Jacob Rapoport, CEO of Evil Plan, and Nico Vereecke, strategy expert at the same company, dive into the revolutionary world of AI-powered unscripted fantasy entertainment. They discuss how AI can solve the content shortage in the industry by enabling dynamic, community-influenced storytelling. The duo highlights the shift towards interactive narratives, where audience participation shapes plots in unpredictable ways. They also touch on the exciting intersection of technology and gaming, redefining how stories are created and experienced.
AI is revolutionizing interactive storytelling by allowing community participation to shape narrative outcomes, creating unpredictable and engaging experiences.
Evil Plan aims to address cost and manpower challenges in entertainment by developing AI-driven platforms that enhance content efficiency and creativity.
The concept of unscripted fantasy entertainment merges reality with imaginative storytelling, offering users endless narrative possibilities through collaborative engagement.
Deep dives
Understanding AI in Gaming
The episode discusses the exciting potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in the gaming industry. AI is increasingly being integrated into game development processes, such as through power agents for playtesting, bots for quality assurance, and models to identify cheating bots. The focus is on showcasing how gaming entrepreneurs leverage AI to create innovative experiences, leading to a new genre of interactive entertainment. The host highlights the trend of growing investments in AI-driven gaming companies, indicating a shift in how games are developed and experienced.
Community-Influenced Entertainment
The podcast elaborates on the concept of community-influenced entertainment where audience participation shapes narrative experiences. Examples like 'Twitch Plays Pokémon' and 'Bandersnatch' demonstrate how communities can collaboratively engage in storytelling, creating dynamic and unpredictable narratives. The discussion emphasizes the importance of unpredictability in enhancing viewer engagement and creating a sense of emotional investment among participants. This model encourages deeper connections and promotes social interaction through shared experiences in storytelling.
The Role of Unscripted Fantasy
The guests introduce the idea of unscripted fantasy entertainment as a novel form of storytelling that blends the spontaneity of reality with the imaginative aspects of fantasy. This genre seeks to create narratives where the outcome is not predetermined, allowing players and audiences to collaboratively shape the direction of the story. The discussion highlights the role of AI in generating endless narrative possibilities and how this could lead to immersive experiences for users. By removing the constraints of traditional storytelling, unscripted fantasy can offer unique interactive entertainment that resonates with audiences.
Innovative Company Strategies
The podcast explores the strategic direction of Evil Plan, a company dedicated to developing AI-native entertainment experiences. Evil Plan's initial focus is on creating a simplified combat sport game as an introductory project, making it easily accessible for players. The company aims to allow audiences to influence stories in real-time, breaking away from conventional scripted narratives. This approach seeks to harness the community's collective creativity while reducing production costs and increasing the efficiency of content generation.
Monetization and Business Model
The discussion also touches on the monetization strategy adopted by Evil Plan, emphasizing the duality of generating revenue from both content and its underlying infrastructure. By creating a resilient operating system for storytelling, Evil Plan anticipates the emergence of various monetization avenues, including licensing and user-generated content. The approach aims to facilitate a scalable model where creative projects can thrive without being heavily restricted by budget constraints. This innovative business model can potentially transform the entertainment landscape, allowing for diverse narratives to emerge.
In this episode, host, Alexandra Takei, Director at Ruckus Games, is joined by Jacob Rapoport (CEO and Co-Founder) and Nico Vereecke from Evil Plan to discuss their groundbreaking project in AI-powered, unscripted fantasy entertainment. The conversation explores the future of interactive storytelling, where community influence and fully AI-driven narratives combine to create an entirely new genre of entertainment.
Jacob and Nico express their belief in AI’s potential to address the “cost problem” of new IP (i.e., significant upstart capital for uncertain returns) and the “manpower problem” (limited hours available each day) that contributes to content shortages. They explain how their company is developing a platform for dynamic, emergent storytelling. With AI at its core, Evil Plan seeks to transform how stories are created, allowing audience participation to play a crucial role in shaping the outcomes of plots and sub-plots, resulting in both unpredictable drama and interactive experiences. If you’re a fan of community-driven entertainment phenomena like Twitch Plays Pokémon, Bandersnatch, Genvid’s MILEs, or Blaseball, this is a conversation worth exploring. You can also check out our content coverage on Genvid and Blaseball on our website.
We’d also like to thank Lightspeed Venture Partners for making this episode possible! With its dedicated gaming practice, "Lightspeed Gaming," the firm is investing from over $7B in early- and growth-stage capital — the by far largest fund focused on gaming and interactive technology. If you’re interested in learning more, go to https://gaming.lsvp.com/.
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