2015 Transmedia Storytelling The benefits of Participative Consistency and the Hidden Markov Model Tim van Leeuwerden NHTV 5/18/2015 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Transmedia Storytelling The benefits of Participative Consistency and the Hidden Markov Model by Tim van Leeuwerden Student at NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences International Media & Entertainment Management Supervisor: Oscar Bastiaens 18 May, 2015 2 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Preface In the past four years, I have been trying to develop myself as a media Humanis Universalis. I wanted to know everything from every corner in the field of media entertainment. It was then at the start of my third year that Oscar Bastiaens noticed I might be suited for the field of academic research. And he could not have been more right. The field of academic research into social as well as media studies sparked my interests towards the current state of entertainment and how to improve it. I decided I wanted to become invested into narrative studies, moulded in the context of multimedia entertainment. The industry is ever changing, but the need for storytelling has been present even before the invention of the written language. I am therefore truly grateful to finish my bachelor journey with writing a thesis that details how I view the current state of fictional narrative story worlds in entertainment and how that narrative success potential could exponentially grow with the recognition of the right tools to construct story worlds in a transmedial structure. For as long as I can remember, I have been an avid fan of story worlds. The richness, the depth and the narrative quality that a story world could contain struck me as something aweinspiring. Story worlds have and will always contain a special place in my heart. Therefore I was more than thrilled to make my recommendations to make transmedia storytelling more transparent, universal, observable and measurable but most of all, more profitable. The first story world I ever enjoyed in my life was that of Star Wars. The current story world I enjoy but find lacking some transmedial aspects is that of Assassin's Creed. It seems only fitting that I would discuss these two narrative story worlds, which are the causes that sparked my interest in transmedia story world structure, to communicate my statements. With this research, I have attempted to discuss the necessity of narrative attribution recognition in transmedia storytelling and how it could be implemented in the variables in a Hidden Markov Model to observe the current state of story world in order to anticipate and alter the future state of story world to reach a participative consistency from the most users. First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor Oscar Bastiaens. He always pushed me to pursuit further knowledge and to never stop exploring my hunches and thoughts. His unwavering faith in me is something I will always be truly grateful for. I would like to thank the industry experts, whose ideas about transmedia instructed me on what the industry still needs and who impacted the research: Carlos Alberto Scolari, Jen Begeal, Andrea Phillips, Joris Hoebe, Tim Murck, Drew Davidson, Ilse Romero Santizo, Robert Pratten and Jeff Gomez. 3 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences I would also like to thank my family and friends for being supportive at all times. While most of them did not always understood what I was going through, their motivations pushed me to go the distance. Special thanks go to Jessy van de Walle, Robyn Pierson and Mathijs van der Kroft for proofreading and marking up the layout. Lastly, I want to thank my fellow student Zarifa Huseynova, whose charming attitude and unshakable motivation was a big example for me. 4 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Abstract In this modern era of convergence, storytellers are looking for all sorts of ways to distribute their story worlds in the most optimal way possible. Transmedia storytelling would seem to be the new prospect of profit by the industry to construct optimal narrative engagement. This thesis deals with the question what the role of narrative attribution is in transmedia storytelling and how it can contribute to form a observation model that measures the narrative success of a story world. Several examples of transmedia story worlds are analysed, most notably Star Wars and Assassin's Creed, which serve as case studies. For this research, different online research facilities such as the universities of NHTV and Bournemouth University have been consulted surrounding different theories of digital media, narrative structure and measurement models. This research extensively observed the different online fan communities surrounding Star Wars and Assassin's Creed regarding their enjoyment of the story world to exemplify in the thesis. Finally, for this research, ten different experts in the field of transmedia have been interviewed regarding the current state of transmedia, as well as the role of narrative and migratory behaviours. These interviews where fundamental, as the interviews stated what ideas and understandings surrounding transmedia storytelling where still missing. This thesis discusses the role of narrative quality in transmedia and how that can be observed and/or measured. The recognition of narrative attributions are an essential component in transmedia storytelling. This thesis reviews the current understanding of transmedia storytelling, as started by Henry Jenkins (2003) and the current role of narrative in transmedia storytelling and suggests which components are of benefit to the analysis of the narrative quality in transmedial story worlds. Careful analysis has been done to review the attributions that differentiate a transmedial narrative from an ordinary narrative and how they can engage users in constant transmedia traversal. Furthermore, this thesis suggests how the meta-narrative of a story world can best be diversified throughout a transmedia story world, delivering the best possible narrative experience. For that, several strategies and observations surrounding migratory behaviour are suggested to form an optimal narrative deliverance. In order to understand the value and meaning of these transmedia components, a thorough research to different measurement models has been conducted. This thesis suggests that the level of narrative attributions, as well as the current state of a story world can be measured by implementing the Hidden Markov Model. The model can serve two purposes: the analysis of the current state of story world by audience feedback, as well as anticipating 5 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences the level of success by future narrative extensions to the story world. The Hidden Markov Model can turn a seemingly immeasurable progress of world building into a system of observation that repeatedly allows for the analysis of current story world state and structuring its narrative strong and weak points, based on feedback. Observation and measurement of transmedia work better if there is an end goal to work towards. For that, this thesis suggests a new transmedia storytelling component called participative consistency, which details the balance between the most profit for the storyteller, as well as the best possible level of engagement with the story world. Finally, the implementation of narrative attributions in the Hidden Markov Model are demonstrated in the two different case studies in different ways: how a new narrative can change the current state of the Star Wars story world engagement, as well as how narrative attributions demonstrate the current state of the Assassin's Creed story world. 6 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Table of Contents Preface 3 Abstract 5 Introduction Topic Introduction Problem Definition Industry Relevance Research Questions & Method Research Goal 8 8 10 12 13 14 Chapter 1: Transmedial Storytelling 16 1.1 An Age of Convergence 1.2 From Multimedia to Transmedia 1.3 Additive Comprehension & Radical Intertextuality 1.4 Multimodality 1.5 Metatextuality 1.6 Summary 17 19 20 21 22 23 Chapter 2: Narrative Attributions 24 2.1 Multi-Narrative Design 2.2 Aesthetics of Story World 2.3 Distributed Narratives 2.4 Engaging Transmedial Characters 25 27 28 30 2.5 Summary 31 Chapter 3: Migratory Behaviour 3.1 Negative Capability 3.2 Uses & Gratifications Theory 3.3 Migratory Cues 3.4 Summary 32 32 33 35 37 Chapter 4: Participative Consistency 38 Chapter 5: The Hidden Markov Model 44 Case Study: Measuring Assassin's Creed's Story World 49 Chapter 6: Towards and understanding of Transmedia Success 56 Reference List 58 7 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Introduction Topic introduction Over the past few years, different theories have emerged in the fields of media, narrative, interactivity and engagement that can all be rallied under the banner of transmedia. Transmedia as a complex system of interconnected narratives which tell the grand story of a story world, has started from a spark close to a powder keg into a seemingly unlimited and unqualified wildfire of transmedia producers that all try to make new, thrilling narrative experiences, each one trying to offer ways to alternatively enjoy a narrative story. Transmedia storytelling (as coined by Henry Jenkins in 2003) would almost seem a buzzword for a new generation of storytellers - a revolutionary movement of entwining narrative consistency across multiple platforms, with each platform adding to a metanarrative (Bastiaens & Bouwknegt 2014, p.2) and the enlargement of a story world experience. Naturally, this new wave of storytelling demands new intellectual skills in knowing how to attract, engage and captivate your audience with these new multimedia medthods. It is Jenkins' definition of transmedia who refers to the term explicitly for use in fictional narrative entertainment, which got a considerable following from storytellers and narrative designers: "A transmedia story unfolds across multiple media platforms, with each new text making a distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole. In the ideal form of transmedia storytelling, each medium does what it does best – so that a story might be introduced in a film, expanded through television, novels and comics….Each franchise entry needs to be self-contained so you don’t need to have seen the film to enjoy the game or vice versa." (Jenkins, 2006, p.95-96) Getting a story out has never been easier for storytellers. Ironically, producing a captivating experience for your audiences has never been more difficult due to the ever-increasing demands from the consumers towards the entertainment industry in terms of watching an intriguing experience that stands out from what they are already familiar with. Because of these insistences by consumers, storytellers are constantly shifting their mindset and philosophies towards finding the El Dorado of storytelling. However, there is little knowledge of transmedia narrative execution and what the actual mechanics of transmedia storytelling are and how they ought to be observed and measured. The industry has a need for the tools and knowledge to observe transmedia storytelling and how to consequently improve transmedia storytelling as a concept of narrative entertainment. 8 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences In the last decade many investigations have been performed on how to make a transmedia product. Below you will find Robert Pratten's (2011, p.2) conception of transmedia. As is seen traditionally we see that the consummation of media platforms are singular and do not affect each other. However, in transmedia, every component works together to tell a larger narrative wherein the whole of the narrative is more satisfying than the sum of parts. This thesis will discuss why one should measure transmedia products. Or rather, this thesis would like to discuss whether transmedia storytelling truly is this Holy Grail as it is believed to be now and how one can make the model of transmedia better in narrative quality and better suited for measurement. What is the role of narrative in transmedia? Ryan (2004, p.5) argues that narrative context has no general definition; the meaning lies not Figure 1: Robert Pratten's Transmedia Model in the circumstances within the narrative, nor within the social function of the narrative act but in the context-transcending nature of this act. In other words, to define a narrative in transmedia, the purpose and platform of a narrative must be considered. One must also think of which narrative attributions we should be implementing for a transmedia story. Could it be that the propositions and promises of transmedia storytelling have been defined wrongly by looking at quantitative product marketing and spreadability of narratives, while rather, providing qualitative narratives through the gained benefits of transmedia multimodality should be look at and how to make that narrative quality measurable. Could there perhaps be cues devised for migration and place narrative incentives in the platforms that will allow storytellers to direct the audience to where the audience needs to go next to deliver the best narrative experience? Indeed, narrative quality, migratory behaviour and multimodality are what makes transmedia storytelling successful as a model. A denouement about the expectancy of transmedia success (that is, for both consumers and producers) can only be developed after extensive research within the current field of transmedia. Carlos Scolari (2009) states: 9 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences "Researchers should learn more about transmedia narrative structures. As Vladimir Propp said about folktales in 1928: analyzing their structure will increase the possibilities of creating new stories. In this case, narratology can be very helpful for describing the internal dynamics of these complex textual networks. that transmedia research should go deeper into the analysis of world expansion strategies." (Scolari, 2009, p.601) Alongside different interviews, it has become clear that the role of transmedia and its usability for story world measurement is not yet fully understood. This thesis will take a daring approach to go beyond the logistics and essence of transmedia storytelling and rather, propose to further investigate the field of narrative studies and what it can do for the benefit of transmedia storytelling enjoyment by consumers, as well as forming a model of success expectancy and measurement. Ultimately, this model has to be contributing to a larger profit of story worlds. This research will encompass different disciplines, including narrative attribution, migratory incentives and optimal transmedia engagement by consumers. There is a fundamental misconstruction between our understanding of how to make transmedia and whether it really is as profitable as is forecasted. Problem definition The industry has no need for another manual on how to make or converge a product into transmedia. Notwithstanding, this industry has a severe lack of two critical and meaningful questions: 1. Can the effects of narrative in transmedia storytelling be measured? 2. How can transmedia storytelling be made worth the effort and sources? These vital questions are urgent for the future prospect of transmedia and, to a far-reaching extend, fictional entertainment understanding and perception. Future narrative design models will have better odds of succeeding when illuminating the chasms of transmedia storytelling and the current narrative design trend. This thesis will aim to provide an answer to these urgent questions, which might be led by the assumption that transmedia storytelling is a successful formula in his current form. And if not, how we transmedia storytelling in its basis conception can be improved with narrative components to make it optimal for measurement and observation. To understand what transmedia storytelling means, one needs to understand the concept that while transmedia storytelling itself is divided over multiple media platforms, one general idea is optimally used with the assets of the singular individual platform (cinema has 10 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences audiovisuals, novels contain in-depth information on characters, websites have information on the story world etc.) These bricks form the complete picture of transmedia storytelling, the continuous enlargement of a story world that enhances optimal use in its platforms. For a fictional transmedia project to be successful in terms of accessibility, the individual pieces of the story need to be autonomous to watch, meaning that you can view only one platform and still feel satisfied with the story (as discussed by Jenkins, 2007). Transmedia storytelling is based on the essence that the story is divided over different platforms, ideally with each platform adding narrative information to the grand story of the story world itself, rather than only telling a singular narrative occurring in the story world. When looking at transmedia storytelling, we should not only look at the gained benefits, but also the boundaries of transmedial strategy by storytellers. Sometimes, storytellers do not have all the resources to expand their story world to a variety of platforms but are limited to a few. That should not matter for the measurement of success, since the success lies in the strategy of how you furnish your story world, and not in the quantity of channels. The story world should be rich in its essence, rather than spread out in as many channels as possible. Even though the gospel of transmedia storytelling has been praised for years, the common entertainment industry still does not have a grip on how to distinguish transmedia storytelling from other contemporary entertainment strategies, such as cross-media (Boumans, 2007). Davis (2013, p.185) wondered whether true transmedia products are more effective than less elaborate cross-media product configurations in inducing audience engagement in support of the desired outcome. This thesis will demonstrate how the conception of Jenkins' transmedia is more suitable for deep narratives and measurement. The industry still has some major dilemmas in terms of collectively interpreting transmedia in terms of what it should and could do. This thesis will propose what to look into to enhance and measure transmedia storytelling are: 1: To accord the scope of the transmedia campaign for optimal audience engagement/ producer profit. 