In these words Martijn Hendriks describes a crucial turning point in the video - game Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. GTA San Andreas is the fifth in the Grand Theft Auto series published by Rockstar in 2004. The game starts with an animation explaining how the protagonist, gang member Carl Johnson, returns home after years of living in another city. After being picked up and abused by police officers, he is left alone in a nondescript back alley. However, in this alley it is not only Carl who is left alone; it is also the player. The figure on the screen no longer moves on his own accord; he is standing still, lightly swaying. From now on, the image on the screen has become interactive. Nothing will happen, unless the player intervenes. But if he does, what will happen?

Interactivity and the rise of the many-to-many

This transition from a cinematic to an interactive image is paradigmatic for the change that has occurred in the way media consumers (viewers or readers or listeners) engage with media objects. Whereas the traditional cultural consumer was a more or less “passive” recipient of finished products, such as books, paintings or films, interactive digital cultural objects like digital games ask their consumers to manipulate, enter, explore, perform or even partially create their contents. Interactivity has raised the expectation that new media would bring about an emancipation of the recipient to an active user or even co-creator.