Technology

Why Do We Have Such A Creative Explosion on Mobile and DLC?

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(I'm still thinking about DLC and mobile content as of late.  Blame my new Android.)

I sort through the DLC on my console and am amazed at what's there (and at times appalled, but mostly amazed).  I look through the online store on my smartphone and am overwhelmed with choices.  When it comes to books the content available to me, especially via eBooks is stunning.

It seems that, media, software, and gamewise we're in a kind of explosion of creativity and productivity.  There's just a huge amount of stuff everywhere – often good stuff – that we can download, play, read, or listen too.

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Virtual Stars Part 4: Making it Work

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I've explored that

  1. A Virtual Star Seems a Viable Venture.
  2. That such a creation has benefits.
  3. That there are specific challenges one can face.

There's only one more thing for me to examine out of all of this – namely, how do I think you could create a Virtual Star correctly and profitably?  I've been enjoying this analysis, and want to indulge in a little thought experiment on what can work.  So here's How Steve Would Do It:

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Virtual Stars Part 2: The Advantages

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So last column I explored just why someone would want to make a Virtual Star, that star being defined by the following traits:

  1. The creation of a completely artificial media figure whose image, behavior, story, and personality are made up.
  2. This entity has no single component traceable as a contribution of an actual human being – no single voice actor, artist, etc.  The Virtual Star is an entirely artistic creation that cannot be rendered down to being identified with a single person, unlike an animated character with a popular voice actor or being distinctly modeled on a single human being.
  3. The entity is treated as real in most media produced around it, but it is acknowledged that the entity is completely virtual.

I then explored why I thought that the creation of a virtual star was a viable venture due to culture and resources:

  1. There have always been virtual stars or creations like virtual stars, especially for the youth.
  2. Regular stars have often been fictionalized.  People have come to accept some fictionalization of celebrities.
  3. Reality Television creates stars by mixing real-life and fiction.  This further blurs the fiction-fact boundary.
  4. Games have people used to using technology to produce memorable characters and fans have responded.
  5. Technology allows for creation of the elements needed to create a Virtual Star easily.

So the question then comes: what is the reason to create a Virtual Star?  Frankly I can think of a lot:

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