2: To construct platform diversity within the narrative, with each platform extracting their affordances. 3: To practice and engage audiences for sustainment of participative consistency by establishing a persistent narrative. The correct psyche of properly contemplating transmedia as an added benefit to your product is a blissful need within the industry. Thus, as storytellers have little idea on how to make a promising and engaging multi-narrative, let alone suggesting the idea of measuring 11 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences the success of transmedia, gainful insights can be reached by analyzing how the individual platforms are sustained by the larger core message of the grand story narrative, also called the meta-narrative (Bastiaens & Bouwknegt 2014, p.2) and how that can strengthen the potential of the other platforms. Scrutinizing a well-thought and appealing narrative can potentially hold many discoveries into what the future holds for the transmedia industry and how it can benefit from narrative in terms of enjoyment and measurement. This will be attempted by delving into the theories surrounding narrative attribution, migratory strategies and engagement. These theories will provide the variables through transmedia story world narrative success can be measured with the Hidden Markov Model. Industry relevance As a storyteller, the understanding on whether your efforts and sources within transmedia products are optimally enjoyed by audiences might prove for the industry to be the savior of not only transmedia industry success in terms of delivering interesting narrative experiences, but also in assuring the future of narrative design by providing an understanding of fictional narrative and how narrative success is best used and measured. Producers need to start to consider the added benefits of narrative design and its place within this age of convergence, in which every consumer is an expert in digital practice. Sarah Atkinson (2014) already analyzed how the engagement of audience can contribute in upholding narrative congruence, coherence and authenticity in her article of 'Dramatic Communities'. Engagement in narrative interest might be the key component for measurement in transmedia stories, as well as transmedia enjoyment. The PGA (Producers Guild of America, 2010) defines a product to be transmedia property according to three criteria: the number of narrative storylines; the kinds of platforms involved in the project and the requirement for narrative novelty. While it may not be universally recognized as the definition of a transmedia product, the PGA does recognize the necessity of narrativity, shaped and communicated according to the added benefits of narrative extensions. "A Transmedia Narrative project or franchise must consist of three (or more) narrative storylines existing within the same fictional universe on any of the following platforms: Film, Television, Short Film, Broadband, Publishing, Comics, Animation, Mobile, Special Venues, DVD/Blu-ray/CD-ROM, Narrative Commercial and Marketing rollouts, and other technologies that may or may not currently exist. These narrative extensions are NOT the same as repurposing material from one platform to be cut or repurposed to different platforms." (PGA 2010) 12 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Research Questions & Method This thesis will deal with several issues within the field of transmedia in which there are no transparent agreements or solutions at the time of writing. The biggest issue is the lack of measurement scales and observation in narrative transmedia storytelling success. The lack of purposeful use of narrative attributions and migratory strategies can however uplift the transmedia experience and create loyal consumers. There is also a lack of understanding how one platform can intend market profit for the other platforms and how to optimally exploit it. A look will be taken into how consistency in narrative attribution quality and narrative cues boosts the user's motivation to traverse all channels. Figure 2 demonstrates the traversal of channels, wherein each channel continues on narratives established in the previous platforms and how that contributes to the grand story of the transmedia story world. It is vital to understand not only the individual selling numbers of platforms, but also understanding the audience feedback that give one insight and knowledge on the overall consistency narrative enjoyment followers and of your how one platform can invigorate the cues and drive for the audience from which they Figure 2: Example of Transmedia product campaign want to pursue the rest of the grand story. A look will be taken into what allowed the conception of transmedia and what should defined as transmedia storytelling. As already said earlier, in this age of easy story access it is important for storytellers to be able to measure and know their level of success, because of the huge, ever-growing competitive entertainment market. This thesis has conducted extensive literature reviews, observation of story worlds and fan communities and researched different system measurement models. Also, the suggestions of this research are formed from the opinions of different transmedia experts that have been interviewed extensively. From their perspectives, this thesis has been shaped to answer lingering questions about the role of narrative in transmedia, as well as how we can make transmedia successful and measurable. The sub questions will give a frame to work with, cautiously trying to find answers to these questions that will ultimately have to result in the answer of the main question; how narrative attribution can augment participative consistency 13 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences and thereby give transmedia story worlds an end goal to work to and how these story world can be measured and analyzed for optimization. An observation tool will be devised from the results of the main question, which will be able to calculate the level of narrative attribution based on audience response and structurally determining whether the transmedial fictional story world is optimal in its use of narrative attributions to gain participative consistency. The questions are: Main question: How can the augmentation of participative consistency assist in constructing a framework for success measurement in transmedia? Sub question 1: What are the gains for the audience when implementing negative capability and migratory cues to transmedia products in terms of intrinsic motivation? Sub question 2: How can the meta-narrative of the transmedia product be best diversified throughout the platforms? Sub question 3: How can participative consistency of audiences across multiple transmedial platforms in terms of deductive reasoning and modeling best be framed? Sub question 4: Can a hypertext of successful transmedial narrative tropes be deducted within the industry? Research Goal The contributions to the field of transmedia storytelling will be profitable to the grounded bigbusiness commercial storytelling campaigns that practice narrative fiction, as well as smaller campaigns with little funding. That should not matter in the levels of narrative attribution. For a narrative to be considered transmedia in this dissertation, the meta-narrative must carry multiple stories and viewpoints that are interwoven in a story world. Furthermore, each piece of the meta-narrative (each platform) must be able to read autonomously, with the audience still having the content feeling that they are experiencing a full story. Furthermore, there must also be an avoidance of redundancy between media - every platform must be contributing towards the larger picture. As Robert Pratten states in his paper on how 14 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences storytellers can create transmedia with different platforms, "the whole must be exponentially better than the sum of its parts." (2011, p.2) This thesis will aim to unearth the mysteries and ambiguous contexts that surround the dilemma on how narratives should be regarded within transmedia storytelling and how it can add up to the success measurement of story worlds. Ideally, at the end of this research one will be able to recognize what is needed to make transmedia storytelling more successful and optimal for measurement by the added benefits of narrative components than can serve as measurement variables, also known as 'narrative attribution.' Supposedly, the strength of one story world is greatly derived from its inhabitants. Paolo Bertetti (2014, p.2344) defines a transmedial character as a fictional hero whose adventures are told in multiple media platforms, each one giving more details on the life of that character. Later on it will become apparent that the synergy between transmedial characters and story worlds is fundamental in evoking audience engagement by reaching participative consistency (the user becomes committed one hundred percent to the story world) and the guarantee of transmedia success throughout all platforms. This thesis will, among other things, attempt to recognize an overlaying narrative pattern of attributions within transmedia products. These can vary between multi-narrative design, transmedial characters, distribution of narratives and aesthetics of the story world. Klastrup & Tosca (2004, p.1) state that "transmedial story worlds are abstract content systems from which a repertoire of fictional stories and characters can be actualized or derived across a variety of media platforms." That is true, in the sense that a transmedia story world must be able to narrate different stories in the story world. Thereby, the narratives effectively tell the grand story of the story world itself. More light will be shed on this through the careful analysis of exemplifying mainly two different successful transmedia story worlds, which are Star Wars and Assassin's Creed, alongside some other single examples in the first chapter. 15 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Chapter 1: Transmedial Storytelling These next pages will discuss the definition of transmedial storytelling, alongside the implied relevance of these factors in terms of forming a conceptual model of persuasive narrativity. The scholar who is regarded by many transmedia scholars as the founder of transmedia storytelling as it's known in its current form is Henry Jenkins and his notions of convergence. This investigation will start with explaining what transmedia storytelling means exactly. It is a term that may seem daunting and diverse in meaning at first, but throughout this chapter one will discover that it pays to be aware of the correct use of the phrase transmedia storytelling (something that many transmedia designers still forget and thereby neglecting the idea of a collective measurement tool). The idea of transmedia storytelling was coined for the first time by Henry Jenkins in Technology review, as he stated: "Moving characters from books to films to video games can make them stronger and more compelling." (Jenkins, 2003) This simple notion of transmedial characters connected to engaging narrative events placed in a multimodal environment story world will prove to be a crucial cornerstone if we are to attempt to form a model of transmedia narrative success measurement. Transmedia relates to the way narratives can be extended, adding more depth to the story to work with for producers, and to be enjoyed by consumers. Transmedia is more than simply extending a brand; "different media and languages participate and contribute to the construction of the transmedia narrative world" (Scolari, 2009, p.587). In our interview (personal communication, February 16, 2015), Scolari explained that in transmedia storytelling, the most important part is the storytelling. If the storytelling is good it will engage the consumers and invite them to explore the narrative universe. Spread of content cannot save a story world if the narrative attribution execution is bad. Platforms and the usability of platforms also play an important role in the success of transmedia. Bordwell and Thompson (2009) commented that the “platform-shifting” nature of transmedia storytelling is "planned and executed at the creative end, moving the story world calculatedly across media." Bordwell and Thompson may be right, but it is Scolari that effectively reveals the lack of current transmedia: understanding this language of storytelling that contributes to participation. The lack of measurement tools prevents the industry from unleashing the maximum capacity of transmedia storytelling. It needs to be possible to measure story worlds effectively, applicable to modes of observation and success measurement, both during and after the construction of the transmedia project. This is needed in order for the industry to devise a collective interpretation of the components of transmedia storyelling. Indeed, different multimodal narrative conceptions such as Boumans (2007) Cross-Media model and Kress & van Leeuwen's (2001) Multimodal Discourse model had already been 16 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences devised. But none of these models do contain the adequate potential level of narrative richness and platform affordance construction optimal for measurement. That is to say, transmedia storytelling allows for the narration of an evolving story world, whereas these other models cannot provide sufficient incentives of platform for an audience to become engaged in the richness of the narrative across multiple channels, thereby neglecting potential profit since there will be a lack of incentives to pursue the narrative. A good example is Star Wars. While several earlier videogames recapitulated the story from the films in a cross-media fashion, current products are handpicked by George Lucas and his team of storytellers to become part of the growing story world. In addition, no single narrative piece must tell the same. All new narrative parts must reveal or expand something on the ever-growing Star Wars universe. For now it is important to start and explain what sets transmedia storytelling apart from other forms of narrative extension. The added benefits of both narrative expansion techniques in transmedia as well as platform diversity are discussed in the following chapters, detailing that when correctly used in the line of transmedia storytelling the audience will have the best intrinsic motivation to migrate across channels and become engaged. This requires a closer look at which media innovations sparked the idea of transmedia storytelling into the industry in the first place. 