TV has already become much more of a background medium for large numbers of media consumers who around the world are spending more time in online pursuits than glued to the content breaks in-between the advertising slots of traditional TV. So how will TV survive in a world where social gaming and media sharing online is far more compelling?
I have been talking for a couple of years now about the fantastic potential of the live and by implication shared TV experience to be enhanced by extending the world into online games. This post looks at where we are and where we might be in a few years once the ‘broadcasters’ realise that keeping an audience involved in the ‘IP’/programme in-between airings is a good thing. Good for the story creators, the latent creative audience and of course advertisers who need eyeballs/hands/ears/minds.
Items to cover:
BBC Mirror Project
There are several companies around the world developing Cross-Reality forms, one that I am heavily involved with, The Format Factory, are pioneering formats that bridge the space between compelling participatory TV and online game worlds. They have a promotional video that metaphorically demonstrates some of the ’embedded’ world-within-worlds. A trailer video teaser for the mixed reality, inhabited TV formats being pioneered and piloted by The Format Factory.
TPF – link about simple links ABC etc:
My mixed reality talk – podcast here and slideshare here
The Old Forest Video to embed –
Some old Personalize posts –
- Witnessing the Birth of an Entertainment Format – BigBrother in Virtual World
- Merged-Media Entertainment – where reality ends, virtuality begins
- TV Property Branded Worlds – vMTV and the successes of programme brands existing alongside major MTV properties
- Significant Steps to Mixed-Media Cross Reality –
- The Mixed Reality Perfect Storm –
SLCN various links –
MI6 Creative Keynote: CSI Creator Calls For Games, TV To Converge
According to Zuiker, “The advertising model for TV is completely broken top to bottom. I’ve lost 20% of my viewership in a year and a half… where are they? They’re on the web and other platforms.” Despite a “revolution” in television that now delivers some of the highest quality programming in the history of the medium — Zuiker believes that the “technological boom” happening concurrently is negatively impacting the popularity of the medium.
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The third, and best-known experiment, was a recent episode of CSI:NY that featured popular virtual world Second Life as an integral plot point in an episode’s story. “The first night we did that we had about 75,000 people actually click through, log in and actually become part of Second Life… to this day we are getting 4000 people still logging in to Second Life.”
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“The big question for all this, is this,” Zuiker asked. “How do we bridge the future of the broadcast with Silicon Valley? How do we converge and bridge broadcast and gaming? That thing is called cross-blending storytelling. We go from television, to web, to mobile, to gaming, and then drive the narrative back up top to television.” Zuiker pointed to sites AirPlay and Ning as examples of web products that could work in this context.
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Engaging the gaming audience in the narrative of the show will be crucial, according to Zuiker. He envisions a theoretical CSI online game that ties into the show directly: “In the gaming area, you want to give people tasks, to shoot things and upload pictures… You’re doing this because you want these people to be creating their own story and it will be part of the crime on the broadcast… Even if it’s not the actual thing I shot, I was part of that experience, that community, that narrative.”
