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Netflix is Developing a Slate of Specials That Will Let Viewers Choose the Next Storyline in a TV Episode or Movie, Report Says (bloomberg.com) 125

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
Netflix is about to let you decide how your favorite show will end, Bloomberg reported Monday. From the report: The streaming service is developing a slate of specials that will let viewers choose the next storyline in a TV episode or movie, according to people familiar with the matter. The company expects to release the first of these projects before the end of this year, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans are still private.

Viewers will get to choose their own storylines in one episode of the upcoming season of "Black Mirror," the Emmy-winning science-fiction anthology series. The show is famous for exploring the social implications of technology, including an episode where humans jockey to receive higher ratings from their peers. The fifth season of the show is expected to be released in December.

The foray into choose-your-own-adventure programming represents a big bet on a nascent form of entertainment known as interactive TV. As Netflix expands around the world, it's looking for new ways to lure customers. By blending elements of video games with traditional television, the company could create a formula that can be applied to any number of series.
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Netflix is Developing a Slate of Specials That Will Let Viewers Choose the Next Storyline in a TV Episode or Movie, Report Says More

Netflix is Developing a Slate of Specials That Will Let Viewers Choose the Next Storyline in a TV Episode or Movie, Report Says

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  • "Twitch plays Pokemon" comes to TV.

    • Re:All I can say is (Score:4, Interesting)

      by lgw ( 121541 ) on Monday October 01, 2018 @10:06AM (#57403840) Journal

      This will be more "we filmed 3 endings", I expect. People's narrative choices tend to follow the 80/20 rule, so 3 endings will get you 99% of the audience. The exception to that is love triagles (or love dodecahedrons [tvtropes.org]) where you can get a more even spread. I suspect romances will be the focus if this takes off, not "choose your own adventure".

      • Re:All I can say is (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Chris Mattern ( 191822 ) on Monday October 01, 2018 @01:17PM (#57405682)

        I'm reminded of the 1961 film "Mr. Sardonicus", where the producer William Castle promised two endings. Supposedly, the audience could vote to punish the villain at the end or spare him. Of course, the audience always voted to punish him. Good thing too, because Mr. Castle, being an astute observer of human nature, only actually made the "punish the villain" ending.

      • Most of the Black Mirror episodes haven't really been about romance. These are much more of a Twilight Zone feel with a technology or social media angle.

  • Turn to page 12. Turn to page 49. Turn to page 26. Turn to page 71. You are slayed by...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by elrous0 ( 869638 )

      How do I get to the ending where the actors from Stranger Things are freed from their stage parents and get to live normal lives?

  • Haven't they learned anything? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Monday October 01, 2018 @07:58AM (#57403026)

    Haven't they learned anything from cases such as Boaty-McBoatface, Taylor Swifts Biggest Fan,or sending her to a school for the deaf, or sending Pitbull to Alaska

    Leaving the choice up to the Internet, or even just Netflix subscribers isn't going to result in the best storylines, or even the storylines that necessarily reflect what actual people want to see.

    • My favorite was the new Mountain Dew flavor called Hitler Did Nothing Wrong.

    • Haven't they learned anything from cases such as Boaty-McBoatface, Taylor Swifts Biggest Fan,or sending her to a school for the deaf, or sending Pitbull to Alaska

      Leaving the choice up to the Internet, or even just Netflix subscribers isn't going to result in the best storylines, or even the storylines that necessarily reflect what actual people want to see.

      Sounds like it's Choose Your Own Adventure style ... the storylines and branches should already be created by the writers?

    • Re:Haven't they learned anything? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fazig ( 2909523 ) on Monday October 01, 2018 @08:25AM (#57403152)
      The essential problem with Boaty-McBoatface wasn't that they put it up for a vote on the internet, it was that they allowed user entries.
      Give people a pre defined list of options and let them choose from. Have contingency plans for every option they can choose.
      This principle has been working for Choose Your Own Adventure books and video games since the 80's.

      • Give people a pre defined list of options and let them choose from. Have contingency plans for every option they can choose.

        Can we have at least ONE /. story that doesn't descend into politics?

        • Re:Haven't they learned anything? (Score:5, Funny)

          by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Monday October 01, 2018 @09:16AM (#57403484) Journal
          Can we have at least ONE /. story that doesn't descend into politics?

          No. VI forever!

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by fazig ( 2909523 )
          Ask the people who turn it into politics.

