The idea with trans media? It's storytelling with multiple access points to a fictional world. We all are familiar with books being made into movies (and vice versa.) But also think about a story (be it a novel, movie, TV show, comic book, etc.) existing in games, websites, and even on billboards! (where clues to an ARG, or Alternate Reality Game, are hidden on a real world advertisement; for example, you notice something on a poster in the subway and input that data into a web browser to launch a "secret" game. Very cool.)
OK. Enough linkage. I want to share some points that I found interesting in this talk.
• Sims3. This game was released on the iPhone for $10 at the same time as the PC version.
• Giant Eagle. (Pronounced "gine iggle" to native Pittsburghers) now offers fuel perks that "track and follow you." Huh? First I'd heard of this. I need to read more on this idea of giving up a little privacy for additional benefit and convenience (like those Speed Pass transponders we put up on our car windshields to zip through tolls. Big Brother now knows where you vacation!)
• Fan Fiction. J.K. Rowling shut down fans writing stories about her characters. But you can write a fan fiction of the Star Wars universe.
• Tent Pole. Define the "Tent Pole" or central experience that holds up all the other experiences.
• The Lost Experience. Clues to this Lost TV show game are hidden in the episodes. People are expected to DVR the show and go through frame by frame to find these hidden nuggets of gameplay. Really? I thought the Wii showed that most people are hungry for game experiences that don't consume all of our free time.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This property started out as a movie, then became a TV show for 7 seasons, after switching networks. Then Joss Whedon, the show's creator, did something very cool and is now offering a Season 8 of the show as a comic book!
• One Life to Live. "The Killing Club" This one is hard to follow: a character in a soap opera writes a mystery novel. The book actually gets published and is so successful that the character in the soap opera goes on real world book tours promoting the book that she "wrote" on the soap opera. This makes my head spin. A fictional author! Writing fiction when you yourself are a fictional character. Kind of like the A.I.s in the holodeck lounge on Star Trek Next Generation writing their own stories, huh?
• Give us a reason to hop between media. Too often, extensions of a core property are marketing driven opportunities that don't ask "Why am I doing this?" This sparked a memory. When the Pokémon game was released on Game Boy in 1996, it was originally available in *two* cartridges: Red and Blue. This was a brilliant ploy to get players to buy more cartridges (of course) and make gobs more money (that's what it is all about for many people). Yet the interaction of Red and Blue cartridges was core to the game experience. Reason? If you *traded* a Pokémon from a player using a different colored cartridge, then that creature would grow in strength and gain new powers *at a faster rate* than an untraded Pokémon! It was brilliant.
• Stories In Between. This is Drew Davidson's book. He wanted to make some available to sell at this talk. But Don Marinelli "gave them all away last week!" :-) I wanna check it out.
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