Stephen Dinehart

Stephen Dinehart
Born	Stephen Erin Dinehart IV
Alma mater	College for Creative Studies The University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts
Awards	See below

Stephen Erin Dinehart IV is a game designer, writer, and teacher, best known for his work in video games. Dinehart is an early proponent of transmedia storytelling and interactive narrative design. He created the idea of the VUP (viewer/user/player) in 2006, relating his model of transmedia development to Richard Wagner's concept of "total artwork" ("Gesamtkunstwerk") where the spectator becomes actor/player. Stephen also wrote the job description and took the first "Narrative Designer" position at THQ in 2006, the first of its kind in the interactive entertainment industry. Dinehart is a noted game writer and Narrative Designer, being alumni of companies such as THQ, Electronic Arts, Activision and others.

As defined by Dinehart, Interactive Narrative Design combines ludology, narratology and game design to form interactive entertainment development methodologies. It is a narratological craft which focuses on the structuralist, or literary semiotic creation of stories via viewer/user/player (VUP) navigated dataspaces. These interactive narrative experiences allow the player to witness data as navigable, participatory, and dramatic in real-time:

He was final nominee for “Best Writing for a Game Production” for Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts at the 2nd Annual Canadian Awards for the Electronic & Animated Arts (2007), and the game won “Nokia Award for Outstanding Innovation in Gaming.” His MFA is from the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts Interactive Media Division, and his BFA in Animation & Digital Media is from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.

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