Smoking Gun Interactive, a Vancouver-based video game studio, today announced that it has signed author Douglas Rushkoff to assist with the development of the studio’s first title.

Rushkoff, a New York writer and new media scholar, will be working with Smoking Gun “to develop story narratives across a range of media formats that can feed off one another and exist concurrently,” according to a release on the partnership.

Smoking Gun was founded in 2007 by Relic Entertainment veterans John Johnson, Drew Dunlop, and Angie Pytlewski. The independently financed developer has not yet announced the title currently in development. When I spoke with Johnson, CEO and creative director, in February, he said Smoking Gun would be looking to sign a publishing or co-publishing deal for the upcoming title.

In the release, Rushkoff said that he looked forward to collaborating with Smoking Gun, “the first developers I’ve encountered who really understand the difference and potential marriage between narrative and game – between storytelling and total immersion. I’m going to get to work closely with them, writing narrative pathways that carry readers through the universe of the game world. We’ll all be writing for and stealing from one another, developing plot points, set pieces, and characters that have both stories in the books, and purposes in the games. Players who have read the books will have a richer game experience; readers who play the game will come to understand the stories from the inside.“ 

I’m intrigued by this announcement and by Rushkoff’s explanation of what’s planned. Creating a world and telling stories within it should not be limited to a particular medium. It sounds like Smoking Gun and Rushkoff have a plan to create stories and characters that go beyond a video game or a comic or a novel, and to tell those stories while weaving back and forth between the various media.

It’s a tricky thing to do because either those stories must exist independent of all others, or the creators have to assume that the audience will follow the story from medium to medium, getting a chapter of the story by reading a short story this week, and by playing a video game next week.

Whatever they are up to, I say bring it on. Having a writer and thinker like Rushkoff participating in the development of a new interactive experience is loaded with potential. I’ll be over here, waiting to see what they come up with.

Cross posted at the Georgia Straight