Having put the basic framework of the world and the rough business model together, Tony and I began discussing exactly what kind of content we would want in that world. Based on Tony’s background as a writer and my brief, distant training as a writer (a B.A. in creative writing twenty years old and collecting dust since the day I graduated), the first and most obvious answer was fiction.
As we surveyed the landscape of ezines and fan fiction sites, however, we quickly realized that we really wanted a very multimedia site, open to as many media formats as the site could technically handle – and balanced by how much development we could afford.
Our vision for the site evolved into one where members of the creative community would inspire each other, regardless of the medium. We hoped that fictional work would inspire artists, graphic novelists, and game designers, while digital works would provide visual inspiration for fictional works, RPG modules, podcasts. Ideally, the media on the site would begin to include mediums we did not or could not envision at launch [note: this is already coming true as we are exploring machinima and video engines as possible ways to encourage more video-related content to find its way into Runes of Gallidon, an option completely off our radar in 2007].
Looking at the multimedia history of some of the most successful franchised worlds (Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc.), it was clear that the creative community would naturally and independently explore many creative mediums, even if we didn’t encourage it ourselves. Why not openly embrace this tendency from the beginning and let the creative community help us actively explore the world together?
Next up: Part 3 – Licensing