1.1 An Age of Convergence In 2006, Henry Jenkins published his renowned book Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. Within a short period the academic fields of digital media embraced Jenkins notions of the changing digital entertainment economy and the occurrence of the rising convergence culture. As Jenkins said: "By convergence, I mean the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behaviour of media audiences who would go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they wanted." (Jenkins, 2006, p.2) Convergence is the center of the recent changes in media usage and how audiences engages with content. Convergence teaches us about interconnectivity and differentiation in multimedia. The understanding of living in a convergence culture has allowed for the entertainment to make the first steps into understanding the growing need of diversifying entertainment across platforms, and the possibilities for the industry to supply this need. "Convergence alters the relationship between existing technologies, industries, markets, genres and audiences. Convergence refers to a process, but not an endpoint" (Jenkins, 17 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences 2004b, p.34). As seen in figure 3, the content of a story world is spread across channels, each one thereby becoming crucial for the full experience of the story world, hopefully triggering a sense of exploration in the user. Another contributor to the change in form of entertainment is the rise of participatory culture. Jenkins stressed the need for participatory culture to be understood in his paper Confronting the Figure 3: Convergence - content across multiple media platforms Challenges of Participatory Culture. Not only to understand what this new trend means for the construction of narrative experiences, but also to acknowledge the benefits of understanding the target audience and its needs: "Participatory culture is emerging as the culture absorbs and responds to the explosion of new media technologies that make it possible for average consumers to archive, annotate, appropriate, and recirculate media content in powerful new ways. A focus on expanding access to new technologies carries us only so far if we do not also foster the skills and cultural knowledge necessary to deploy those tools toward our own ends." (Jenkins, 2009, p.8) Participatory culture triggered by the rise of convergence gives way for audiences to enjoy and engage with narratives in new and exciting ways. Transmedia offers new ways by bringing consumers to a new state of engagement. By providing meaningful narratives that evolve and alter the progression of the meta-narrative with diversifying content across multiple channels, the audience can become more immersed in a seemingly living and growing story world that develops a grand story through multiple channels. This is what the concept of transmedia can do, creating an immersive experience by offering a compelling narrative that continues in multiple platforms, with each platform makes use of its affordances. However, one must understand that the conception of implementing the unique affordances in each platform, does not grant the unconditional loyalty of an audience. To achieve this, one further step must be taken by making a story not only immersive, but at the same time engaging throughout the course of the construction of the story world with consistent narrative attribution that triggers migration across channels. Harries (as cited in Graves 2011, p.2) proposed that "the creation of elaborate transmedia storyworlds profoundly affects engagement by encouraging "viewsing" - a type of interactive, participatory, and communicative multi-platform media use." What this means is that the 18 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences fundamentality of a strong story world is crucial to reach meaningful engagement through a multi-platform media usage. It has already been suggested that story worlds can create immersion, but the industry needs to understand how story worlds are made, kept and maintained to be engaging through narrative, sparking the constant participation of users across channels. The problem in the industry is that the is focus too much on the methods of offering the same content on different channels for easy use. However, transmedia storytelling could benefit tremendously from the boons of meaningful narrative engagement that invites exploration in each channel. Perhaps that is exactly what the audience wants; they do not want to only feel part of a story, they want to be part of a story by engaging with the story world across channels with each channel making use of their affordances. 1.2 From Multimedia to Transmedia In order to understand the fundamental differences between multimedia and transmedia, a definition of what distinguishes the two phenomena is in order. Firstly, Rockwell & Mactavish (2004, p.4) defined multimedia as "a computer-based rhetorical artifact in which multiple media are integrated into an interactive whole." They further dissect the phenomena by implying that multimedia, among other things, is the integration of different media as an artistic whole. 'The integration of media is a conscious human act aimed at a unified work identifiable as such; likewise consumers of multimedia treat such works as integrated in their consumption of them' (Rockwell & Mactavish, 2004, p.4). However, that does not mean that the consumers will have a constant engagement and interest. Rockwell and Mactavish's idea of multimedia misses the conceptualization of narrative engagement, media affordances and expansion of story worlds, whereas Jenkins's ideas emphasize the need for these concepts to make transmeda successful (Jenkins, 2006), since audiences will desire to experience more channels of the story world. For example, Henry Jenkins, as read in the introduction, stated that each medium must be autonomous for reading, while at the same time each medium contributes to the unfolding and understanding of the story world Figure 4: Cross-media vs. Transmedia (Jenkins, 2011). Other ideas such as Boumans's cross-media (2007) only 19 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences emphasizes the need for content to be spread across platforms for the audience to engage with, neglecting narrative expansion of story worlds and diversity of story world engagement. Transmedia storytelling is the only strategy that manages to acknowledge the differentiation of specialty with each medium, while understanding the collection of platforms as an artistic whole that strengthens each other's appeal. Multimedia storytelling has the option of spreading media as a conscious unified work (spreading the same narrative content across channels) while transmedia storytelling emphasizes the importance of the singular medium, and how it affects and contributes to the meta-narrative and the extension of a story world. An example would be The Matrix, as seen in figure 4, where the difference between crossmedia storytelling as created by Boumans (2007) versus transmedia storytelling is seen. Whereas normal multimedia storytelling would opt for telling the same narrative events across channels (such as the videogame having the same events as the movie), The Matrix instead built a transmedia narrative wherein each component unfolded a larger story world. For example, the videogame Enter The Matrix took place between the events of the first and second film, smoothly transitioning the in-between events for the understanding of the audience. In this example, each channel made use of its own affordances. The affordances of a channel refer that each channel does what it does best (TV series can detail a long narrative, novels can give textual background information, websites allow for looking up additional information etc.). In The Matrix, the narrative in each singular medium sparks the user's interest in the progression of the narrative through other channels. But with the use of affordances, each channel offers something new to the experience of the story world by doing what it does best, sparking the user's interest in the other channels of the story world. 1.3 Additive Comprehension & Radical Intertextuality In 2011, after receiving many replies from his peers about the confusing nature of what transmedia storytelling should be accorded to, Henry Jenkins further developed his conceptual model of transmedia storytelling. Jenkins (2011) explained and defined two important traits a transmedial narrative should contain: additive comprehension & radical intertextuality. First, we will begin with explaining additive comprehension. Originally a term coined by game designer Neil Young, the term refers to "the ways that each text adds a new piece of information which forces us to revise our understanding of the fiction as a whole" (Jenkins, 2007). This means that further unfolding of the narrative should not be a mere branded extension of the product, but rather serve as a puzzle piece for the understanding of the story world. An example can be the constant expansion of the Pokémon story world. Each new generation supplements new Pokémon that work in new, compelling ways as opposed 20 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences to the older generations, alongside a new region to explore. New Pokémon force us to revise our understanding of how to structure your team, and what this means for your understanding of the story world. Hence, additive comprehension enlarges out a narrative in terms of enriching the story world, and is part of a story world-building process across platforms. It should be noted that this conceptualization of world-building is perhaps the most crucial piece that differentiates transmedia storytelling from other works of multimedia narrative, such as cross-media wherein the need for extensive world-building and the option for alternative views of narratives within the story world by multiple channels are not essential. The second aspect of Jenkins' extended explanation of transmedia storytelling is radical intertextuality. Radical intertextuality is spoken of when there is "a movement across texts or across textual structures within the same medium" (Jenkins, 2011). Essentially, it refers to how different focalizations are visualized within the story world. It could be that there are multiple perspectives of the same event occurring in the story world. An example is Marvel's Civil War saga. The story happens in the same narrative and medium, but is focalized by more than one viewpoint, all having conflicting opinions on the event in the story world. This makes a story world seem alive and growing, offering alternating perspectives. Through the way additive comprehension enlarges a narrative across platforms, it thus allows radical intertextuality for the narrative of one platform to make an interesting story world, in which multiple narratives can occur, that all contribute to the grand story. 1.4 Multimodality Now we will discuss the implication of multiple platforms to one grand story, and which philosophy the implementation of using multiple platforms to tell a narrative must be accorded to in order to classify as proper transmedia storytelling. In essence, just as with additive comprehension and radical intertextuality, individual platforms are deployed to become part of a meta-narrative; a grand story about a story world. Multimodality, originally a term by Gunther Kress (2001), is an effective way to attract and engage users through the spreading of content across channels. The content must be different across channels, with each channel offering something new to the experience of the grand story. This can be done by visualizing new narrative events or telling an existing narrative events by alternating viewpoints. An example of this is Disney's Toy Story 2. While the film tells the story of Buzz Lightyear having to journey across the entire city in order to find his best friend Woody, the video game allowed you to actually embark on this journey, showing you parts of the trip that were not seen in the film. Because that is what the platform of video games can do; give the user a 21 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences chance to alter the outcome of a story and experience an integral part of the story firsthand. This affordance is something that benefits the video game platform over the film platform. Likewise, the film platform has better assets for Toy Story 2 to tell the tale of the journey, rather than experiencing the journey yourself. The concept of multimodality fits better into the field of transmedia when we combine it with the notion of media platform affordances. Christy Dena (2009, p.57) made transmedia even more popular when discussing how transmedia practitioners need to consider affordances for a cumulative experience. Affordances speak of the ways a platform can facilitate a narrative, involving different kinds of representations with each medium. Always in service of the grand story, the platforms must work in narrative attribution harmony to tell various parts of the grand story, while still making effective use of their platform features to emote varying kinds of representation of the narrative. Thus, multimodality grants us the possibility of diversifying the narrative experience of the grand story, triggering the sense of exploration in users if the narratives are compelling enough. 1.5 Metatextuality As earlier defined with the concept of radical intertextuality, texts can move across the same medium. But it can also be that one text can be referenced in another text without the other text being present at the moment. An example are the films Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Iron Man 3, wherein characters in the film discuss previous events in the Marvel Universe and what characters who played a role in previous events are doing now. Still, at that very moment, the narrative that is being discussed in the other text at that moment is being enriched, possibly with new information or with the points of view of the talking characters. In order to understand this phenomenon transmedia can learn something from one of the aesthetics of narrative studies: transtextuality. Transtextuality is a concept of literary reception and interpretations. Gerard Genette (1997) coined a set of five forms of transtextuality in his book Paratexts: Tresholds of Interpretation: Intertextuality, Paratexts, Metatextuality, Hypertextuality and Architextuality. All forms partly describe the impact of text in different categories, and how these influence audience reception. When explaining the third form, Metatextuality, can be derived that this phrase is used when one text talks about another text. Thus, the narrative of one text is applied in the communication of another text. These texts do not have to be from the same platform. With transmedia story worlds, a text from a novel can discuss the events that occur within the text of the film. Thus, the novel can further enrich the narrative events from the film by sharing new viewpoints on the same 22 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences event. The benefit that metatextuality can bring to transmedial storytelling is best perceived in the scope of multimodality. Indeed, the mentioning of a narrative event in a different channel than the event mentioned can engage the user to explore the meta-narrative in search of that event, thereby migrating to other platforms. Within transmedia storytelling, all platforms and components must strengthen each other and tell the meta-narrative, the essential core of the story world, thereby telling the grand story of a story world itself. Characters referring to one event in the story world are bound to form an opinion. The user gets intrigued by this mentioned event and will try to find the event, ideally forcing the user to continue down the line of following the narratives across platforms. For example, in The Lord of the Rings story world, characters in the novel and film often mention the War of the North, which is, another important war theatre in the larger War of the Ring. Within the videogame Lord of the Rings: War in the North, it is actually possible to experience the viewpoint of new characters that were present during these events. As a bonus, characters from the North also mention the events in the film and the novel (the War of the South), thereby forming the concept of Middle-Earth as a growing story world, where multiple narratives can occur at the same time. 1.6 Summary For the entertainment industry, where it used to be sufficient to deliver narratives without too much diversification on the different platforms (multimedia), the audience now expects a narrative experience, one wherein every narrative event and platform scrutiny is part of an ongoing delivery of meaningful narrative experiences (transmedia). The narrative events in the story world can also be the subject of alternative, new settings and viewpoints of the story world, traversed by users through different channels, with each channel offering something new to the meta-narrative. However, the different channels must not fall out of coordination with the rules and regulations set in the meta-narrative (core message) of the story world. Every media platform can give fresh, new viewpoints on the events in the story world. That is the essential core of how this thesis describes the correct application of transmedia storytelling, as coined by Henry Jenkins, which will be used throughout the rest of the thesis: "Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Ideally, each medium makes it own contribution to the unfolding of the story." (Jenkins, 2007) 23 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Chapter 2: Narrative Attributions In the previous chapter it has been explained that one needs to recognize the components of transmedia storytelling in order to apply them properly for observation purposes. Before one can apply and measure narratives, there is a need to recognize and define what is essential in a narrative of transmedia storytelling and what exactly it is in transmedia that lifts the experience to a higher satisfaction. These compounds of uplifting a transmedia narrative to greater satisfaction will henceforth be called 'Narrative Attributions'. They will serve as the measurable variables to measure the narrative success of a story world and are applicable to practically every transmedia story world. De Graaf et al (2009, p.386) already researched that 'a reader's phenomenological experience of a narrative plays a mediating role in the persuasive effects of the narrative.' They claimed that the reader's attitude to the story and their drive for narrative persuasion is often greatly affected by their emotions for the characters in the story. That means that the characters of a narrative can play an important role in the likeliness to engage with a narrative text. As with transmedia, characters need to have the same core identity in each platform, while still making use of the platform's affordances. A good example is Star Wars' Luke Skywalker. His feeling for adventure is often debated in the films, while the videogames actually allow you to play with this sense of adventure and exploration. All the while, his character stays true throughout the platforms (being good of will, fighting evil etc.). Another example of an experience of narrative comes from Jeff Watson's interview. In our interview, Watson (personal communication, March 25, 2015) explained that in transmedia, there often is a 'rabbit hole' that draws people into the story world and exposes them for the first time to the story world. The type of channel that the user first experiences is often of impact to his/her experience of the story world and its narrative attributions. Thus, every channel must uphold the same level and type of narrative attributions. The importance of narrative attributions will be elaborated through the postmodernism theory of meta-narrative. Bastiaens and Bouwknegt (2014) have already looked into meta-narrative in regards to transmedia. The meta-narrative is the story of a story itself, encompassing all the smaller narratives and explaining them within totalizing schemes and how they relate. It could be described as the 'core message' of a narrative. The idea of emphasizing metanarratives will prove to be useful, as it will be explained that narrative attributions and justification of narrative attributions work within the totalizing concept of meta-narrative. That is to say, a story world construction from a meta-narrative thought allows one to build a growing story world in which multiple narratives can unfold across different platforms in a totalizing scheme of telling one grand story; that of the story world itself. 