“The Walking Dead,” “Assassin’s Creed,” “Halo,” “Tomb Raider,” “Uncharted,” “Avatar” and even “The Simpsons;” You’re probably familiar with at least one of these triple-A franchises, be it from video games, comics, books, TV
or movies.
Why is it the developers of these video games, among many others, are invested in transmedia for their products? First of all, what the heck is transmedia?
In general, transmedia, is the crossover of a topic or subject across multiple forms of media. If that definition is confusing, then maybe an example is best. Transmedia is a sort of marketing strategy that generates awareness and popularity for the topic or subject being expanded upon. In the case of video games, the best example would definitely be “The Walking Dead,” the postapocalyptic zombie-ridden world first introduced in comic book form and recently translated to
video games.
Spanning across video games, comics, a TV series and a Facebook app, “The Walking Dead” is beyond viral now. Telltale Games, the developer of one of two video games (the other being developed by Activision) based on “The Walking Dead,” and well-known for its episodic games, discussed how its version of “The Walking Dead” stays true to the gritty and dark themes in the comics.
Telltale, like many other developers utilizing the same transmedia strategy, uses Twitter to promote not only its video games, but also the “The Walking Dead” TV series. At the moment, the third season of the show is experiencing its highest ratings ever. But why mention the television series, you ask? Because the Twitter accounts of Telltale Games and the “The Walking Dead” show cleverly build off each other’s momentum. The Telltale “The Walking Dead” game recently announced on Twitter that it will have a second “season,” after its first “season” ended with the release of episode 5 “No Time Left” earlier this month across all platforms. “The Walking Dead” is an excellent example for video games in transmedia, but Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed franchise is also hot on its heels in terms of its respective transmedia presence.
The majority of those reading this have played, or are at least aware of, Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed franchise. Odds are you probably didn’t know Facebook has an “Assassin’s Creed”-related app called “Project Legacy.” None of the advertisement or promotional efforts by Ubisoft for The two first “Assassin’s Creed” matched the success of “Project Legacy” and its tie into “Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood,” in which Ubisoft allowed for syncing with “Project Legacy” progress to unlock exclusive rewards. Also, for those who dug deep and did well enough, “Project Legacy” added even more depth than the main “Assassin’s Creed” games in the form of first-person descriptions of secondary characters that you’d never get unless you went to the Assassin’s Creed wiki or bought the Assassin’s
Creed encyclopedia.
Moving away from the Facebook app, the plot of “Assassin’s Creed 3,” the latest installment in the “Assassin’s Creed” franchise released on October 30, benefited greatly from the addition of the Subject 4 story arc in the form of “Assassin’s Creed”-themed comics about Daniel Cross, the modern-day descendant of Russian Revolution-era assassin Nikolai Orelov. No spoilers here on that, but Daniel does tie into the core present-day story of “Assassin’s Creed III” in an important, but ultimately tragic way. On that note, the Subject 4 graphic novel combines the three separate issues of “The Fall” and the recently released “The Chain” graphic novels, and is definitely worth obtaining for the complete “Assassin’s Creed” experience. Transmedia once again makes a video game franchise even more popular than it could have been alone. It’s worth mentioning as a side note that the “Assassin’s Creed” movie mentioned previously, not yet in production, is supposedly being “creatively supervised” by Ubisoft itself. So, when it does release, expectations will probably, and should rightfully should, be high for a title created by Ubisoft.
In conclusion, video games don’t need transmedia to shine. However, as Telltale’s “The Walking Dead” game proves, franchises can benefit greatly from the mutual promotion which transmedia can create.