There was a lot to say about the topic of coherent worlds, some of which would take volumes of information to fully entail. After some thought and careful consideration I have decided to take on transmedia storytelling in respects of the entities that compose the world as well as the pitfalls one would assume to find when setting it up. In particular the communities that collectively gathers for a franchise has been heeded since when it comes to games it is these that ultimately reflect the survivability of the world's narrative. It has been proven time and again that a world without entities cannot exist, with a clear set example of games that died off with a lack of a player base to sustain it such as the Matrix Online.
Ultimately, I boiled it down into two questions:
Does transmedia help to make the world grow, or does it break it apart further?
Who or what constitutes the world to begin with and unifies it to the point it’s defined as such?
To help with my research I assembled the first few franchises I could think of which are either very popular, have built a cult classic status or have been spanning for decades. The listing isn't small by any means, but for the purpose of this subject I've handpicked the ones that have some sort of connection with games, a few of which having roots within games to begin with. Some of these include Dungeons and Dragons, Warhammer, Warcraft, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Star Wars, The Matrix, The Game of Thrones, Pokemon, Digimon, Sonic the Hedgehog, The Legend of Zelda, and so on.
Some of these have went on to attempt delving into the massively-multiplayer online genre with varying success: (World of) Warcraft has went on to become the leading giant in the market spanning millions of players worldwide, whereas others tried to emulate its system and failed despite the rather large following (i.e. Star Wars: The Old Republic, Dungeons and Dragons Online, The Lord of the Rings Online, etc.) and in the worse case having to shut down due to lack of players (The Matrix Online). It's safe to say that the results of these attempts are mixed and proves the transition may not always well in favour of the world.
Transmedia allows fans of a world to come from many sources such as books, movies, TV series, trading card games, tabletop games, video games and more. Naturally the variety of these media expands in proportion to the size of the audience, giving the larger franchises such as Pokemon, Warcraft, Marvel and DC's universes an amplitude of options to work with. Under these circumstances the media work together to provide a new experience to the person depending on what they take up, encouraging them to use multiple forms to acquire a broader experience of the narrative.
On the other hand the implementation of transmedia can be the cause of a lot of stir amongst the fans, occasionally being at odds due to integral information being withheld to infer them requiring the secondary medium to fill the gaps in the story. Worse yet, have new lore that completely abolishes what has been established in the world beforehand and is core to the ideology behind the mythos. A good example of this is in the Star Wars expanded universe whose comics, novels, TV series and games have blended to form a massive and rich story beyond what the original film saga offers; the case of the midi-chlorians being the source of a Jedi's potential had caused an uproar among veterans in the fandom since it turned the mysticism of the Force into something scientific and killing off the "magic" behind the saga.
Used in the right context transmedia is a fantastic asset for those that want to share a world's history through differing media. For instance a parent wouldn't necessarily play the games his child would, yet the novels that tell a story within the same world may be of interest. However as described my Henry Jenkins in this article (http://www.fastcompany.com/1745746/seven-myths-about-transmedia-storytelling-debunked) each media should offer a difference experience to the user or it does not constitute transmedia storytelling. In multiple separate cases World of Warcraft has integrated elements in their story that were sourced from other media, two of which were Cho'gall's transformation which was entirely done in the comics and Kalecgos the blue dragon from the Sunwell trilogy manga.
The concept has been in practice as far back as the early nineties, with Sonic the Hedgehog taking strides by having two long-running comic series issued from Archie and Fleetway as well as cartoon series like SatAM and more recently Sonic X. Alternative or otherwise all of these entail his adventures in a myriad of ways, surviving the gap from a lack of games and branching off to have a whole new fandom separate from the game series altogether. Occasionally it has been done to augment the narrative of the world when the game did not allow as most of the time such things were more akin to tie-in products than different media. Valve went on to showcase proper transmedia techniques through their alternate reality games and the online comics to fill in the story for the games that don't necessarily have a direct means to during gameplay.
