Lost, Heroes, And Videogames

At the Hollywood and Games Summit this week Jesse Alexander, the executive producer for TV shows like Heroes and Lost, spoke on a panel dedicated to the connection between television and games. "The conversation started by looking at how Lost ... has really used websites and online [Alternate Reality Game (ARG)]-like structures to draw people into the show - Moledina suggested that the TV show has deep problem-solving skills like in games. Alexander noted in response: 'Yeah, that was part of what we wanted to make. Alias came out in 2001, the same time that Neil Young was doing [early subscription-based ARG] Majestic. That was very inspiring to us. His keynote at GDC where he talked about that, was similar to us with Alias, in terms of serialized narrative.'" For full notes from the event, Alice and the Wonderland blog have you covered.

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Brand marketing

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Of course, Moledina countered, there's a competing licensing theory that you can sell games just based on the brand, to which Alexander agreed: "That's true in the worst ways ever..." I give the guy credit for acknowledging this serious problem and not just playing it off. In my opinion, the biggest barrier to valuable interaction between games and other media is the fallout that crappy spinoffs cause. They make people assume that ANY movie/tv-to-game tie in must be bad and ultimately erode consumer confidence.