Now this looks exciting and perhaps the ultimate in transmedia storytelling!
It's not that I come from a gaming background, but what caught my eye about this article on the Unknown 9 game, was the transmedia potential/development of the story. It's also a very democratising process.
The question for Unknown 9...
""Is [a story] going to bring in more people? Will there be conversion towards the game? Are those people more engaged? Are they becoming ambassadors? What we'll do is six weeks after release, we'll have focus groups and so on, and we'll get that feedback on what they want to see."
Those seem to be the three key elements to the development of the story across different media, and having ambassadors for a story is something that resonates with me deeply.
And how is this all developed?
""It takes more time to start because you need to envisage the full story cycle, the full lore, all the content, and then you spend a lot of time making sure everything is consistent," he says, noting that Reflector employs a full-time story architect to oversee consistency. "Each and every piece of transmedia is exciting and can stand on its own while getting people who are discovering the other layers excited as they see the full aspect [of the story]."
There's another take-away for me and it's having a story architect on board is a fascinating development. And whilst every media translation can stand on its own, it also bridges to other worlds and stories. This is what excited me so much with the transmedia development of a story world.
And here's a thought for those willing to participate in this story!
Hervé Hoerdt adds: "The amount of content we're going to give away is just mind-blowing. Elden Ring is hundreds of hours. Unknown 9 is like 15 hours, which is nice, but if you want to go through all the transmedia content, you're probably getting close to those 80 to 100 hours."
How about you? What are your thoughts on the Unknown 9 transmedia universe? Are you working on your own transmedia story?
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/why-bandai-namco-is-betting-big-on-unknown...
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I have always been a believer of “If you build it, they will come.” Gaming is all over the place. Players have such diverse tastes that virtually any kind of game can find a fan base and success. Myself, I know nothing about Unknown 9. Would it benefit from a story?
Some games just don’t need them, and their fans don’t want them. A story-less game is often built that way for a reason. Any change to that formula could knock the game out of favor. But, then again, some games benefit from having a story added, or fans cry out “this one part is awesome, how about some story detail!”
When it comes to game story, if it serves then dive in. Just don’t overdo it. Too much can be as tedious as not enough. Overall, I always keep my fingers crossed for the folks who make up the stories that the fans will dive in and love it.
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The Unknown 9 transmedia universe sounds exciting, Geoff Hall. There's a part in the article that says ""People will find their way through the universe via the game, and the book is [the only other thing] you need to pay for. So they can get into the lore, the narrative, the plot, and the podcast depending on their appetite and so on." I think that's gonna get a lot of people to sign up.
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Maurice Vaughan yes, Maurice, that's a great strategy and one I'll learn from!
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It's a fascinating idea. A friend of mine whose written films and video games talks about the close-ended nature of a film that takes you where it wants to and the open-ended nature of video games where you are creating your own narrative within the world. Marrying these ideas in any way to generate engagement in a piece of IP is a dream for a lot of companies. Will be following this.
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Sam Sokolow thanks Sam. It must take an incredible investment to fulfil that project plan!