Future of Transmedia Storytelling Within Games

The future of transmedia within games, could be the form of it actually combining together and one platform affects the other platform such as a new game coming for PC & Console , ‘Defiance’ which is a MMO which is going to also have a TV show running at the same time, events that happen within the show will also effect the game and vice versa heres a quote

‘As an example, Hill said that a character from the show could leave for San Francisco, show up in the game and go on adventures with players, before returning to St. Louis to discuss everything that happened while they were in the game world.’

More can be read here http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/06/defiance-interview.ars

This creates a very interesting future for transmedia storytelling, as i’m sure several books and promotional material will be created for the release to make it a success.

THQ has a similiar line in the works with it’s ‘Red Faction’ brand.

The use of the TV show will be another entry point into the game and for people generally interested in Scifi so aswell as creating alot more content for the game world it will increase game sales as people would want to know what the character really experienced while away in San Francisco.

So from the research ive gathered I don’t think motion controls will be the next ‘Big Thing’ in games, but will be transmedia storytelling and the added engagement and content it creates for these games.

I think a good storyline has bigger importance in games and that transmedia storytelling will create bigger and stronger games through its platforms and methods.

Thanks for reading.

Assassin's Creed Transmedia Project

One of the big transmedia productions in games that i’ve seen is that of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Universe.The first game began the franchise and was mildly successful , after this they decided to release a couple of handheld games to maintain interest before the release of the second major game.

To build on the hype that that the first game left after a major cliff hanger they decided to make a small live action film to set up the events for the second game, which would be set in a different time period to the first and have another main character. The live action film was released in 3 separate parts before the release of the game,it was also included on a dvd in special editions of the game.

The interesting thing about the Lineage movie is that it was mostly shot with GreenScreen and then the enviroments created by using the higher res models from the game, this really added to creating a coherent look by combining these elements, not only this but the  voices and looks of the characters were carried over to the game , this made the story even more coherent and fit together , aswell as giving the back story of the main character a boost.

Soon after the game was released a comic series was released giving  a story and background of another assassin in a different time period, adding to the overall Assassin's Creed story.Another handheld game was released and soon after that the franchises first foray into social media, with the Assassin's Creed Project Legacy, similar in a way to Farm Ville the object of the game was to delve through memories of several of the side characters within the games , which added more to the overall story.

Several game releases later, other transmedia has been produced for the franchise including comics, web series and novels. Aswell as other snippets and developer diaries through youtube. Most recently ,a small film was added to the Assassin's Creed Revelations Collectors Edition which shows the hero of the game living out his last years and possibly also showing the main character of the 3rd major game.

If a player bought the normal version, he would not know of this film*

* Unless someone rips the content onto social media such as youtube.

So the future of transmedia within games.

Transmedia Storytelling and Games

Transmedia storytelling is mostly within the film and TV markets currently, lots of transmedia products have been created for this market.

Examples include  ‘Dexter’  which started as a series of books, then became a TV show a huge transmedia project was created for the second season of the program, which can be read about here http://www.transmedialab.org/en/case-study/etude-de-cas-dexter-version-transmedia-2/

It started with a fake press conference about the serial killer and the questions that the police received through people, would change the context of the video  , soon real life displays such as the Blood Fountains created a street marketing campaign, soon an ad campign in popular magazines in america all had covers of dexter and contains lots of information about the new series,a web series soon followed after which added another platform to the transmedia production.

Soon more transmedia products for Dexter came out as it entered more series , by the 5th series, the transmedia production had been in print,film,tv,web comics, iphone apps,games and a small ARG. Soon game companies noticed how much these productions drew interest and added not only story elements but also added revenue.

Transmedia Storytelling

Transmedia is the technique of telling stories across multiple platforms and formats using digital technology, such as digital games, TV,blogs,twitter and other forms of social media and of course youtube.

From a production production point  it involves creating content, that engages an audience using various techniques to permeate their daily lives,this is why facebook is always a platform in which transmedia storytelling is applied.A  transmedia production will develop the stories across multiple channels, which also have to be unique pieces of content, they must always have to be linked together and be in narrative sync with each other.

With the popularity of the internet in the 1990’s lots of creatives began using this technology to tell stories through the platform, early examples became known as Alternative Reality Games (ARG), which took place in real life.A good example of this is the ‘The Beast’ an ARG which was created to promote the Steven Spielberg film A.I.:Artificial Intelligence.

‘The Beast’ ARG was a game set 16 years after the events in the film,it was all centred around a character called ‘Jeanine Salla’. 3 entry points to the ARG was created, A promo poster with the name of the character and the text ‘Sentient Machine Therapist’ hidden within the credits. One of the trailers encoded a telephone number in the promotional text,and if a player called this number and followed the instructions they would recieve an email from an unknown source, another entry point was a simple code stating ‘Evan Chan was murdered  Jeanine is the the key’

Googling the name would bring up several pages set in the fictional world of the game , while going through these you would find more information out about the events.

