I think the future of entertainment looks really different and that it actually doesn't matter where the idea begins.

That's Hilary Mason, the co-founder and CEO of Hidden Door, they use generative AI to turn any work of fiction into an online social role-playing game.

Our Rich Lamello talks to Mason about all that this entails, including their Pride and Prejudice

adaptation, and parallels to Napster.

And let's kind of jump in where we are today. As I mentioned at the top, you're the CEO and the co-founder of Hidden Door.

Tell us about Hidden Door.

Tell us about, you know, kind of the thought process behind starting it, what it does and what your role is there.

Yeah, so what we do at Hidden Doors, we partner with people who create worlds through movies, books, TV shows, or online communities, all of that really wonderful world building energy.

And we create ways for the fans to role play in those worlds. We do use AI and machine learning to make that possible, and our fans get to come in,

create their own characters, and sort of roleplay their own stories with a really light stat system,

where they get challenged, surprise, they get to be creative, and it's all within the rules of the world, the rules of the IP.

And if there are characters from those worlds that appear,

we enforce all the rules around how those characters ought to behave.

So this is a way for fans to sort of fanfic as a game.

Stay excited about the thing that they love. I don't know about you,

but when I finish reading a book, I usually have 20 different ideas for different plots or

corners of that world. I would have loved to explore. And to really do that in a way that reinforces

and supports the authors and creators they admire.

That's what we do at Hidden Door, but there is a long, long story about how we got here.

Love to hear it.

Absolutely.

That was question number two I have for you.

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