24 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Consequently, all these narratives have to serve the purpose of exhibiting a grand story. They form the 'layers' of a story world, and each layer should help the user understand the meta-narrative of the story world, discovered through the various channels. For now, keep in mind that every narrative attribution is a set of principles that strengthen the appeal of a meta-narrative, all in line with the purpose of narrating a grand story. In our interview, Ilse Romero (personal communication, March 22, 2015) explained that you need to make sure all narrative elements in the story world are communicated to the audience. Consequently, the audience needs to make meaning of these narrative elements and spark intrinsic motivation. When narrative attributions are properly executed and in line with each other's rules and regulations (just as Jenkins's explanation on transmedia with each platform adding something new while still in line with the grand story), audiences will have a better incentive to pursue the narrative and thus, increase their understanding of the story world, since they are engaged in multiple channels. 2.1 Multi-Narrative Design The first component of narrative attribution with relation to transmedia storytelling is the concept of multi-narrative design. Multi-narrative implies that several narratives happen simultaneously. In the case of transmedia storytelling, it is the phenomenon of having multiple narratives happening at the same time, in different ways and places or in their causal effect, with chunks of crucial information scattered on platforms, forcing the audience to traverse across platforms. A narrative is mostly a sequence of events triggered by characters. As Abbott (as cited in Von Stackelberg, 2011, p.80) mentions, "A defining characteristic of narrative is that there is a sense of the precedence of the event; that the event or events occurred prior to the telling of the story and that the story was already there, in place to be rendered". This relates to the idea of an ongoing story world that serves the purpose of telling a grand story about a story world. The narratives are already there, the platforms allow you to experience them, as is the case in the world of Star Wars. The story world serves as a hub to different narratives. For example, the original trilogy (episodes IV-VI) implied there had been a whole series of events already in place to be rendered in the form of the prequel trilogy (I-III). These prior events could occur because of the events that happened in the original trilogy, thus the trilogies are in each other's causal effect. The story of Star Wars in the films is merely one story (that of the Skywalker family) out of many possible stories in a grand story, that all explain the meta-narrative of the Star Wars universe. As Evans (2013, p.27) states, "transmedia elements do not involve the telling of the same events on different platforms; they involve the telling of new events from the same story world". 25 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Transmedia storytelling can differ between a linear narrative, versus a non-linear narrative. In practice, with linear narratives, the designer has more control over the audience's experiences as opposed to leaving the audiences in charge of making their own choices in the narrative. This can become a problem for transmedia storytellers, as they naturally want their audiences to experience the meta-narrative in the best mode of progression. "The open world often means the player is able to encounter different parts of the overall story in whatever order they choose, or the player is able to access smaller, more isolated side stories in whatever order they choose." (McIntosh, Cohn, & Grace, 2010) How could it be a certainty that each narrative is experienced in the preferred reading order? Preferred reading is a term coined by Bastiaens and Bouwknegt (2014), explaining how users can best traverse the transmedia experience for maximum engagement. Selecting an order of reading also affects the feeling of suspense a reader has towards the narrative. As Ryan (2005, p.522) mentions, "the creation of suspense in narrative is ―highly dependent on the management of what the reader knows and does not know at each moment of the reading experience." The control of information, thus what is disclosed to the reader and when, should be Figure 5: Three main principles of story that alter the outcome of narrative events considered a key aspect in the creation of interesting transmedia storytelling. Narrative designers lose the control of information disclosure when the audience is free to choose what platform to experience at what time, and left without proper migratory incentives. That could be damaging to the experience of meta-narrative and transmedia platform migration. The aesthetics of a multi-narrative design should be constructed so that meaning and order can be derived from one narrative to another and how they relate to the grand story. As seen in figure 5 we see how a single story is affected by multiple factors that alter the progression of narrative events. In transmedia storytelling, the outcome of these events should also affect the progression of other narratives in other platforms. Everything is in a causal relation to the grand story. Ryan (2004, p.11) states that "the ability to infer causal relations is essential to narrative understanding." What this means for the division of multiple narratives 26 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences is that a multi-narrative design must serve a purpose. All narratives stand in line with each other and are in service to the reader's exploration, and their understanding of the metanarrative. An example of this is again Star Wars. The new TV series Star Wars: Rebels explains different events happening between episodes III and IV. The character of Ahsoka Tahn, a young Jedi Padawan, is present in the show while she was also present in the show's predecessor, Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Her narrative (becoming a Jedi) that starts in Clone Wars takes place alongside another narrative of Rebels (Rebels fighting the Empire), forming a multi-narrative design. Both narratives contribute and detail the grand story of Star Wars; the never-ending battle of the Light side (Jedi) versus the Dark side (Sith). Thus, storytellers need to think about the multi-narrative design and the spatial ordering of narrative events in not only their channels, but in their release of information and where to find which information at what moment. By giving sufficient incentives and coordinated chunks of information, combined with building the story world to a preferred reading experience, storytellers can give the best possible narrative catharsis. Consequently, with a preferred platform migration the industry can use their tools for platform migration measurement in a more efficient way, when the audience is desired to traverse the metanarrative in a preferred design, anticipating what platforms and narrative events they have already likely traversed. 2.2 Aesthetics of Story World One of the most important narrative attributions is the aesthetics of a story world. While the aesthetics of a changing narrative is driven by character and conflict, the aesthetics are driven by the elements within the story world, triggering a set of events or conflicts within that world and changing the outcome of the conflict through the act of characters. Story world aesthetics are higher in hierarchy than the aesthetics of character, since story world settings affects character identity first, characters affect story world only after a set of events, but nonetheless both are very important. Aesthetics should be constant, in order for the audience to experience the same grand story across media. In our interview, Andrea Phillips (personal communication, February 27, 2015) states that in order for a story world to be successful, audiences need to have a feeling of consistency, thereby forming a story world that seems fluent. This thesis states that the aesthetical elements of a story world is made up out of different parts: Natural - Biology, zoology, geology, histories etc. 27 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Cultural - Language, ideas, customs, philosophy, mythology, technology etc. Ontology - Physics The elements of a story world can drastically change the course of the narrative. An example of this is the Assassin's Creed series. In the series, prominent historical characters form cultural elements of the story world by choosing sides in the war between Assassins and Templars. Often, these affiliations are not immediately known to the player, changing the outcome of narrative events. For example, in Assassin's Creed II, the papacy of Rome is discovered to be evil, changing the events and course of the player. Indeed, this cultural element in the story world affects the grand story actively and therefore also affects the user's understanding of the meta-narrative. Long (2007, p.138) states "to avoid a fragmented sense of the story world, each transmedia extension should follow the rules of their shared universe, and not conflict with any other extensions." The rules of the story world must always be serving in accordance with the narrative, actively affecting the events unfolding. This creates a more engaging feeling for the audience, wherein their experience in this story world is hard to anticipate, something complete and with meaning that continues to surprise. Therefore, they become more interested in what the rest of the story world has to offer. The aesthetics of the story world are the stage for every channel in transmedia storytelling. Ideally, each platform can demonstrate their own causal effects of the aesthetics of the story world with the use of the platform's affordances. However, as we have seen with Jenkins' explanation of transmedia storytelling and his notion of additive comprehension, all new information must serve to enlarge the scope of the story world to make it feel alive. 2.3 Distributed Narratives Transmedia producers need to understand that the distribution of narratives across channels is a delicate matter; each platform should offer something different to the experience. Ruppel (as cited in Dena 2009, p.2) states "new structures that shatter the fixity of narrative as a single-medium endeavor and establish instead a multiply-mediated story world". Thus, with the rise of convergence and new media channels, things need to be reconsidered how to efficiently spread media, while still offering new content and revelations of the story world in each channel. This can be done by effectively distributing meaningful narrative content. Jill Walker formulated the suggestion that in this age of convergence and new media, there is an emerging form of distribution in narratives. She states that 'distributed narratives can't be experienced in a single session or in a single space' (Walker, 2004, p.4). Walker proposes three different principles, mirroring Aristotle's principles of dramatic unity: 28 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences 1. Distribution in Time: The narrative cannot be experienced in one consecutive period of time. 2. Distribution in Space: There is no single place in which the whole narrative can be experienced. 3. Distribution of Authorship: No single author or group of authors can have complete control of form of the narrative. This set of principles are key in understanding how to effectively distribute your content (narrative) and in what context (transmedia channels). The first principle relates to the spreadability of content and narrative progress in time. It might be that it is not a desire to have the entire meta-narrative of the story world be available straight from the start, as loyalty from the audience takes time to grow and there is a want to build with a consistent release of narrative information. People need to be given time to explore and discover the available information in the story world, before providing them with something new. The second principle in the context of transmedia storytelling relates to the notion of spreading content across different channels. If the entire story world takes place in one platform, it is impossible make use of the affordances in other channels, while also missing commercial extras of the audience's committed engagement across multiple channels. The third and last principle relates to the fact that a transmedia story world must be subjective to enlargement by other sources than the original creator. This can refer to the licensing of franchise, with different authors creating new narratives for the story world, but also refers to the input of a fan basis. That is to say, the story world needs to be subjective to participatory culture, wherein audiences feel their input has a causal effect on the story world in their experience. Like the Star Wars Expanded Universe, most writers basically act as fans that take temporary authorship over the Star Wars story world. Whether canon or not, the story world is expanded by new events, offering new content to explore that assists in narrating the grand story. Not only do transmedia producers need to think about this unity in distribution of narrative but transmedia producers also need to carefully think where, how and when to place crucial information about the grand story. For that, Henry Jenkins and his concept of seriality needs to be referred to. Jenkins' (2010) concept of seriality mentions the unfolding of a story over time, mostly through the procedure of chunking (creating meaningful bits of the story) and dispersal (breaking the story into interconnected installments), as is the case with the Assassin's Creed series. Every new novel or game provides more information on the current modern time of the story world, while also dispersing background information on the Assassin and Templar Orders in each product and how events in the past trigger future events. We see some similarities with Walker's theory of distributed narratives. However, 29 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences where distributed narratives discuss the distribution of content, seriality discusses the bits and pieces of story revelation, provoking audiences to proceed further into the other interconnected narratives scattered through platforms, expecting more meaningful bits and pieces of the story with each channel that helps them excavate the meta-narrative. 