Alternate reality games

Speaking of alternate reality games, sf/fantasy novelist & game writer Sean Stewart has this to say:

Right now, this art form is more exciting than novels. If I had to choose, I’d do this...

I think that every means of communication carries within itself the potential for a form of art. Once the printing press was built, novels were going to happen. It took the novel a little while to figure out exactly what it was going to be, but once the press was there, something was going to occur. Once motion picture cameras were around, the movies—in some format or another—were going to happen.

I modestly or immodestly think that we got some things fundamentally right about the way the web and the internet want to tell stories in a way that not everyone had gotten quite when we lucked into it. What people do on the web is they look for things and they gossip. We found a way of storytelling that has a lot to do with looking for things and gossiping about them.

Giving a sense of where "kids today" will be getting their entertainment and information in the future is always a useful way to start thinking about how we will have to meet them there. Read the whole interview, it's quite provocative. via BoingBoing