The Watchmen Downloadable Game, Warner Brothers' Transmedia Storytelling

"...consumers become hunters and gatherers moving back across the various narratives trying to stitch together a coherent picture from the dispersed information" - Henry Jenkins

Jack Schofeld's 'Newsbytes' headline in The Guardian's Technology section on the 31st July told of Warner Brothers' partnership with Deadline Games to develop an episodic downloadable game for 'The Watchmen', a graphic novel written by written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons and due for cinema release in 2009.

Warner Brothers have developed an intense interest of using transmedia story telling in an attempt to promote as much interest in their cinema releases as possible. The case-study example would be The Matrix Trilogy, which boasted computer games, the 'Animatrix' (a collection of anime and CG animations uncovering other, parallel stories in the Matrix world), and a huge online multiplayer game. More recently, for the release of Chris Nolan's Batman Begins, Warner Bros' own DC Comics released special editions comic books for the movie, to provide extra background information on Batman and Bruce Wayne to enhance the viewers' entertainment experience.

Transmedia story telling, while allowing for additional depth to a story, also creates additional revenue. Licensing of the story ensures game developers or other merchandising bodies adhere to the text of the story. This means that any sales on other media will mean cash for Warner Bros'. But comic books and video games are quite subliminal forms of marketing 'thus blurring the line between marketing and entertainment'.

What I really like about the concept is that is provides numerous access points for a consumer. A consumer may just get enough out of watching a movie; while a more avid, enthusiastic fanbase may have a thirst for more information, searching for behind the scene stories or development of peripheral characters, living parallel lives to the films' leads.

I first read about transmedia story telling in Henry Jenkin's Convergence Culture and extensive notes on the topic can be found here, on his own blog.