Ventures, Forerunner Ventures, Greylock Discovery Fund and Andreessen Horowitz. Read the press release.

Magnetic attracts $10 Million for ad targeting

Search retargeting company Magnetic grabbed $10 million funding Wednesday. Magnetic does ad targeting related to search terms. Edison Ventures led the round.

Makie raises $1.4 million seed round for creepy custom dolls

Make a computer model of an alien-looking doll and have it printed in 3-D; that’s the premise behind Makie’s business. You can design a doll in your likeness and print it in 3-D so you can hold in your hand. The company raised $1.4 million in seed money from Lifeline Ventures and Sunstone Capital. Matthew Wiggins, Daniel James, and Cedric Littardi also participated.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Now anyone can star in their own “This American Life”-esque story and share it with the world using just their iPhone: Broadcastr, a startup dedicated to tying personal audio stories to specific locations, launched its free iPhone app today.

The mobile app comes more than a week after New York City-based Broadcastr opened its online beta to the public. The mobile app includes all of the key features of the online site, including the ability to listen to stories from around the world, as well as easily record your own story and tie it to a location.

But the app also includes one killer mobile feature the company calls “Geoplay.” When turned on, the Broadcastr app will automatically play stories based on your physical location. For example, you could stroll through Bryant Park in New York City and automatically hear stories pinned there. It’s a nifty feature, and it’s something that competing location-based audio sharing services like Shoudio don’t offer.

The mobile app also lets you tap into Broadcastr’s social media features. You can follow other users and find notable new storytellers in the app’s “Featured” section.

The company hasn’t announced how it plans to make money off of the service, but I imagine that we’ll end up seeing sponsored entries like Twitter’s sponsored tweets, and ads may potentially pop up inside of audio streams as well.

Broadcastr’s combination of Geoplay, 6,000-plus available stories, and easy story recording make it an essential app for would-be broadcast hosts. I was a fan of the company’s concept with its initial web launch, but it definitely seems like Broadcastr is a service better served by the mobile experience.

The company plans to release an Android app later this month, and we’re still awaiting funding details.