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Transmedia Storytelling | MIT Technology Review

By Henry Jenkins on January 15, 2003

In the ideal form of transmedia storytelling, each medium does what it does bestso that a story might be introduced in a film, expanded through television, novels, and comics, and its world might be explored and experienced through game play. Each franchise entry needs to be self-contained enough to enable autonomous consumption. That is, you dont need to have seen the film to enjoy the game and vice-versa. s !o"emon does so well, any given product is a point of entry into the franchise as a whole. #eading across the media sustains a depth of experience that motivates more consumption. In a world with many media options, consumers are choosing to invest deeply in a limited number of franchises rather than dip shallowly into a larger number. Increasingly, gamers spend most of their time and money within a single genre, often a single franchise. $e can see the same pattern in other media-films %high success for certain franchises, overall declines in revenue&, television %shorter spans for most series, longer runs for a few&, or comics %incredibly long runs for a limited number of superhero icons&. #edundancy between media burns up fan interest and causes franchises to fail. 'ffering new levels of insight and experience refreshes the franchise and sustains consumer loyalty. (uch a multilayered approach to storytelling will enable a more complex, more sophisticated, more rewarding mode of narrative to emerge within the constraints of commercial entertainment. nd it also ma"es economic sense. )ifferent media attract different mar"et niches. *ilms and television probably have the most diverse audiences, comics and games the narrowest. good transmedia franchise attracts a wider audience by pitching the content differently in the different media. If each wor" offers fresh experiences, then a crossover mar"et will expand the potential gross within any individual media. (o, women may not play games, but women who li"e +ord of the #ings might experiment on a related game title. ,ave no fear-not all stories will flow across media. -ost wont, but a growing number will. Transmedia stories arent necessarily bad stories. they are different "inds of stories. ccording to ,ollywood lore, a good pitch starts with either a compelling character or an interesting world. $e might, from there, ma"e the following argument/ good character can sustain multiple narratives and thus
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lead to a successful movie franchise. good 0world1 can sustain multiple characters %and their stories& and thus successfully launch a transmedia franchise. -any of our best authors, from $illiam *aul"ner to 2.#.#. Tol"ien, understood their art in terms of world-creation and developed rich environments which could, indeed, support a variety of different characters. *or most of human history, it would be ta"en for granted that a great story would ta"e many different forms, enshrined in stain glass windows or tapestries, told through printed words or sung by bards and poets, or enacted by traveling performers. (e3uels arent inherently bad-remember that ,uc"leberry *inn was a se3uel to Tom (awyer. 4ut Twain understood what modern storytellers seem to have forgotten-a compelling se3uel offers consumers a new perspective on the characters, rather than just more of the same.

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