Kudos to Netflix for trying to break the mould & possibly change the future of how people might watch television!
Netflix’s Bandersnatch is an attempt at a new kind of Viewer Experience (VX) which attempts at gamifying and refreshing the decades' old cinema watching experience. The reason we want to write this article are:
Many people in the industry (including me) were speculating this would happen. In fact, I have speculated about this in one of my articles on Neflix last year here.
Interactive fiction in mobile has gained tremendous traction especially with teens and millennials with top grossing mobile games like “Episodes” and “Choices” ruling app stores. I had written about this genre and future applications extensively as well last year here.
While it’s a good start, Netflix's Bandersnatch has received mixed reviews from social media and games industry. Like all initial ideas, Netflix's Bandersnatch comes with it’s pros and cons and the potential for improvement.
Few thoughts on how Netflix can leverage learning from interactive fiction games.
Misses by Bandersnatch's Interactive fiction format:
1) No emotional investment from the viewer upfront:
As the show starts, there is no personal attachment established with the protagonist.
Imagine you are out shopping and a random stranger walk up to you and asks YOU to make random decisions on their behalf. How comfortable would you be to do so, especially if you know nothing about the person or the nature of decisions to be made? In games, it's a very standard typical model to establish a bond of trust between the protagonist and the player.
In games, you (the player/viewer) are either positioned as the protagonist (using an avatar created by you) or are helping the protagonist as a mentor.
An example from a typical RPG game (below). It is standard for players to pick and become familiar with their avatars by knowing their origins backstory strengths and weaknesses which help them make more informed choices for the character and then utilize the strengths to their advantage when the time comes.
Another example is from a popular top grossing interactive fiction game “Episodes” (below). You can see how, at the beginning of each episode which is like a short TV opera, the main protagonist asks the player to type in their name as well as customize the protagonist to their own liking, by customizing their appearance - hence building the bond which helps make decisions on their (characters') behalf.
Character customization helps form a closer bond between the player & the protagonist thereby easily shifting the burden of decision making onto the player or the viewer. This grants an implicit permission to make decisions on their protagonists behalf, fostering a personal bond.
While going through all this trouble of making viewers get personally invested might sound trivial, it is in fact very crucial! In social psychology, it is an accepted social norm that as human beings, we do not meddle in other people's affairs unless we are familiar with them or own them an allegiance. Or unless so required.
Question: How can Netflix get users to emotionally invest upfront?
We get it if Netflix is to go around and ask people to choose their own characters and customize their appearances it would be a technical and cinematic nightmare as then we would be creating additional friction upfront by introducing more taps and decision making for viewers.
But there is still a simple-r way to foster a soft bond. YES!
How? Netflix knows most of us! It knows who is watching what kind of shows. How? Users have to select an account when watching any show on Netflix, and this is something Netflix can leverage by personally addressing you - the viewer - and introducing you to the protagonist.
Here are some examples on how to do address the viewer by first name & user icon:
