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Thursday, May 10, 2007

Lost as Interactive Adventure

The old Curmudgeon Gamer sends this along:

Speaking at MI6, he said that the games industry could learn something from the group interactivity that goes into a supposedly passive entertainment experience such as television. “Do the fans influence the show?” he asked. “The answer is ‘yes’. The influence of the vocal fan base is huge and so they are not just watching Lost but also playing it. We try to invite the audience to theorize about what they think the show is and so they are playing along.”

...

We are judging the singers from the moment we see them. In CSI or House we are working with the characters to figure out the mystery.”

He said gaming is moving towards “group interactivity instead of individual activity” and cited MMOs. “They are the beginning of that process but they won’t appeal to my Mom. I asked her about World of Warcraft and she just said it sounded violent. But she does love MySpace and she is playing that all the time. It’s an MMO.”

Lindelof strongly believes in listening to audience reactions. “People can always tell you what they don’t like but they can never tell you exactly what they want. They are expecting you to deliver that. But we do react to negative feedback. It’s always constructive even when it’s hard to hear.”

He offered some advice on the nature of episodic content and explained why Lost has been given a definite end-date. He said that although ABC is “leaving money on the table” by ending the run after five series, it was the right thing to do in order to reward the audience, and give the show some meaning as a mystery
-- Writer Says Lost is an Interactive Adventure : Next Generation - Interactive Entertainment Today, Video Game and Industry News

More on last night's episode, gaming the episode and that mysterious deadline later today.

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