2.4 Engaging Transmedial Characters The final narrative attribution discussed is the implementation of transmedial characters in a story world. Where story world aesthetics can depend on their likability in natural, cultural and ontological elements, characters depend on dialogue and action and are the executioners of the meaning behind the story world. They are the meaningful players that bring change to the story world through the meta-narrative. Therefore, they must be likable enough for the audience to be motivated to follow them across channels. Ryan (as cited in Bertetti, 2014, p.2350) also mentions that characters, like others fictional entities such as stories or worlds, are not textual entities but cognitive constructs built by the interpreter in response to the text. Characters are an important part for Figure 6: Reoccurrences of characters through multiple channels migratory strategy. People create opinions about characters. The character becomes a structure of meaning, both in the minds of the audience as well as in the story world, therefore becoming part of the meta-narrative and the story world he or she is passively or actively changing. In figure 6 we see how characters can be part of multiple channels in the transmedia story world. In the interviews conducted, transmedia expert Jen Begeal (personal communication, February 26, 2015) states she thinks the best way to fragment narratives is by breaking up characters that play in different platforms. In Star Wars, the characters of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker are not only important to the films, but also to the TV series of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which links the events from episode II to episode III. Characters are the players in a story world that dictate where the next set of events and outcomes of conflicts lead to. Therefore, the audience must become invested in the actions of the character. Characters can form their appeal by their dialogue, as well as their actions. The events should serve to challenge the character and story world, guiding the audience's curiosity towards new platforms and the progression of the narrative. As Parody (2011) observed: 30 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences "Recognizing this is important to understanding the patterns and rhythms of franchise characters’ narration and representation. They are shaped by the objectives of serialisation, by efforts to manage the investment of an established audience and attract the interest of new consumers through balancing cliffhangers with resolutions, repetition and redundancy with novelty and progression, the episodic with the arc." (Parody, 2011, p.69) Parody correctly observed that the recognition of franchise characters' narration and representation play a crucial role in the acceptance of a story world. As seen with Star Wars, a new videogame with new adventures experienced by Luke Skywalker as a transmedial character it is not possible to suddenly change him into a brutal killer that is unaware of those around him. That is too far from his original representation, thus will not likely be accepted by audiences. In Assassin's Creed, each product entrusts new chunks of information about characters and their role in the grand story of the story world (the meta-narrative of 'Assassin's versus Templars'). Characters need to be of causal effect to the meta-narrative, effectively changing the story world they operate in, always offering something new, as well as recognizable combined with the affordances of channels. 2.5 Summary The concept of the meta-narrative is that the story of a story world itself is being told. This is done by telling different narrative branches of the grand story in a multi-narrative design where all channels and their affordances are scrutinized. These different channels all work schematically with the same narrative attributions, which makes the story world seem alive and expanded on with the channel's affordances. Narrative attribution must be consistent, with different narrative events happening that are caused by these attributions. Users need to get the feeling that they want to know and can know everything about the meta-narrative. This can be achieved by distributing narrative information spread across the channels. The audience is often smart enough to discover the chronology in the narrative events, so if a user started in the middle of all of these narrative events, they will be inclined to discover the origins of the narrative events they started in. Additionally, all narratives must be in each other's causal effect, forming a consistency of narrative attributions across the transmedia experience. From these attributions we will be able to measure the success of story world and whether the current story world is executed for optimal engagement by audiences. 31 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Chapter 3: Migratory Behavior The mindset will now be shifted from transmedia storytelling narrative content and context to the observational perspective in how audiences can choose to traverse the transmedia story world and how storytellers can alter their decision. In the interviews, transmedia expert Jeff Gomez (personal communication, March 19, 2015) stated that 'people are psychologically wired to follow a narrative.' He thinks that the only thing people need from the storyteller are the cues and indications where to go from the narrative. This chapter will discuss how the industry can implement migratory strategies within the meta-narrative to gain a preferred reading. With a preferred reading, the meta-narrative spread can be conducted and devised for optimal incentive placement. As a result, the industry will have a better understanding by anticipating audience movement, thereby making observation and measurement easier since there is a sense of expected migratory behavior. 3.1 Negative Capability An effective way of provoking migration for engaged audiences is by the simple idea that in order for these audiences to keep following a narrative, they would have no other option than to go to the next platform since the continuation and deepening of narrative continues there. This form of suspension proves to be successful. As can be seen in the Star Wars prequel films. Between each film there was a gap of about three years, creating much anticipation for the next narrative events. In the meantime, comics and videogames were released, detailing the story world in its current form before the release of the new narrative events (especially episode I was notorious for the amount of side-narrative products). Another example of this suspension is the upcoming release of the videogame Star Wars: Battlefront, which will include some planets which will be seen in the later upcoming episode VII: The Force Awakens. This is enough for dedicated Star Wars fans to migrate from one channel to another and play the videogame, fortifying their engagement with the story world and decreasing suspension for new narrative revelation. This suspension is called negative capability. As Long defines negative capability: "When applied to storytelling, negative capability is the art of building strategic gaps into a narrative to evoke a delicious sense of 'uncertainty, Mystery, or doubt' in the audience. Simple references to people, places or events external to the current narrative provide hints to the history of the characters and the larger world in which the story takes place. This empowers audiences to fill in the gaps in their own imaginations while leaving them curious to find out more." (Long, 2009, p.53) 32 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Thus, the structure of the narrative is set in such a way that the audience is triggered in their sense of exploration to find out more about the meta-narrative, but sometimes it is not possible yet because of different reasons, such as that the next narrative product is not released yet, as is the case with Star Wars. This negative capability can also stem from metatextuality, wherein one text is mentioned in another text, stimulating the sense of exploration to pursue that information. It can thus very well be that the suspension of narrative cannot be 'answered' at that point in time, as with the Star Wars prequel trilogy. The need for narrative answers can stem from the smallest of details, which can also be explained through the Star Wars example. In Episode IV: A New Hope, Luke and Obi-Wan briefly talk about the Clone Wars. This mentioning of a previous war struck fans with decades of speculations. It was not until 2002 (25 years after the Episode IV release) that the audience finally learned about the narrative events of the Clone Wars and how it linked into the following dramatic events that led up to Episode IV. This little seed of suspense allowed George Lucas to greatly expand and play with the suspension of negative capability to draw the incentives of narrative exploration in audiences in order to explore all the events surrounding the Clone Wars, effectively opening up the prequel saga for expansion of the story world with the new narrative events that would become episodes I to III. 3.2 Uses & Gratifications Theory Another interesting tactic comes from looking at the basics of the uses and gratifications theory. When an audience actively seeks out media information, they are seeking it in order to gratify a need. People may feel more knowledgeable and comfortable with the narrative when they have specific background facts and stories from media to add to the conversation. By seeking out media, a person fulfills a need to be informed or entertained, becoming gratified. This can also be caused by the lack of answers and the feeling of non-fulfillment left by the absence of narrative continuation (grasping back on negative capability). The study on user gratification dates back to as far as the 1940's. For this thesis, MqQuail's (1987, p.236) common typologies for media usage will be used. These typologies are:  Information: satisfying curiosity and general interest, gaining a sense of security  through knowledge, etc.  other', etc. Personal Identity: Finding reinforcement for personal values, identifying with 'valued Integration and Social Interaction: Enabling one to connect with society, identifying with others and gain a sense of belonging etc. 33 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences  Entertainment: Escaping from problems, filling time, getting intrinsic, cultural and aesthetic enjoyment, etc. There can be more than one reason to traverse a meta-narrative. It can be because someone identifies with the characters (personal identity) but at the same time someone can enjoy the aesthetic of story world (entertainment). For example, many people want to know more about the Expanded Universe in Star Wars. That can be because they like specific stories in the Expanded Universe, but it can also be to satisfy a certain curiosity stemming from background information mentioned in the films. It can also serve for social interaction, to talk and discuss the Star Wars lore with other fans. Audiences are looking for experiences and want to gratify their need of witnessing narrative that is meaningful to them. Jennings (2000, p.79) suggests that "aesthetic experiences are intrinsically motivating, require focused attention, stimulate curiosity, and are interesting and pleasurable". The experience can only be aesthetic and meaningful if it is properly executed by narrative attributions. Stimulating curiosity can indeed be derived from the pursuing part that the audience performs in transmedia. But then, storytellers must know what this intrinsic need your audience fulfills is exactly, when engaging with the narrative of your story world. Finding out narrative revelations can be stimulating and pleasurable, like traversing background information about the Jedi in the Expanded Universe. Chapman (as cited in O'Briens 2008, p.2) looked at different influences on engagement and how they affected user gratification. That which influences engagement in the case of transmedia storytelling is the qualitative narrative level of the story, and the level of the story that is defined by the level of narrative attributions. Therefore, in order for storytellers to reach a gratifying product audiences wish to consume, their meta-narrative of story world needs to be meaningful and work towards a catharsis. Like with Assassin's Creed, the building narrative promised to 'conclude' in Assassin's Creed III, but did not do so. As from 2011, the direction of the metanarrative is still unclear where it is heading towards, thereby missing platform connectivity and profit from continuous gratifying engagement (as we will see in a later case study). Toschi (2009, p.14) mentions the notion that the uses and gratification theory should be understood for the benefit of transmedia, in order to measure the various levels of interaction and engagement. Toschi is indeed right in the sense that storytellers must start to understand what makes transmedia a gratifying experience. This refers back to the implementation of narrative attributions and what makes them gratifying. 34 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences 3.3 Migratory Cues This last part of migratory behavior will look at the different patterns and activation sequences storytellers place within their medium to give an incentive to users and the 'cue' to migrate to the next platform. Marc Ruppel has coined this phenomenon in transmedia, calling it 'migratory cues', which might potentially prove to be of essence in the concept of the storyteller's preferred reading sequence as well as observing traversal behaviour from users and how we can alter that to a better narrative experience. Ruppel (2006) structured the main concept of migratory cues as "any sign within one simplex that can be found in another simplex; a signal towards another medium; the means through which various narrative paths are marked by an author and located by a user through activation patterns". One media channel gives a hint about the further exploration of the grand story that can be found in another channel extension. Migratory cues actively and carefully places narrative clues and information in tactical places in the transmedia traversal, forming a bond between two channels to traverse in. Long (2009, p.42) also researched these ques. Inspired by Ruppel, he states in his research into migratory cues, that "the bonds between each of the extensions are strengthened and the increased value in experiencing the franchise as a whole becomes more readily apparent to an audience." Thus, the meaning behind two perhaps seemingly unrelated extensions of the metanarrative can suddenly give the user an incentive to discover the correlation between the two extensions and their contribution to the grand story. However, for this thesis Ruppel's explanation of migratory cues will be used over Long's. Ruppel manages to recognize the notion of signaling towards another medium and thereby forming an activation pattern, whereas Long only recognizes the bonds between extensions, not necessarily forming an activation pattern through which users become engaged. As seen in figure 7, migratory cues can spark from the narrative events occurring in channels which motivates audiences to traverse across channels, even those channels already explored if the migratory cues refer to the events happening in that platform. They form an active pattern of narrative hints towards other channels from which audiences will be motivated migrate. In the interviews, Joris Hoebe (personal communication, March 2 and 3, 2015) states that if storytellers wish for audience to migrate, they need to make this as easy as possible without leaving space to guess. Migratory cues should indeed be clear and concise, or else you might risk Figure 7: Migratory Cues between three platforms 35 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences losing audiences. Hoebe is right in this idea of simple migrations, as the promised rewards from migration to another platform should outweigh the effort of migrating to another platform. Migratory cues can also work on an external level, outside of a narrative. Genette (1997) discusses paratexts; context of a story outside of a narrative such as posters, logos, trailers etc. that allows users to already engage with the narrative. Ruppel (2012, p.56) recognizes these forms of external cues as a potential way for the engagement of narrative experience and drive for migration. Unlike external cues, internal cues are performed 'exclusively by and through the characters, locations, temporalities and events of the story world currently being engaged' (Ruppel 2012, p.86). Ruppel categorizes his internal cues in the following order:   Specific: Story-Level Cues  Direct Internal Cues  Intersectional Cues Intermedial Cues Specific: story-level cues refer to an overarching sense of cues embedded within the narrative events. They work together to form a narrative plane, where content is made to function in several sites simultaneously through selected transmedia connection. Thus, the cue is being discussed and has meaning across different channels. Intersectional cues are the type of cues that are discussed and used as a form of construction between different channels. For example, one event is seen in film where the cue will lead to a novel, wherein the same events are enacted and further progressed with additional information. Intersectional cues can therefore serve as departures for events, that will further develop across more than one channel in different methods. Direct internal cues are the cues that direct through the extension of a narrative in a different channel directly through mentioning of source. This can be, for example, a website URL mentioned within the narrative that can actually be explored on the Internet. This form of direct mentioning can serve as a 'rabbit hole' (as discussed by Watson in the interview) for events in the meta-narrative that have not yet been explored extensively up to that point. Intermedial cues perform by transpositioning the entire content of one platform to another. For example, a book can be transposited into a videogame or a film. While this would neglect the idea of transmedia storytelling (since this would be regarded as cross-media), intermedial cues demonstrate the incentive of users to experience the narrative in 36 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences progressive ways. Meaning, if a user enjoyed a book, he or she is likely to have an incentive to experience the film of that book. As Ryan (1991) defines it, narratives are "mental models built through contextual and predictive causality." While that may definitely be true, the predictive causality must not be transparent at the moment of migration; the feeling of having the chance to keep discovering new additive comprehensions that stay in the nature of the meta-narrative must stay present at all times, chaining the channels of the transmedia experience through an ongoing narrative. 