          After all the principle of letting people choose from limited options isn't inherently tied to politics and can be found in many technical fields as well.
          I immediately thought of video games as a practical application of these principles. A form of media which is based upon the premise that players have a set of pre-defined choices. Some games give more choices and others. Some games feature simulations that allow players to do a lot of things, that can also have

          • Of course, the "choose your route" method can flub even in videogames. Mass Effect 3 was an instructive example of how the illusion of choice in videogames collided head-on with reality, not to mention a few bad design & storytelling decisions. The entirety of all the difficult choices and decisions made along the way in three games ended up as a rather anemic A/B/C choice.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by fazig ( 2909523 )
              Things can certainly go wrong if you do a bad job.
              From a story telling perspective Mass Effect 3 made a faux pas by basically disconnecting the ending from all the plot that was going on before. I mean even if you want a twist ending, that surprises everyone, you have to craft it in a way that makes it arise logically from everything that happened before that, even though they may not have paid attention to all the little breadcrumbs that you left for them while you were going. If your ending doesn't follo

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lgw ( 121541 )

        Givee people a pre defined list of options and let them choose from. Have contingency plans for every option they can choose.

        Optimistically, there would be a few filmed endings, and you could watch whichever took your fancy. Cynically, this is the new reality TV, and there won't even be writers.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by imidan ( 559239 )

        Have contingency plans for every option they can choose... This principle has been working for Choose Your Own Adventure books

        In my experience with Choose Your Own Adventure books, the contingency for every option I chose was a gruesome death. So, following that model, they could prepare for many contingencies with just one plan!

    • Well for a start the options are going to be limited and, had they done that with the boat I doubt "Boaty-McBoatface" would have been an option. However, an even better option would be to film all the optional endings and then let each viewer choose how they want it to end. Sort of like the Butterfly Effect did where there were four endings: happy, sad, unclear and the director's.

    • Re:Haven't they learned anything? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Monday October 01, 2018 @08:48AM (#57403314)

      Leaving the choice up to the Internet, or even just Netflix subscribers isn't going to result in the best storylines, or even the storylines that necessarily reflect what actual people want to see.

      My favorite example of this is Imgur Let's play: Top comment decides what action Luke does next [imgur.com]

      • Every community-contribution story I have ever participated in has devolved into one person getting butthurt, with the concurrent appearance of Godzilla* who destroys everyone and everything.


        * or equivalent

      • While I do see your point in what the "hive mind" tried to do there, it actually turned into something hilarious. It is so retarded and funny at the same time because the writer salvaged what they tried to destroy.

        Obviously this would never work on a large scale, with commercial interests calling the shots, but still...

      • Oh my, this is fun. Thanks for sharing!

    • This sounds like a “choose your own adventure” plot selection, akin to what was done with Mosaic [wikipedia.org], rather than the “viewer’s choice” style plot selection you seem to be thinking of. As such, your concern is rather moot, since it’s each person making a personal choice about how to view the story.

      Netflix is realizing that as a company that owns its own content delivery clients, they’re in an ideal position to try to leverage this sort of content. In contrast, HBO had t

    • Haven't they learned anything from cases such as Boaty-McBoatface, Taylor Swifts Biggest Fan,or sending her to a school for the deaf, or sending Pitbull to Alaska

      Leaving the choice up to the Internet, or even just Netflix subscribers isn't going to result in the best storylines, or even the storylines that necessarily reflect what actual people want to see.

      I agree, they will present a limited number of choices scripted in advance, with viewers voting on which one to follow. It is intended to be a hook to draw viewers in, although the losing voters may lose interest as well. Personally, I refer a story to be well written and engaging, and not merely another version of Colossal Cave.

    • Leaving the choice up to the Internet, or even just Netflix subscribers isn't going to result in the best storylines, or even the storylines that necessarily reflect what actual people want to see.

      Yes, but it could still be incredibly entertaining.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Leaving the choice up to the Internet, or even just Netflix subscribers isn't going to result in the best storylines, or even the storylines that necessarily reflect what actual people want to see.

      No, it will result in storylines Netflix subscribers want to see.

      This is an important point - Netflix is not creating content randomly - they are creating content that appeals to their subscribers. Doing this they hope to retain subscribers to their service, like other subscription TV channels like HBO do.

      This it

  • It's been done before: Blake 7.

    Or how about a character break character while filming and accuse someone of doing something. (It's got to be a female though, since they don't lie.)

