New Media Interest: Virtual Reality, Echo, etc.?

Hi everyone,
I’m quite interested in developing for 360 video centric virtual reality and/or for voice centric content on Amazon’s Echo/Alexa devices (or Google’s new Google Home). By necessity, these games would have little or no text, and come with their own set of limitations, but I think they could still provide their advantages, too. Imagine Alexa describing a room to you while you lay on the couch with your eyes closed, or imagine the whole family hearing a room description without reading over each other’s shoulder. Alternatively, imagine standing inside a virtual reality video sphere representing a room and the computer, or voice actor, reads aloud the room description in a way that enhances the video, sort of like a documentary voice-over. There are also some interesting options when you start getting into mobile mixed reality - perhaps audio-only descriptions in real world locations, like around golden gate park or by adding virtual objects onto real world via a Microsoft holo-lense type of devices.

Although I think the gaming possibilities are neat, I’m also particularly interested in the educational possibilities. Imagine visiting historic Williamsburg, or Washington DC, and not just lecturing to kids, but really drawing them into an historic adventure.

In addition to making this technically possible for one-off works, I’m also interested in developing a distribution channel, where, for example, after the player has downloaded the main application, they could obtain additional stories as downloadable content (perhaps having to pay for the content). Presumably, any proceeds would be mostly funneled back to the original author. The big idea here is getting a wider distribution for our works, perhaps onto playstation, xbox, echo, etc. without each of needing to know technical details of distribution. I think it would still be possible for an individual to totally own their own publishing process, or to just piggy back onto this more centralized distribution channel, sort of like how a Mac developer can post their program on their own website, or just upload it to the Mac app store. So licensing would be compatible with going on your own. I’m not sure about the size of the market opportunity, but I personally think the whole concept sounds pretty cool and technically feasible (with lots of limitations).

So, with this concept in mind, I’m writing to gauge general community reaction to the basic idea, considering it leaves the text-only world, but also to gauge a general interest level in contributing technical help and/or developing new-media specific content.

So, please feel free to express general reaction thoughts or suggestions,

Thanks in advance,
JJ

I’m quite happy with my computer and Android phone. I imagine you would have more luck with people who already want to buy one of those video/audio devices.

That said, there are interactive audiobooks for mobiles but it’s impossible to play with closed eyes because one would need the touchscreen buttons to control the story.

It’s hard and costly. If you have no real business plan your channel could meet the Desura fate.

I suppose a Desura-style launcher wouldn’t make much sense, but I’m more interested in simply facilitating distribution. Getting a game onto a website is fairly straight forward, but publishing to VR or to Echo, at least today, is quite challenging and inaccessible to most IF authors.

I’m not saying it is easy or cheap. I’m really interested, though, in whether existing IF authors have any interest in developing for or distributing to new these mediums.

Personally, I’ve been following the mechanics of IF game publishing since I bought “Adventure Game Writers Handbook” from Walden’s in 1985, and I’m excited about variations on the genre.