3.4 Summary The setup and strategic placement of incentives, like migratory cues and negative capability that drives the user across channels can give the audience an option of a preferred reading sequence, opting the storytellers wishes for how they want the audience to experience the narrative in what order to produce the best possible experience. Producers need to carefully think about placing narrative information, as storytellers need to think of a preferred reading order to gain the best reading experience for users as well as demonstrating narrative events in the best way possible for user satisfaction. This preferred reading order, as well as understanding what triggers your audience to migrate across channels can be understood by adding migratory cues that give incentive to explore further into meta-narrative in another narrative extension. If the narrative attributions are interesting and meaningful enough to audiences, they are invested in further exploration. Negative capability expands on this personal motivation by intentionally spreading information across channels, for the audience to seek out by becoming triggered through migratory cues and thereby fulfilling their gratifying needs. Migratory cues are an active way of triggering incentives with the end goal of sparking the need for exploration across different channels. The level of incentives sparked by migratory cues stem from the efficient distribution of narrative information. Incentive for transmedia traversal by users is only achieved by their interest for narrative exploration. In a further extend, interest in narrative exploration is only achieved by an interesting story world. Narrative attribution dictates and facilitates the intrinsic need for exploration, while migratory activation patterns provides users with active cues to migrate across channels, thereby adjusting to the preferred reading order of the storyteller, structuring their transmedia traversal process. 37 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Chapter 4: Participative Consistency For the industry to know what they should do with all these components of what should be the context (channels) of transmedia, as well as the content (narrative) of transmedia, a closer look must be taken must now look at how transmedia story worlds can be made more profitable with all these transmedia components that spark narrative interest and pursuit. That is, enough incentives need to be devised for the audiences to become emotionally involved with the story world and the characters inhabiting them. Also, the audience must feel that the story world is suggestible to growth and thereby, continuous exploration of background information continuously in different channels is able. Indeed, the audience must become committed to something greater than a narrative in a story world; they must become committed to the core message, the meta-narrative. Therefore, the audience needs to become not only immersed, but also engaged. Jackie Turnure (as cited in Pratten 2011 p.63) proposes five points in processes for audience engagement:      Engage – create curiosity and suspense Involve – create compelling characters Extend – direct audience within and across media Surprise – keep audience on the move Reward – make it worthwhile. Thus, with these points, the audience can transcend beyond being immersed in one platform and can actually become engaged and committed to the meta-narrative of the story world they enjoy through multiple channels. When the audience becomes committed to a metanarrative, an array of new options become available for the storyteller to narrate to his dedicated users. For example, the threshold for expositing older narrative information of the story world vanishes, since the dedicated user is aware of the narrative information in previous explorations and is conscious about the present narrative attributions. Metatextuality also becomes easier, as the user is more likely to be aware of the other texts being referenced. Dedication towards a meta-narrative can pay off for an audience, as they are more enlightened about the current narrative events of a story world and the references made to previous narrative information that only dedicated users would know. A good example is Star Wars, where in Episode II: Attack of the Clones, senator Bail Organa is first seen. Audiences that had already viewed previous episodes would have known that the senator's last name implies he would be the one to adopt Princess Leia Skywalker/Organa. Later on, in Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, it is revealed that senator Organa was the one responsible for C3PO's mind-wipe and placing the droids in the care of Captain Antilles. These references, while not noticeable to the average consumer, is an extra perk for users 38 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences that are aware of the previous narrative information spread to audiences. In our interview, game expert Drew Davidson (personal communication, March 22, 2015) explained that the success of Star Wars as story world was also thanks to that they had their own mythology that invited for audience engagement to traverse the entire grand story, always finding new narrative events in the story world. The captivated attention of a user that willingly wants to traverse the entire grand story channels is logically far more profitable than that of an average consumer that only explores one channel of the story world. Even more so, understanding the gratification of dedicated users across the grand story helps the storyteller in anticipating the variables of success in new narrative information, as you know what they enjoy from your story world. Also, this enables the storyteller to devise a preferred reading order, rendering the Figure 8: Pratten's model of audience engagement likeliness of grand story traversal of users to a more desirable, coordinated and measurable state. In figure 8, multiple forms of audience engagement work as causal effects can be seen. When starting to create audience engagement, it can be seen that the audience's knowledge of story world and interactivity with characters increases, from which more interaction and reaction is born that stimulates audiences to discover other narrative extensions and thereby becoming more invested in the meta-narrative and narrative attributions. This commitment from loyal users that actively seek to traverse all channels is what makes transmedia storytelling profitable. The users become participative and actively seek to explore all narrative extensions to fulfill their gratifying needs. Also, audience engagement can create a fandom that actively preach the enjoyment of story worlds to others. In our interview, Robert Pratten (personal communication, March 31, 2015) explains that the passion of fans affects the motivation of other audiences to experience your story world. His example is that of books. He says that some people only buy the New York Bestseller books. However, these books could only have reached that status by the passion of users affecting other audiences, thereby becoming users themselves. This passion of fans is quite profitable in the concept of transmedia, where passionate engagement can be conducted across multiple channels, generating multiple sources of income for storytellers. 39 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences There is thus an urgent need for the industry to rephrase what the actual benefits of transmedia storytelling should be and how to reach these benefits, rather than simply categorizing what is transmedia and what is not. Indeed, there is a need to understand what gratifies the users in a story world and what triggers them to actively explore the grand story and willingly becomes participative throughout all narrative extensions. The potential of transmedia storytelling is that a user can become committed to more than simply a story in a story world; users can become committed to a story world itself, formed by the narrative attributions. We can measure the sales success of singular channels in a transmedia experience (box office, viewer ratings etc.) however, the industry has little idea as to how to measure or anticipate the actual percentage of an audience that consistently follows the progression of the story world and attempts to scrutinize the meta-narrative, actively searching for new narrative information from the storytellers, based on their engagement with the narrative attributions. One might argue that this need for constant participation of users is what makes transmedia storytelling worthwhile to produce and that constant participation throughout all channels from users should be an end goal for storytellers. After extensive research in transmedia, a proper definition of a user's constant loyalty and participation in a transmedia story world seems to be missing. Immersion is not the right end goal of transmedia; immersion usually only discusses the engagement of users at the actual moment of experiencing. It is the constant growth of the story world and the maintained level of narrative attributions that spark interest in the story world by consumers that makes them want to migrate across channels and thereby making the model of transmedia storytelling profitable. Therefore this thesis defines the connotation of a term that looks at this essential component of transmedia storytelling, called participative consistency. While not an active component that is visible within transmedia, it is this intrinsic core within audiences that describes how transmedia storytelling as a context (as we have seen in chapter 1) gives greater enjoyment of narrative attributions for users, as well as greater optimization of metanarrative spreadability and exponential profit for producers through multiple channels. Participative consistency should be defined as followed: Transmedia storytelling component that discusses the continuous loyal commitment of one user across multiple channels and reaching greater engagement in transmedia story world exploration. This engagement is achieved by incentives supplied by constant narrative attribution, migratory cues and curiosity in the current state, as well as the future expansion of the story world. Many of the experts in the interviews conducted for this research understood what was meant when talking about participative consistency in the context of transmedia storytelling. 40 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences They recognized the phenomenon of constant engagement and loyalty and agreed that this should be what a story world must invoke: curiosity in narrative progression, slowly shifting into loyalty of user participation that is constantly interested in the progression of the grand story and the execution of narrative attributions through different channels. Experts also agreed that measuring the qualitative success of a story world on a large audience scale is nigh possible. Some agree that social media could be used to reach out for feedback, while these same experts agree that social media may not be the best transparent focalization of the actual narrative engagement of audiences in the story world. Some experts also proposed that audiences could have better migratory incentives to follow a story world when they discover that their interaction and narrative knowledge of the story world serves for the further enjoyment of the story world in other extensions. This means that the audience gets more pleasure out of a grand story by actually loyally following the grand story, thanks to their previous gained knowledge in other narrative events. An example is Assassin's Creed. In 2014, two games where released almost simultaneously on different consoles: Assassin's Creed: Unity for the PS4 and Xbox One and Assassin's Creed: Rogue for the PS3 and Xbox 360. The narratives of these games did not affect one another until the final mission of Assassin's Creed: Rogue, wherein you as the player kill the father of the protagonist you play in Assassin's Creed: Unity. Users that had loyally traversed the grand story in the correct order could gain more narrative enjoyment out of the events unfolding, as they were aware of the underlying narrative that led to the murder of the father. Another example in Assassin's Creed: Rogue is the link with characters from previous games. For example, Assassin's Creed: Rogue's events take place before Assassin's Creed III, while that game was released a few years earlier. In the new game we learn why some characters have specific traits. For example, the Assassin Mentor Achilles in Assassin's Creed III walks with a limp. In the events of Rogue that play 15 or 20 years before the events of III, it is actually seen that the Grandmaster of the Templars spares Achilles' life after a duel, instead shooting him through his right shin. Users that had already played Assassin's Creed III and started playing Rogue could have anticipated that they would learn from the events in this game why Achilles walks with a limp once they saw young Achilles walking fine. Thus, participative consistency was rewarded by making previous narrative knowledge meaningful for extra enjoyment in the current progression of story world. The same gratification of previous narrative knowledge is present in Star Wars. The videogame Star Wars: The Force Unleashed tells the previously unknown information of what happened between Episodes III and IV. The narrative events in this videogame detail how Darth Vader finishes his Jedi Purge (started in Episode III) and how the Rebel Alliance came to be formed. This new narrative information overjoyed many fans and loyal users, as 41 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences the founding of the Rebel Alliance had always been relatively vague and unknown. Furthermore, in the game we learn that the logo the Rebel Alliance uses is actually the family crest of the protagonist you play (in his honor, as the first one to openly oppose the evil Galactic Empire). These new narrative events were enjoyed by many Star Wars fans as they connected the old trilogy with the new trilogy. Those who only enjoyed one trilogy of the two could still enjoy the videogame of The Force Unleashed, because of the careful planning of narrative revelations and how these events impacted the aftermath of the episodes of I-III, while also setting up the stage wherein the events of IV-VI would unfold. Again, participative consistency was rewarded by the storytellers to loyal users. Audiences that were involved in the Star Wars universe received many answers to narrative mysteries that they perhaps were not even aware they wanted answered, but were ecstatic about it when they experienced the videogame. Even though the videogame was of excellent quality on its own, it could only be optimally enjoyed by users aware of previous narration in the Star Wars universe. This caused for a closer look at the gained benefits for producers. When discussing the perceived effects of participative consistency, has already been established that it informs audiences that continuous engagement pays off in their enjoyment of the story world. For storytellers, this means that they can greatly expand with the narrative richness in platforms, since transmedia storytellers can devise story arcs that transcend beyond one platform. However, it must not be forgotten that each new narrative product must be autonomous to watch, as well as offering something new to the story world. This can be achieved by the meta-narrative staying intact in each extension, as well as the narrative attributions, from there on out sparking the user's interest in the grand story of the story world. Storytellers can, for example, invoke curiosity by adding negative capability to the narrative, promising narrative revelation in a new channel not yet explored by users. This might trigger the audience to become invested in the other channels of the story world and in every new narrative from there on out, even those not yet created. When a user is invested in all channels (and thereby showing participative consistency), transmedia storytellers can make the biggest profit, as well as deliver the best possible narrative product since there is optimal engagement of previous narrative knowledge gathered by participative consistent users. As an example another look at Assassin's Creed will be taken. When Ubisoft released Assassin's Creed II, which takes place during the Renaissance period, all platforms and channels were adjusted to the story of the Renaissance protagonist called Ezio. The Renaissance period was the setting for two more Assassin's Creed games, collectively called the Ezio trilogy. It seemed that fans could not get enough of Ezio, with novels and comics detailing his further life outside of the games and several short films illustrating his 42 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences father's adventures, as well as an animated short that detailed Ezio's peaceful death of old age. Additionally, this animated short introduced Shao Jung, a young Chinese girl that would get her own story in the game Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China, four years after the animated short. This enrichment of Ezio's life and the Assassins and Templars during the Renaissance period would not have been able without proper narrative attribution. Audiences were invested in the character of Ezio and were greatly interested in everything surrounding him. This participative consistency of users allowed for Ubisoft to expand further on the story world of Assassin's Creed, while the loyal users enjoyed further narrative extension of story world, happily paying for more entertainment. This allowed for the construction of a balance wherein the storytellers kept constructing the story world further, with the loyal users eager for more narrative information, becoming more and more immersed in the story world with each new narrative product. This set-up of balance between story world extension by storytellers, consumed by participative consistent users could not have happened without properly and consistent executed narrative attributions. In this particular case, user engagement was most likely because of transmedial character execution (Ezio) and the story world aesthetic (Renaissance). This thesis argues that it is the implementation of narrative attributions that conjure participative consistency in users. That is to say, they are emotionally involved in the progression of narrative events that actively change the story world and how it changes their experience of the story world. Participative consistent users enjoy the narrative attributions the meta-narrative offers and feel the need to explore everything there is known about the grand story and meta-narrative. Indeed, storytellers must first execute proper consistent narrative attribution, susceptible for improvement if not executed properly and applicable for multimodality that prove to be the key toward participative consistency and thereby, the full potential of transmedia storytelling, forming a measurement tool for narrative engagement wherein narrative attributions are the variables and participative consistency the end goal. However, even with the conception of participative consistency in transmedia, there is still no transparency in how to measure transmedia success without the proper model. Even so, setting participative consistency as a set goal is an excellent way for storytellers to know what the results of measurement should be (the level of narrative attribution enjoyment) and how to get to that end goal. 43 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Chapter 5: The Hidden Markov Model It has already been dissected that participative consistency stems from narrative attribution. It is now possible to look at a system how we will be able to measure and anticipate the probable likelihood of success of transmedia enjoyment in a story world. These will be based on narrative attribution success in that story world. The industry needs to always be aware of what it exactly is audiences enjoy from their story world at that moment and how they can give audiences more of that enjoyment. This way the need of committed users is appeased, as well as that it keeps the story world consistent. The key towards this consistency in story world, as well as participative consistency, are narrative attributions. After different theories and investigations regarding measurement tools, it is discovered that a possible effective way to measure transmedia success in terms story world narrative enjoyment is by using the Hidden Markov Model. This is a stochastic process theory, meaning that it works as a probability theory and not as an absolute. We cannot measure full expectancy of users behaviour, since all users interact differently and collecting every single potential user's migratory behaviour data is practically impossible. Therefore, we analyze the components of the story world and estimate their level of effect. The model works as a continuous time model and will allow for a prediction of possible success from future narrative extensions (films, games etc.), as well as observation of the value of current narrative attributions and how they shape the audience's understanding of the story world. To understand this model, the Markov chain first needs to be explained. For the sake of understanding the model in correlation with transmedia story worlds, the explanation of the Hidden Markov Model in this thesis will not delve to deep into the numerical context of the Hidden Markov Model and keep it simplified by demonstrating a few examples. Created by Andrey Markov (1906, p.135-156), the Markov chain is used worldwide as a tool for predicting seemingly autonomous processes. In its essence, the Markov chain describes the probability of a phenomenon's transition from one state to another with known variables of information. Markov seemed to have perfected his theory in 1910, as witnessed from a letter to one of his colleagues (Basharin et al., 2004, p.13). In present-day, multiple Markov models are used in many different real-world processes to anticipate a future state of a phenomenon by observing its current state, such as the spread of a specific language, changing the phenomenon into an observable system that can be altered and anticipated. Systems and routines are often involved with the prediction of outcomes based on previous outcomes. The Markov chain can transform a seemingly random process into a system. In the Markov chain, the prediction of future situations is 44 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences solely dependent of the current situation at hand, and is not influenced by past events that led to the current situation. A good example is the difference between board games and card games. Consider the differences in probable outcomes in each game. In a board game, the only thing that essentially matters is the current state of the pawns. The next state of the pawns is dependent on the next roll of the dice. In consideration, the previous state of the board setting does not matter for the outcome of the next state. However, in a card game such as blackjack, players can get an advantage by remembering the previous states of the game when previous cards had been shown that thereby affect the future state. Therefore, the current state is not independent from the past state. In systems such as transmedial worldbuilding, we will see that not every variable is as observable as that of a board game. Another example of the Markov chain is by demonstrating an autonomous process: the prediction of weather (Kohlschein 2006, p.3). Let us consider that the weather can have three different possibilities: sunny, cloudy and rainy. Naturally, not every state is as probable as the other, as the outcome of only having sunny days becomes smaller and smaller with each day. Every day the probable outcome of the weather is measured based on the information of previous days. While that may sound contradicting, the previous days of weather are actually still in the current state, influencing the future state. Let us Figure 9: Hidden Markov Model Example define that the line between past state and current state is 10 previous days of weather outcome. The definition of current state and previous state depends on the executioner of the model. The previous information about the outcome and predictions we had during the last 10 days will help to better understand the probability of weather outcome for the next day. And so, that outcome then again helps us in predicting the weather for the next day, and so on. However, it must also be taken into consideration that the weather prediction can be changed by multiple, hidden variables which we cannot measure in value. These can include humidity, air pressure, pollution and so forth. These hidden factors affect the possible causes for a change in weather probability. Sometimes one cannot systematically measure 45 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences these factors, such as a sudden increase in ozone pollution. In that case, the prediction of an outcome cannot be analyzed effectively since there are altering factors that alter the straightforward methods of Markov chain analysis. For these types of measuring processes, a shift towards scrutinizing a slightly different method is made: the Hidden Markov Model. As will be demonstrated, the Hidden Markov Model is an effective way to predict transmedia story world narrative success and recognizing what the narrative attribution strengths are in a story world and how hidden variables alter the outcome of success probability. The Hidden Markov Model allows to more structurally predict the future state of a process without knowing all variables and their movements. Hidden Markov Models 'provide a conceptual toolkit for building complex models just by drawing an intuitive picture' (Eddy, 2004). That is, some unpredictable variables cannot be measured in a transparent way because they are changing their state sequentially or are not applicable for constant observation such as observable variables. From these 'hidden variables' we can indeed, only draw an intuitive picture. However, with the hidden variables one could anticipate their impact of the observable variables and predict how both forms of variables will transform the current state to the future state. Figure 9 portrays how a Hidden Markov Model would work. We observe the observable variables, while drawing an intuitive picture of the hidden variables that cannot be measured and estimate the probability how they affect the impact of the observable variables and the outcome of a future state. For example, take a YouTube viral clip as an example. We can observe the content within a video (the narrative attributions), but cannot observe the likability how much the video will be shared (cannot be measured by observing the narrative of the video, only anticipated). However, based on comment feedback and structural content in the viral video, the user that uploaded the video can estimate the expectancy level to how frequent the video will be shared. This form of estimating the expectancy level of success, based on reviewing observable variables that correlates the hidden variables are also present within transmedia storytelling. Here, narrative attributions serve as the observable variables, which are valued by the response of audience feedback. The Hidden Markov Model adds a layer of prediction without having the wisdom to predict completely solid outcomes. In the weather example it might be that someone could be responsible for predicting the weather, but has been locked up in a house for a couple of days, not seeing anything of the weather outside. Now, the variables of previous weather conditions are unknown, rendering someone unable to give a definitive prediction. However, it is still possible to estimate a future state, based on the information of the values which are known and the likeliness how the hidden variable values correlate with the known variable 46 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences values. That is, the known variables (e.g. story world aesthetics) can influence the hidden variables (e.g. hype for a product). The known variables of narrative attributions and multimodality affordances are discovered by feedback from audiences. Storytellers need to reach out to users to ask what they so enjoy and ask them to rate it in order to get meaningful input. From there on out, the variables become known and observable, optimal for correlation with hidden variables (which in transmedia can be unpredictable phenomena such as the user's level of multimodality or user's previous narrative knowledge about the story world) to research their combined causal effects for the future state of your story world and how you can alter that future state. In the interviews conducted, many experts acknowledged that every story is different and therefore no two campaigns or metanarratives are the same. They recognized that in the current state, transmedia storytelling is hard to predict since we do not know the full potential of transmedia storytelling yet, since there is no universal conception of what transmedia storytelling should contain. This thesis has suggested the context and content of transmedia story worlds and how they construct measurement optimization. Now these theories will be transposed into the context of transmedia storytelling by using the examples of Star Wars and Assassin's Creed's story world narrative attributions. In transmedia, all observable states can be anticipated in their numerical values by fan feedback. The hidden states are the values from which numerical value feedback simply is not possible. Indeed, we can observe the current state of story world by narrative attribution feedback to alter and improve the expected success of the future state of a story world. As said earlier, the Markov chain can transform a seemingly random process into a system. Therefore, analysis of a current story world state and expectancy of the future state should be a continuous system. The Hidden Markov Model can not only be valuable for new single narrative extensions and their expectancy of success, but the Hidden Markov Model also works to scrutinize the overall observable and hidden states of the story world. To demonstrate, two examples will be given for observation: one short example that forms the probability of future state success (Star Wars) and one expanded example that observes the success of current state (Assassin's Creed). For these examples, the different variables applicable to the Hidden Markov Model will be Figure 10: Planned narrative canon releases before Star Wars Episode VII 47 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences discussed, firstly in application with the release of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. One of the biggest variables is the narrative attribution of transmedial characters. The new film promises the return of many beloved characters such as Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, absent from the big screen for thirty years. With their announced return in the story world, they therefore can become part of the current state of the transmedia product, affecting the future state of the transmedia product's success. Another big pull is the aesthetic of the story world. Audiences enjoy the aesthetic of the presence of the Force, actively affecting the events of the narrative. The last known variable is multi-narrative design, forged by the previous narrative extensions set up by the canon releases that occur between episodes that will actively influence the new episode VII. However, one of the hidden variables that cannot be measured is the variable of 'hype'. The anticipation of this long-awaited film has spurred many rejoices among audiences and will no doubt this will influence the audiences that will have otherwise not been interested by the known variables of narrative attribution. It is so that that the known variables affect the value of the hidden hype variable, but it is not possible to correctly anticipate the expectancy of the variable value of hype. Thus, while the positively received narrative attributions of characters are known, story world aesthetics are visible for the model and optimal for measurement, the variable of hype fogs the outcome of the transmedia success. The storytellers can only hope that those audiences affected by hype will become committed users, becoming engaged in participative consistency through all the future and previous products. Story world aesthetics Hype Characters MultiNarrative Design Figure 11: HMM example for Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens By applying the model, we have learned that the most obvious measurable variables in Star Wars would be character, aesthetics and muli-narrative design. If the storytellers want to value these attributions, they would have to reach out to audiences and receive fan feedback to the enjoyment of the current state. However, the hidden variable of hype is most likely of great impact to the acceptance of Episode VII as a new narrative extension. Once Episode 48 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences VII is out (and the future state turns into the current state), Lucas Story Group should again implement the Hidden Markov Model to the story world to see whether the new narrative extension has uplifted the enjoyment of narrative attributions in the story world and actually has contributed to participative consistency in some users. Now a demonstration of the Hidden Markov Model within the meta-narrative of Asssassin's Creed will be performed, not in the context of a new narrative extension acceptance, but the narrative success of the current state of story world based on narrative attributions. Case Study: Measuring Assassin's Creed Story World Acceptance of the meta-narrative combined with curiosity for further exploration to the story world provides the storytellers an audience which helps them to create the demand of narrative progression their audiences so desire. This connection between supply and demand allows for the further construction of the grand story, creating more narratives that unfold in the story world and trigger events that alter the grand story. But as a storyteller, one must first become aware of the current state of the story world and see what are your strengths and weaknesses, so that you can alter them by new narrative extensions, changing the future state of the story world. The outcome of measuring the current state of a story world in its own could be quite fruitful. Based on the correlation between how much observable and hidden variables influence each other, storytellers can opt for an efficient strategy to change the current state of the story world to a more transparent future state, wherein all variables become even better suited for observation. For this example, we will be looking at a Hidden Markov Model using the current observable state of the Assassin's Creed story world narrative. The observable variables will be scrutinized, along with mentioning the likely hidden variables that influence the enjoyment of the story world. While gameplay is a big asset to the product of Assassin's Creed, it's quality is not an affecting part to the grand story of Assassin's