Kyle
I’m sure after reading the headline some of you are thinking making your own MMO story would kick ass, and it does. Thanks to the folks at new startup StoryBricks MMO fans can create their own characters and stories to share with friends in a simple to use, but feature packed interface.
StoryBricks is based in London and California and was founded by serial entrepreneur Rodolfo Rosini, Brian “Psychochild” Green and Buck Wilson. While Rosini is the experienced entrepreneur Green and Wilson are the MMO, gaming and RPG nuts.
As you’ll see form our interview with Rosini and Green the platform has really taken off in just days. 555 stories were created in just 72 hours, and that’s before the team could publish a tutorial on how to harness the power of the unique interface.
Let’s dive right in and find out more about this unique startup.
Tell us, what is storybricks?
Storybricks is a technology that allows users to create their own stories within games without any programming knowledge. It combines an easy-to-use visual editing system and a sophisticated and patent-pending intelligence layer to create a system that gives characters in a video game the illusion of life. We plan to put Storybricks into massively multiplayer online (MMO) games and let users have control over their play experience.
Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?
The team is Rodolfo (a serial tech entrepreneur, 2x VC backed), Brian ‘Psychochild’ Green (an MMO developer that ran the legendary Meridian 59 MMO), Stéphane Bura (a game designer with a background in AI and tabletop RPG) and Buck Wilson (a designer that sold his previous startup and his apps got featured in Apple commercials)
Our advisor board include Don Bluth and Gary Goldman (the legendary Disney animators), Richard Bartle – the inventor or MMOs (back when they were called MUDs) and Chris Avellone (Wasteland 2, Planescape) who is the Chief Creative Officer of Obsidian
Where are you based?
The company is based in the SF Bay Area and we have an office in London
More after the break
What is the problem that storybricks solves?
MMORPGs have not evolved in years, mostly because of lack of innovation in the tools used to make them – and one of the areas where we saw as underfunded was the intersection of AI and storytelling. With Storybricks you can define deep, engaging and interesting game characters quickly with zero programming experience and with a fraction of the time. It enables casual players to make their own games and also helps experienced game developers to create interesting content faster.
What is your secret sauce?
We spent a lot of time figuring how to model emotions. Many games are shooters or about cars because it’s easy to model spatial movement and combat. Figuring out how to model “love” or “desire for fame” is much much harder and people have been trying to solve this problem for many years. Not only we addressed it, but we also figured out how to do it without having to end with a combinatorial explosion of possibilities. We have filed several patents in the space and we have more in the pipeline and we work with 4 different universities on research.
What is one lesson/challenge you learned in launching storybricks?
To paraphrase Henry Ford, we have found that people want faster horses. Trying a paradigm shift without having deep pockets is a challenge and takes time. And it’s frustrating when a photo sharing app on a mobile phone can raise more capital than you.Green: I’d also add that marketing directly to consumers has been difficult for us. People seem confused about what Storybricks is, exactly, which is probably because it’s so different and disruptive to what has come before. When we’ve showed a demo to people, they usually get it and become very excited. Now we need to find a way to do that isn’t so hands-on.
What’s your monetization strategy?
We are attracted by marketplaces, where people can build stories and share them, and we get to own the exchange. But we have not announced any specific plans beyond having a freemium model. Ads are not a viable strategy in games.
How many stories have been created in the alpha?
555 in the first 72 hours, 37% of players created at least one. Mind you there’s no tutorial yet!
What happens when the user is done creating their story, how is it shared?
You get a unique URL for your story that can be shared on your social network of choice.
What’s next for StoryBricks?
We need to decide if we are going to focus more on the end user part of the business by adding more features, support for additional worlds beyond “The Kingdom of Default” or if we develop the server side more. We have had requests to license our platform to existing businesses. Personally, as an MMORPG player I’d love to see the features we developed integrated into games like World of Warcraft or EverQuest
Linkage:
Check out story bricks here
Storybricks is holding a Kickstarter Project, check that out here
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