What is the storytelling potential of a non-interactive VR experience?
For a non-interactive VR experience, the storyteller has the ability to place the person watching into the world. This is where documentary work has benefited from VR. The placement of someone into a world has the ability to immerse them into the location with sights and sounds and sometimes even a voice over leading the story. A voice over helps direct attention and can help tell a story that users aren’t actively interacting with. Now storytellers have the ability to drop a viewer in the environment to help impact the viewer pathologically and keep the story viewing experience with them.
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Why is interaction relevant, or irrelevant, to storytelling?
Interaction is relevant to storytelling when the player/viewer is a part of the story. If a viewer is in a non-interactive environment, they are standing in the space but aren’t fully integrative into the scene since they are simply a viewer, just watching. For a story that you want the user to interact with the environment to learn the story, then interaction would be vital in telling the story. Though, there are obstacles that come when storytellers want to include both interaction and non-interaction in their story. How could you tell your user to go somewhere if they get hung up on the desk with paperwork? There are pros and cons with including interaction and not including interaction in the telling of the story. It depends on how the storyteller prioritizes what they want the viewer/user to feel; do they want the user to be fully immersed in a space and a part of the story, or do they want someone to be in a space solely observing and listening to a story?
