Collapsus

Trans-media projects are a unique and interesting medium that takes interactive media to a whole new level.  A few companies have attempted to create worlds that effectively cross the boundaries built by individual mediums, but Collapsus takes it to an entirely new level.  Stories like Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia began as books, were filmed as movies, and eventually made into video games while maintaining the structural integrity of the world and the characters.  This was taken a step further by the world created in The Matrix, where they used movies, games, and comic books to all tell different parts of the same story.  This was one of the first purposeful attempts to use more than one media to flesh out different parts of the same world.  Through these different trans-media worlds, it became apparent that the worlds that can cross between mediums and maintain their structural integrity are much more powerful than those who are framed by a specific medium.  When done right, it strengthens the settings and makes them more memorable and they last longer in the public eye.  This concept is interesting and causes the audience to be much more active in interpreting how the pieces all fit together.

Collapsus steps up the game and brings the separate mediums all to one place.  This, as far as I am aware, is an entirely new concept.  It is fascinating to be able to switch back and forth between three pieces of a constantly developing plot line.  The combination of fact and fiction is also new, which brings an interesting perspective that definitely affects how the player/viewer interprets the information given to them.  It also does an excellent job of making it feel personal by weaving in the stories of several characters into the overarching plot of the energy crisis.  By using these stories to make it feel real, it brings more credibility to the theories that are presented regarding the facts and news stories (or at least it seems like it does).  Collapsus is a gripping example of the power of trans-media projects.

For the class, I wish I would have taken this perspective into it at the beginning.  This type of trans-media project was not something that I had ever considered before, and it changes the way that I view individual media in terms of their potential.  Now I see much more value in learning about multiple platforms and exploring the ways in which they can work together.  If I had had this perspective coming into the class, I would have began with an eye open for ways in which they can be combined.  In some ways, digital games are a combination of the many types of media that we study in the media school.  However, new media experiences like Collapsus take traditional games and turn them on their head.  It's experiences like these that will be the future of the media industries as designers explore new ways of combining the ideas we have with the technology we have harnessed.

This also has important implications for the future.  When I enter the game industry professionally, media innovations will be what gives the leading companies their edge, and it is important for me to understand them if I hope to compete and succeed.  Because trans-media applications are often more powerful than single-media applications, I will be searching for ways to create vivid worlds that can make an impact on the world we live in.  The combination of fact and fiction is another innovation that interests me, because it shows that games and media experiences can be used to have an effect on the real world instead of just acting purely as entertainment that quickly fades into the background.  This concept will undoubtedly shape much of the future of the media industries.