TVSquad

If nothing else, you have to give the team over at Sci Fi a couple points for thinking outside the box. This latest rush of creativity finds them partnering with Trion World Network to build their very own massively multiplayer online game to coincide with a companion series. In a nutshell, TV writers will partner with game designers with the end result being a game and series that will work in unison. The kicker being that those fans that play the game will influence the direction of the series.

Exactly what that influence will be is one of the many questions left up in the air after the guarded announcement. The only real details that were given up about the setting and direction of the show are that it is set 80 to 100 years in the future and Earth looks very different. It's not a lot to go on, but it's understandable why they are excited about it. Reading through the quotes from those involved you see things like Sci Fi president Dave Howe saying, "This is the Holy Grail for us, without a doubt." So, if you had Aztec Rex in the Sci Fi Holy Grail pool, you were wrong.

If the Holy Grail comment wasn't rose-colored-glasses enough, Howe follows it up later in the article by adding that bundling a World of Warcraft player community with a series and an on-line social community is something Sci Fi has tried to puzzle out for years. That's great, but the problem is that part about the WoW community. Call me the skeptic, but that's just not going to happen. If that's the goal, then the Holy Grail reference is all the more appropriate, because that kind of community is going to be damned near impossible to find.

Of course, they don't need to have the number one community in all of MMO in order for this idea to work. If the show and the game can combine to focus a rabid fan base, there could be a kernel to get this idea going. They do have on their side the fact that shows such as this have the ability to build those devoted fan bases. But then, there's the rub. In the end I suspect it is going to come down to whether or not the show is any good. Give the viewers something on par with Battlestar, you might have something. Try to sell them something on the level of Painkiller Jane, and no amount of interactivity is going to save the show.

I'm curious to know about just how the fan interaction with the show is going to work. The example given in the article talks about telling players when and where an alien invasion will be taking place. How the players respond will determine the outcome and become a part of the show. It's like a choose your own adventure novel on the biggest of scales.

Lars Buttler, chief executive at Trion, offers another peak at how the interactivity will shape the show. The data from the game and online community will help the producers bend the story lines to audience tastes. It's an idea that I can see splitting opinion. Is it better to let writers tell their tale, or to try and constantly poll the viewership to try and guess what is going to work?

At this point there are certainly more questions than answers, and I think the show has more going against it than it does for it. Launching a game that is going to draw a big enough audience to be viable is hard. Establishing an online community that gains any traction is hard. And creating a television show that finds its audience and hangs on to them is hard. Getting all of those things to coincide is really frickin' hard. That being said, I did sit through Heatstroke in its entirety last weekend, so I'm game to try anything once.

[ via massively.com ]