In conclusion, one should be aware that transmedia storytelling does not always provide the best solution and the community supporting the world must be taken into consideration to avoid pulling a particularly disruptive retcon on them. Some can be as mild as recasting the grim Eddard Stark from the Game of Thrones as the handsome Sean Bean in the TV series; others can as severe as changing the whole idea behind a race or group like the Eredar/Draenei or the death knights, respectively.
Does transmedia help to make the world grow, or does it break it apart further?
Who or what constitutes the world to begin with and unifies it to the point it’s defined as such?
To help with my research I assembled the first few franchises I could think of which are either very popular, have built a cult classic status or have been spanning for decades. The listing isn't small by any means, but for the purpose of this subject I've handpicked the ones that have some sort of connection with games, a few of which having roots within games to begin with. Some of these include Dungeons and Dragons, Warhammer, Warcraft, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Star Wars, The Matrix, The Game of Thrones, Pokemon, Digimon, Sonic the Hedgehog, The Legend of Zelda, and so on.
Some of these have went on to attempt delving into the massively-multiplayer online genre with varying success: (World of) Warcraft has went on to become the leading giant in the market spanning millions of players worldwide, whereas others tried to emulate its system and failed despite the rather large following (i.e. Star Wars: The Old Republic, Dungeons and Dragons Online, The Lord of the Rings Online, etc.) and in the worse case having to shut down due to lack of players (The Matrix Online). It's safe to say that the results of these attempts are mixed and proves the transition may not always well in favour of the world.
Transmedia allows fans of a world to come from many sources such as books, movies, TV series, trading card games, tabletop games, video games and more. Naturally the variety of these media expands in proportion to the size of the audience, giving the larger franchises such as Pokemon, Warcraft, Marvel and DC's universes an amplitude of options to work with. Under these circumstances the media work together to provide a new experience to the person depending on what they take up, encouraging them to use multiple forms to acquire a broader experience of the narrative.
On the other hand the implementation of transmedia can be the cause of a lot of stir amongst the fans, occasionally being at odds due to integral information being withheld to infer them requiring the secondary medium to fill the gaps in the story. Worse yet, have new lore that completely abolishes what has been established in the world beforehand and is core to the ideology behind the mythos. A good example of this is in the Star Wars expanded universe whose comics, novels, TV series and games have blended to form a massive and rich story beyond what the original film saga offers; the case of the midi-chlorians being the source of a Jedi's potential had caused an uproar among veterans in the fandom since it turned the mysticism of the Force into something scientific and killing off the "magic" behind the saga.
Used in the right context transmedia is a fantastic asset for those that want to share a world's history through differing media. For instance a parent wouldn't necessarily play the games his child would, yet the novels that tell a story within the same world may be of interest. However as described my Henry Jenkins in this article (http://www.fastcompany.com/1745746/seven-myths-about-transmedia-storytelling-debunked) each media should offer a difference experience to the user or it does not constitute transmedia storytelling. In multiple separate cases World of Warcraft has integrated elements in their story that were sourced from other media, two of which were Cho'gall's transformation which was entirely done in the comics and Kalecgos the blue dragon from the Sunwell trilogy manga.
The concept has been in practice as far back as the early nineties, with Sonic the Hedgehog taking strides by having two long-running comic series issued from Archie and Fleetway as well as cartoon series like SatAM and more recently Sonic X. Alternative or otherwise all of these entail his adventures in a myriad of ways, surviving the gap from a lack of games and branching off to have a whole new fandom separate from the game series altogether. Occasionally it has been done to augment the narrative of the world when the game did not allow as most of the time such things were more akin to tie-in products than different media. Valve went on to showcase proper transmedia techniques through their alternate reality games and the online comics to fill in the story for the games that don't necessarily have a direct means to during gameplay.
In conclusion, one should be aware that transmedia storytelling does not always provide the best solution and the community supporting the world must be taken into consideration to avoid pulling a particularly disruptive retcon on them. Some can be as mild as recasting the grim Eddard Stark from the Game of Thrones as the handsome Sean Bean in the TV series; others can as severe as changing the whole idea behind a race or group like the Eredar/Draenei or the death knights, respectively.
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