PlayNook Spotlight | Stefano De Vivo, COO and Audio Director

Stefano De Vivo, COO and audio director of PlayNook, is from the southern Italian city of Bari, but he has lived in Milan for a long time. He is only 28 years old but already has a lot of artistic and creative experience: after training as a jazz guitarist, he toured Italy, then worked in record, theater and audio/video media productions before finally landing at PlayNook. In this interview he talks about why AudioGames are a real revolution and tells us more about himself.

Stefano, Italy has always been a land of storytellers, from Dante and Boccaccio onwards.

Indeed. We have an extraordinary, unique narrative heritage. Marco Polo himself, the protagonist of our first AudioGame, was not only a great merchant and tireless traveler but also an exceptional storyteller who dictated his extraordinary ‘istoria’, Il milione, known in English as The Travels of Marco Polo, in a Genoese prison.

PlayNook aims to breathe new life into this Italian tradition through AudioGames, interactive and immersive narratives that harness the versatility and power of sound, voice and music. At the heart of it all is a passion for good stories. What stories have brightened your life, Stefano?

There are many. I love good stories and so do my colleagues at PlayNook: we all love novels, movies and games. For my part, I love science fiction and fantasy, especially the work of Tolkien. I’m also a fan of the Star Wars universe, for better or worse [laughs]. I also enjoy anime and video games, especially action RPGs.

Your other big passion is music, right?

That’s right. Ever since I was a kid. I got into music partly by chance: I stole a Red Hot Chili Peppers record from my mom, and after listening to it, I decided to learn to play guitar. It was a life-changing decision. I took a three-year music degree and a specialisation in jazz guitar, in Bari. During my studies I also started a career in music production, both records and films, worked as an art director and entered the world of advertising, a complex but fascinating world. Finally, I ended up in the world of AudioGames and PlayNook.

Music is very giving, but also very demanding.

Yes, that’s true. Music school, for example, is such a challenging experience, in both good and bad ways. You have to be driven by an endless passion to succeed. Working in music, as well as in cinema, art, theater, publishing, etc., is hard in Italy. You have to be highly motivated and also able to evolve and even improvise.

Improvisation is very important in jazz. Who are your favorite jazz artists?

I love the great classics: I’m a huge Coltrane fan, for example; he changed me. I also like Rosenwinkel very much, and I could mention a hundred other names. In general, what I love about jazz is the importance of being able to improvise, and to connect with the other musicians around you while you play. Jazz teaches you to adapt to uncomfortable situations, to always come up with something creative and expressive for yourself, for the other musicians, and especially for the audience. Jazz teaches flexibility and versatility, but also order and method. Not just jazz, actually; music in general is a school of method and organization.

From music you got to sound. Not an obvious path. How did that happen?

At some point I had the feeling that I wanted to go deeper into the concept of sound. What is music, what are words? They are sounds. I wanted to find out how far the sound experience could go for the listener of a record or the player of a video game. I have also always been fascinated by the connection between sound and physical gesture. All of this led me into the world of sound, and I have not come out since!

What is it like to work in sound for movies or commercials?

It’s great. The end result of your work can be heard by everyone. Sound composition, whether it is music or sound design, has a very specific purpose; it has to express the concept that the images are trying to communicate. Let’s say it complements the image in a crucial way.

Sound and soundtrack are often some of the most defining features of a great movie, a great video game...

Indeed. There have been studies that have paired incongruous soundtracks and sound design with movies, like a comedy soundtrack with a horror movie. Obviously, the result was bad, because music and sound have a critical psychological, emotional function.

What made you join the PlayNook team?

I was looking for new experiences and a new way of thinking about entertainment. PlayNook is a revolution because it wants to offer Italian and international audiences interactive audio stories of the highest quality. It is a very innovative way of telling stories, reviving the narrative tradition that Italy has and that you mentioned earlier; but above all, it is a new way of playing, of having fun.

You know, I come from a generation that is used to interactivity. Well, PlayNook allows players to immerse themselves in vast narrative universes built through music, speech – in a word, sound. It is a gaming startup, but one that is taking a very different path from many other companies in the industry.

Then there is the human factor. The PlayNook team is fantastic, made up of incredibly talented people. We have great programmers like Stefano Parmesan, a creative mind like Roan Johnson, great voice actors. There’s Gabriele Antonelli, Michele Barbera and Luca Barsotti, who have entrepreneurial experience and vision. In short, it is the dream team I have always hoped to join. At PlayNook, we want to do something big and profoundly new; something revolutionary.

What is PlayNook, in a nutshell?

It is an AudioGames production and distribution company. We create, write and produce interactive audio experiences for the PlayNook platform, an app that allows players to immerse themselves in stories of adventure, suspense and mystery by making decisions, making choices, building their story. We do it all, or almost all, with sound, which is highly immersive, even more so than the visuals.

Really?

Yes. In that sense, sound is stronger than image. In video games, you are always aware that you are dealing with something fictional; in an AudioGame, that sense of otherness in relation to the story you are playing is much more tenuous. The nature of sound is ambiguous. Imagine you are in the dark and you hear a sound: is it real or is it recorded? This is why I say that the immersive capacity of audio is infinite. And of course our audio revolution is inherently disruptive in the iconocentric world that we live in.

Are AudioGames somehow an antidote to the frenetic consumerism of the civilization of images?

I think they are, because they teach you to be patient, not to expect everything immediately. The image, so to speak, often reveals itself immediately; a glance is usually enough. AudioGames offer an entertainment experience that takes a little longer than we are used to. They should be enjoyed at a leisurely pace. But the same goes for great books, doesn't it? It takes patience to appreciate a good novel; it is not a meme that makes you laugh the moment you see it. It takes time to really enjoy the experience of an AudioGame, just as it does with audiobooks or podcasts.

Are you a patient person?

Yes, quite.

Who taught you patience?

Music has. To appreciate music, to play music, you have to be patient. Infinitely patient.

The first PlayNook AudioGame, “Marco Polo: Adventures”, is dedicated to the great Venetian traveler. Why start with him?

Marco Polo’s travels, his thousand vicissitudes through the vast spaces of Eurasia, from Venice to the court of the Great Khan in Khanbaliq, today’s Beijing, are an extraordinarily fertile ground for an AudioGame. In fact, players will have to make many decisions in a vast and unknown world; they will be faced with crossroads, both metaphorically and literally, and will have to accumulate gold; after all, merchants are driven by profit. But they will also need to earn karma. The more points you earn, the more chances you have to change Marco Polo’s fate by building alternative routes. This means that players can decide the stages of the great Venetian’s journey.

Marco Polo is an iconic figure.

Yes, he is fascinating. Marco Polo is loved abroad; he’s considered a hero in China. In Italy, however, we have somewhat neglected him in recent decades. Yet, The Travels of Marco Polo is one of the great texts of Western history, translated into every language in the world.

When will “Marco Polo: Adventures” be available on PlayNook?

Starting this month. It will be an experience that is not only highly immersive, but also exciting. It will keep players on the edge of their seats. We will release it in chapters, like the feuilletons of the 19th century, or the seasons of today's series. Each chapter will have its own autonomy, its own adventures, and will connect to the next... or not: it will all depend on the players’ choices!

Who would you recommend it to?

Anyone, starting with my peers who commute a lot, for study or work, and who might be looking for something more engaging than a podcast. But also to those who want to have fun in the evening in a different way, maybe by candlelight; dim light is perfect for AudioGames.