Alternate Reality

Notes from videogaming’s borders

- ADRIAN HON

Back when ‘transmedia’ was an innovative new term rather than a way to describe everything Marvel or Sony or Harry Potter does across movies, games and comics – ie, about 15 years ago – there was a brief craze of ‘second screen’ experiences for TV dramas. As viewers watched the show, they’d browse a website for extra bits of story, such as text messages between characters, or news articles reporting on whatever had just happened on screen. The idea was essentially: why watch one screen when you can watch two for twice the entertainment?

In 2008, I designed one such experience for the BBC’s Spooks: Code 9 spinoff. Sadly, our Liberty News website wasn’t nearly enough to rescue a decidedly uneven drama that had been overdesigned for the ‘youths’. In any case, the second-screen fad was quickly forgotten amid the oncoming tide of smartphones and social media apps, which were far more interesting and distracting than any transmedia made for TV shows.