    And then we could follow the cast and crew spread to the winds while the accused producer loses everything and ends up on the street, disheveled and homeless.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lgw ( 121541 )

      how about a character break character while filming and accuse someone of doing something. (It's got to be a female though, since they don't lie.)

      And then we could follow the cast and crew spread to the winds while the accused producer loses everything and ends up on the street, disheveled and homeless.

      Just so you know, there's an existing genre of "drama breaks out of character into conflict between actors, and we follow both sets of events". It's called "modern professional wrestling".

  • it's a bunch of films: the characters not surpasses "epiosodes"...

  • Didn't someone try that sort of thing with DVDs many years ago? How'd that work out?

  • Didn't Sky already do this in Britain? They even had a Doctor Who special that let you use Sky RedButton to point out stuff to the Doctor during the episode, and if you missed the cues, the scene unfolded differently (but did not affect the overall plot).

  • Could be disapointing for the viewer (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bickerdyke ( 670000 ) on Monday October 01, 2018 @08:43AM (#57403278)

    If you are presented with 5 different ways a story ends, people would want to know how it really ends or which one is correct.

    Those "choose your adventure" books always had one real ending (killing the princess and rescue the dragon.. whatever.. there's a reason why they work well with plain vanilla fantasy) and you had to get to that ending.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      While I'd love it if they would go ahead and make the one path you chose become the one and only path you can see, if they don't do that, then you could do like you used to with those books and re-watch until you get the ending you want.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

      killing the princess and rescue the dragon

      Is that from the Bowsette meme that's been going around? Sounds like an interesting plot twist actually.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sloppy ( 14984 )

      If you are presented with 5 different ways a story ends, people would want to know how it really ends or which one is correct.

      Or it'll be like watching Clue (1985). You'll want to see all the endings.

    • That gives me the shits about people. People refuse to accept their own interpretation and insist on knowing what the "true" ending means, what the "lore" is.

      It ruins some otherwise classic endings, like the ending of Inception, was he dreaming, was he awake, does it matter? I HAVE TO KNOW WHAT THE DIRECTOR WAS THINKING!

  • Netflix produces shows and movies based on recipes (for most), quantity more than quality. Shows like Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, The Wire, have a distinct identity ; none of their creators would let anyone decide the next storyline.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      Shows like Game of Thrones.....have a distinct identity ; none of their creators would let anyone decide the next storyline.

      You do realize the show GoT outpaced the books long enough ago that yes, the show actually has been deciding it's storyline. Of course, they did get buy-in from GRR Martin, but they have said that the show storyline could and probably would differ from the book storyline.

  • With deference to the earlier  post "Everybody Dies" and Blake 7 (s/b "Blake's 7 btw).

    Been done before, everyone in the audience, THUMBS DOWN.

  • All roads lead to bigotry, scatological humor, and sex.

    Because taken as a whole, the Internet is a 12-year-old boy who has no filters, wants to see boobies, and thinks fart jokes are hilarious.

  • Ob futurama (Score:3)

    by cciechad ( 602504 ) <chad.simmons@NOSPAm.member.fsf.org> on Monday October 01, 2018 @10:32AM (#57404142)
    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. Enter now. Confused, Fry presses "1" on his chair. Mr. Moviefone: You have pressed 2. Fry: No, I didn't! Mr. Moviefone: I'm almost positive you did.

  • It's called "gaming", and its bound to do it better than anything like this can.

    Somehow I doubt any basically linear form like a movie or a TV show or a novel can offer enough interactivity to matter without undermining the uniquely valuable aspects of traditional storytelling. But it's not surprising that people -- corporate people -- keep trying.

    Movies and special TV shows are massive collective undertakings which take immense logistical ingenuity and financial risk just to bring to the screen. Just sit

    • Philips CD-i brought interactive videos to the masses in the 1990's. And our reaction was: meh.

      Sega CD games like Night Trap were novel in that it's terribleness at least could be interpreted as an amusing cult movie / video game.

      (in the 80's there were several arcade systems that were basically interactive videos - Sega's Astro Belt, Cinematronic's Dragon's Lair & Space Ace, Stern Pinball's Cliff Hanger. These aged better than CD-i, probably because of their significantly higher production values)

  • Can't be worse than letting Adam Sandler write a series.

  • I was building and deploying interactive TV apps in Canada in 2001. iTV is nascent like nuclear fusion is nascent.

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