The game went on for twelve weeks, it consisted of thrity diverse in-game websites , contact with actors playing the characters and partipacted in anti-robot rallies in New York, Chicago and L.A.

More about “The Beast’ can be read about on 42entertainments website, the producers of the game:

http://www.42entertainment.com/beast.html 

Across Media And Coherent Worlds

Aswell as having worlds in one type of media many worlds are projected across lots of different media, such as films,books,toys,collectables,games.

These are know as franchises and span across lots of areas,all these have to be coherent within each other, to make the franchise work, such as Star Wars, were 3 films originally became expanded into books,more films, tv series,comic books, games,MMO games, model kits.

Even some theme parks are themselves franchises, such as LegoLand, which it’s self is populated by buildings designed in the same way as the toy, which becomes more immersive, even though the rides aren't made of Lego ,some of the parts are covered to look like they are, which adds to the world and the believability of it.

A better example is the theme parks of Disney, which lets you explore the worlds of the disney related films ,for example a number of the restaurants are the same design as within the films, the Toy Story restaurant ‘Pizza Planet’ ,which resembles the same area in the film,includes similar food,layout and the arcade which is seen in the film.

Many rides are themselves created in films, such as the Pirates show which was originally made its debut in 1967, it was a huge success for the park and soon became what is know n as the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ franchise, since the success of the films , the show was changed and became more coherent with the film setting, visually,audibly, and engagement.

Pizza Planet Restaurant Disneyland Paris.

Pizza Planet, As featured in 'Toy Story' 1995.

Even though from completely different media, the worlds have a coherency in them.

- Visually they are the same style, color, decoration, food is the same (Pizza) and large scale models of the characters of the film.

- Audibly as a busy restaurant such in the film, the sounds would be of loud children, music, clatter of knives and forks etc.

- Engagement , as a restaurant, your be engaging within the 'world' as a diner, eating probably the same meal that Andy has in the film. As with the film there is an arcade within the building, aswell as a kids play area.


This makes the restaurant very coherent within the rest of the 'film' world. Without the 3 elements tying it  together, it could be seen as just a space theme'd restaurant, but the fact it is placed within a locale familiar to that franchise (Disneyland) ,it becomes even more coherent.

Story Worlds In Media

Before films most commonly way of creating story’s were the classic bedtime stories, which were made up and could only be believed by the use of imagination, the creation of film/theater enabled this worlds to become more believable with the use of visual elements.

As you are effectively just viewing a moving image on screen, the visual elements really have to look and fit together with the story to create a believable world. The use of sound add’s to the engagement factor of seeing films as without the visual elements, it would just be sound and probably could not make out the story , but with these elements combined , they are notably a lot more engaging.

Film worlds, are quite the same as with digital game worlds. Except that films can only engage the audience with them visually and audibly with the power of games, ‘you’ are the character within them , which adds another dimension of engagement, which would be ‘control’

These 3 elements, visual,audible and control, adds even more to the story world of the game, as with these 3 you need less imagination to fill the world. Using these you can also     create your own stories and other events within games especially in open world games, such as those of ‘Grand Theft Auto’ or even some Massively Multiplayer Online games, which many people , create their own character and effectively become a new character themself.

A even bigger immersive  world are being created with the form of Alternative Reality Games (ARG),which use the tools of social media,technology such as Iphones and span across the reality of the real world and the game world.This games currently are usually used as tie-ins into big movie releases, one of the most well know ARG games was the launch for ‘Batman The Dark Knight’ . This ARG spanned several months and included real life rewards for playing along, aswell as snippets of the film released through the site www.whysoserious.com , the game was crafted by the company ‘ 42 Entertainment’

A brief run through of the whole The Dark Knight ARG can be seen on youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpuC7HhCPWA

A very engaging piece of work , that millions of people took part in all over the world,without necessary knowing what the rewards were.

By creating this ARG, it gave the film a huge boost and made it a multi-million dollar success aswell as bringing the world of Batman/Gotham into our world. This added another element to story telling, aswell as the current visual,audio,control so possibly another element has been created , but what it would be called is anyones guess , but it could be some form of engagment/reality element?

Overview of Creating Coherent Worlds Unit.

For this unit of contextual studies, we have to look at story telling within digital games and how they differ from other media,such as those of books or films.

By looking at these we can then look into how they create a coherent world using all the possible advantages of games,such as the narrative,characters,world,music. Which draw the player into the world, if a world is not coherent ,or structured correctly it would not bring a player into the world and would possibly stop the player engaging with the game.

For example, a flying super car in a world that is meant to be low tech like a medieval setting. It just wouldn’t work and put the player of the game.

These coherent worlds can also be brought across from the Alternative Reality (AR) games that are created, using the tools of the web,viral ads etc to create a ‘game world’ in the actually reality world.

 A good example of this was the huge Viral Campaign that was launched for the run up to the Batman film ‘ The Dark Knight’