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Netflix Launches New 'Interactive Shows' That Let Viewers Dictate the Story (thenextweb.com)
Netflix announced that it's launching an all-new interactive format that turns viewers in storytellers, letting them dictate each choice and direction the story takes. "In each interactive title, you can make choices for the characters, shaping the story as you go," according to Netflix. "Each choice leads to a different adventure, so you can watch again and again, and see a new story each time." The Next Web reports: The first two interactive shows that will be available on Netflix are Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale and Buddy Thunderstruck: The Maybe Pile. Puss in Book launches globally today, with Buddy Thunderstruck slated to make its debut a month from now on July 14. The new experience will be available on most television setups and iOS devices. "Content creators have a desire to tell non-linear stories like these, and Netflix provides the freedom to roam, try new things and do their best work," Product Innovation director Carla Fisher said. "The intertwining of our engineers in Silicon Valley and the creative minds in Hollywood has opened up this new world of storytelling possibilities." Fisher further added that, for the time being, the streaming service will be mainly focusing its efforts on producing interactive content for children -- especially since their research has shown that they already tend to be prone to interacting with the screen.
The BBC produced about 20 of this type of show between 2001 and 2008, using two broadcast video streams, within their 'Red Button' interactive TV service on Freeview and Sky. It stopped eventually because of the cost of producing vs the low viewership. Here's a blog from 2008 about it http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/pressred/2008/07/under-the-bonnet-the-two-stream-quiz.shtml
Pretty much what any modern RPG offers, just without the game interrupting the cutscenes?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Apparently the Choose Your Own Adventure books were just too damn difficult for some people, so we're remaking them as movies.
Twitch writes House of Cards!
It was available two days ago. Kids found Puss in Boots on Wednesday and played around with it on the Roku.
It reminded me of Dragon's Lair but with a lot fewer decisions and a lot more time to make them. For all you young'uns, yeah we had this in the 1980s, contemporaneous with the Choose Your Own Adventure books. The video of the storyline with alternate decisions and endings were stored on a laserdisc (which unlike a videotape allowed random access). And inputs you made with a joystick and buttons at certain times determined your progress through the story and which video was played. (The approx 1 sec blackout while the LD player seeked to the correct video has been edited out of that YouTube video. So it as a lot more annoying to play than the video makes it seem. RAM was way too expensive to pre-cache multiple possibilities like we can today.)
Could be quite interesting with something like Doctor Who on BBC. That being said, script writing it and filming it would take WAY longer.
... and Seven long dongs?
They say that Snow White thought that 7-Up was a drink before she met the dwarvs.
The ultimate goal will be to have the users dictate ALL the plot, getting rid of the writers. Next, CGI to replace all the human actors. Computer-generated music. The studios will be counting the money they save.
Unfortunately for them, this will go the way of all technology, becoming so cheap that people can do the same at home, without the studios. Wanna see another 10 years of M*A*S*H - but no reruns? More new Star Trek - TOS? Spaceballs 2? Or best of all, more Firefly? Boot it up or share someone else's creations.
Heck, someone may even come up with some pr0n that has a half-decent plot.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
...there would be a compounding series of variable scenes, which could dramatically affect later story arcs.
In many children's shows and quite a few adult shows, there's a hard rule that everything resolves itself at the end leaving it in the same state as the start, no matter what happens in the middle.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
If you want Calculon to race to the laser gun battle in his hover-Ferarri, press 1.
If you want Calculon to double-check his paperwork, press 2.