Creed. Therefore the model will only look at narrative factors and how these can be improved, since many users seem to find the Assassin's Creed narrative attributions lacking, based on online feedback. If storytellers wish to attribute the narrative variables, extensive research and analysis within communities must be conducted. For this test, social media website pages from developer Ubisoft, as well as many forums about Assassin's Creed have been explored. To draw a boundary between current state and previous states of a story world, the current state is regarded from the start of the America saga (started early 2011) until May 2015. Note that the numerical values to the variables are hypothetical and only serve as a demonstration how the Hidden Markov Model can be used to analyze the observable and hidden variables 49 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences of a story world. The implementation of the observable narrative attribution variables is applicable to many transmedial story worlds. The observable variables will consist out of narrative attribution and how they create the meta-narrative. The hidden variables will consist out of factors that alter the acceptance of consistent meta-narrative pursuit. Observable Variables These observable variables can be estimated in its values by audience feedback, as well as current product success with the story world. Strengths and weaknesses in the observable narrative attribution variables gives the storyteller an idea on what is appreciated from the story world and how weaker attributions might be improved by the strength of the stronger attributions. Multi-Narrative Design While multiple narratives seem to happen at the same time from Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag on forward in the same research facility of Abstergo Entertainment, none of these narratives are in each other's causal effect, aside from some brief mentioning's. From the first game until the fifth one, all narrative events was focused on protagonist Desmond Miles who witnessed historical facts from his two ancestors Altaïr and Ezio in different games. Aside from that, the actions by Altaïr and Ezio were in each other's causal effect, forming a multi-narrative design that spanned multiple media. However, since Desmond and his ancestors have passed away and his narrative seemingly was of no effect to the current events, his actions do not take part in the current state of the story world. Aside from a brief mentioning of Desmond in Black Flag, his events from the first five games (saving the world from a meteor) do not seem to matter in the current state of story world. While the metanarrative of Assassin's Creed revolves around an eternal battle between Assassins and Templars through history, none of the battles through history seem to affect each other except for one: the final narrative events of Rogue (PS3, Xbox 360), which sets the stage for Unity (PS4, Xbox One). Concluding, there are the upcoming Chronicle games but in the current state it has not been affirmed nor will it be likely that these three narratives will be in each other's causal effect. Numerical Value: 2 out of 10 Aesthetics of Story World The aesthetics of story world is something fans seem to enjoy heavily, based on their fan responses in polls and social media comments. The best-received story world setting by fans seems to be the Renaissance period, which was constructed by Ubisoft from 2008 until 50 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences 2011. However, because of its success, a new game called Assassin's Creed: Identity with customizable characters will again take place in the Renaissance period. Some of the latest narrative products, Rogue and Unity were the stages of the French-Indian war and Revolutionary France. Both story world aesthetics were welcomed wholeheartedly and praised for their appeal. The present story world wherein you as an unknown protagonist work as an employer for Abstergo Entertainment that travels through history also seems to be enjoyed by the majority of fans. Finally, the first Chronicle series game was released, Chronicle: China. Again, many fans enjoyed the art style and found it suitable for the Ming dynasty's aesthetic setting. These prospects are good for the upcoming Chronicle games, India and Russia as well as Syndicate, a straightforward sequel to Unity, set in Victorian London instead of Revolutionary Paris. While fans do not always get the desired setting in a new narrative product, they are almost always satisfied with the aesthetics afterwards, appreciating the cultural elements that each specific setting brings to the meta-narrative of Assassins versus Templars. Numerical value: 8 out of 10 Distributed Narratives In the current state of Assassin's Creed as a transmedial experience, most of the audiece attention and efforts from Ubisoft go into the games. The games serve as a 'mother platform', from which all other narrative extensions are decided. In Assassin's Creed, much background information is being distributed through the medium of text. For example, an extensive description of Haytham Kenway (an important antagonist in three different games) is being discussed in the novel Assassin's Creed: Forsaken. The novel is written as a journal of Haytham Kenway, making the character feel alive beyond more than one medium. Then there are also the comics, which are used to narrate events of assassins outside of the games, such as Russian assassin Nikolai Orelov, who had his narrative told in two different graphic novels and the upcoming Chronicles: Russia game. Finally, there are the portable games that are usually not of causal effect to the grand story but serve as more in-depth insights on one event. For example Assassin's Creed: Pirates, which takes place in the same aesthetics as Black Flag and Rogue, but which detail an unknown pirate's events that are of causal effect to the supporting cast of the two earlier mentioned games. Textual media and portable games are often placed in the care of third-party developers and are supervised by Ubisoft. Most of the time, all channels make use of their affordances (portable games are short, novels offer background information etc.). While they are not nearly as successful as the games, these distributed narratives are present and allow for committed users to explore the meta-narrative further through these narrative extensions. 51 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Numerical value: 7 out of 10 Engaging Transmedial Characters The community seems to be very divided on their favor to the protagonists of the historical settings. In the past, the best received characters was Ezio Auditore de Firenze, a charismatic flamboyant assassin in the Renaissance era. Another well-enjoyed character was Edward Kenway, the scurvy pirate from Black Flag. In recent narratives, many favour the protagonist from Rogue, the witty Irish Shay Patrick Cormag. It would seem that mostly the noisy and rude assassins are favorite by the audiences. However, in recent years, not many assassins have switched their narratives between mediums. Aside from Shao Jun in Chronicle: China who originates from comic narrative, characters in the current state of story world like Shay Patrick Cormag do not traverse between channels. Protagonist's narratives are opened and concluded within the same channel. Instead, multiple channels tell the narrative events of one historical setting by the hand of different protagonists. While that is a profound strategy, the transmedial characters who are protagonists cannot build a lasting dynamic with audiences across channels. However, many supporting cast (especially in the America saga period) reoccur between games. But even then, these supporting members to protagonists stay on only one platform and remain two-dimensional in their actions. Numerical value: 5 out of 10 Hidden Variables Hidden variables are the variables that cannot be given a numerical value since they are often temporary phenomena, even though storytellers must be aware of their impact to the observable variables and therefore the appeal of the story world. Hidden variables are also speculations and unfathomable phenomena that dictate the success of a current state or the likeliness of the acceptance of a future state. Narrative Platform Interconnectivity A problem Assassin's Creed story world is the lack of interconnectivity between platforms. While all platforms serve to expand on the narrative events of a singular historical setting that serves the meta-narrative of Assassin's Creed, most platforms do not recognize each other and often contradict. For example, the short animation Assassin's Creed: Embers introduced the Chinese assassin Shao Jun, the main protagonist in the game Chronicle: China. However, much of what is discussed in the animation is not applicable anymore in the game, such as a change of weapons and Shao's background story. Another example is Edward Kenway's children, Jennifer Scott and Haytham Kenway. Their attitudes towards 52 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences their father and each other differ between channels, thereby breaking the illusion of a consistent story world. These examples of narrative inconsistencies scatter users into believing what is true for the meta-narrative. Preferred Reading While the previous state of the story world was always clear (the journey of Desmond Miles), current narrative events do not seem to matter in the state of reading order. Aside from the chronology of events through history, little to no effort is being done by the storytellers to scatter migratory cues or incentives for audiences to traverse the grand story in a preferred reading order. Thereby, storytellers miss the opportunity for multi-narrative design that is in each other's causal relations, to which the user is more likely persuaded to traverse all previous narrative extensions in order to get the maximal experience from current narrative events in the story world. Repetitive Narrative After some research, it would appear that in the past few years every narrative extension mainly focused around the training of a new assassin, their quest for the Pieces of Eden to defeat the Templars, and the betrayal of someone the assassin thought he or she could trust. This distrust in the narrative quality alters the enjoyment of narrative attribution, since there is a lack of trust in something new that sparks interest. Therefore, audiences that are familiar with Assassin's Creed storylines think twice before buying a new narrative product, since they feel that every product is merely a repetition that does not seem to go anywhere. Uses & Gratification The story world is still lacking in determining what their users enjoy most. Indeed, many historical information and knowledge is placed within the games. But most communities admit they are hardly interested in the narrative background of the meta-narrative. At the same time, Ubisoft continues making new novels and comics that do not provide the same interactive nature as the games. These channels might not be what sparks the interests of users in why they engage with the Assassin's Creed story world in the first place, which is gameplay. Multi-Narrative Design Aesthetics of Story World Distributed Narratives •Narrative Platform Interconnectivity •Preferred Reading •Repetitive Narrative Engaging Transmedial Characters •Uses & Gratification 53 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Figure 12: Observable and Hidden variables of Assassin's Creed Story World Observable variables Numerical Values Multi-Narrative Design 2 Aesthetics of Story World 8 Distributed Narratives 7 Engaging Transmedial Characters 5 Average value 5,5 The value of narrative attributions in Assassin's Creed variates greatly, resulting in a meager average value. This is an accurate metaphor for the story world, as we have seen in the past that the meta-narrative can act to tell multiple narratives in one story world that allows for discovery, as well as leading to a narrative climax. However, in the current state the multinarrative design, as well as engaging transmedial character attributions are of low value. All variables are in correlation with one another and affect each other's impact to the transmedia experience. For example, well-structured engaging transmedial characters reduce the impact of hidden variables like uses and gratification, since storytellers then know users engage with their storytellers for the gratifying purpose of interacting with characters. As we see with the observable variables, the aesthetics of the story world and the distribution of narratives are well received by audiences. However, the level of character enjoyment is often diverse, depending on the narrative extension. The biggest problem is the missing component of transmedia storytelling wherein narrative events entwine and are connected through each other's causal effects. Therefore, the hidden variables of platform interconnectivity, preferred reading and repetitive narrative can emerge, since the narratives become too singular and non-impactful to the grand story, failing to trigger participative consistency. Conclusion The observable variables explain that there is certainly much potential in the meta-narrative of Assassin's Creed. The optimal set-up of an everlasting battle between two factions throughout known history certainly allows the storytellers to explore multiple settings with multiple characters. More often than not these settings and characters appeal to the audiences because they find them meaningful an worth to invested in, becoming interested in exploring all the narrative events that have occurred and perhaps still will occur However, these narrative events are too singular in their causal effects to the meta-narrative and towards each other's appeal. There seems to be a lack of narrative exploration drive by the 54 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences majority of fan communities, as most of them only explore the games. While the games generate enough profit for the production of narrative extensions in text and portable games, little to no incentives are being given to audiences to explore these deeper parts of the metanarrative, neglecting them for participative consistency. The hidden variables explains the fan communities and their feelings towards the grand story of the story world that does not seem to go anywhere since the ending of the Desmond Miles saga. Many fans feel, while the gameplay is often excellent, the narrative quality does not reach further than repetition and obvious narrative tropes. Then why should they bother reading deeper information about the story world in other channels? The lack of consistency in narrative information about characters and the scarcity of a preferred reading order does not allow for Assassin's Creed in the current state to become a story world in which audiences want to become invested in a deeper level where they want to explore as many channels as possible and reach participative consistency. The story world of Assassin's Creed used to be consistent and was working towards a narrative connection between channels in a previous state. However, in this current state from 2011 and on it seems that every narrative is singular in its experience. At the same time, audiences get too few incentives to migrate from channels and traverse the grand story. Therefore, the multimodal nature of transmedia storytelling becomes neglected. While the games may still be selling well, audiences have little interest in the underlying elements of the story world and how all narratives interweave. New narrative extensions that actively trigger the audience to explore by migratory cues might uplift the current state of the Assassin's Creed story world to a better state with a higher participative consistency from audiences. 55 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Chapter 6: Concluding towards an understanding of Transmedia Success This thesis suggests that the recognition of channels and motivations of transmedia storytelling traversal (context), as well as the implementation of consistent narrative attribution (content) can form a paradigm of transmedia storytelling, forming a much-needed generalization in the industry of the crucial components to observe and measure transmedia success. As the main question, we wanted to research how the augmentation of participative consistency can assist in constructing a framework of success measurement in transmedia. Therefore this thesis is constructed to the acknowledgement of what makes transmedia as a narative model successful and how that leads to measurement and participative consistency. We have seen in chapter 3 that methods like migratory cues and negative capability are an active form of placing incentives for the audience that drives users forward to other channels in pursuit of the grand story of the story world. In these channels, multiple narrative events can occur that should be in each other's causal effects. The Hidden Markov Model does not review the channels in itself, but rather how the narrative content of the channel is being appreciated by audiences. A high value of narrative attributions can indicate there is a likely drive from users to pursuit these narrative attributions in the execution of other channels. We have looked how we can best frame participative consistency in terms of reasoning and modeling. As discussed in the explanation, participative consistency is achieved by incentives supplied by constant narrative attribution, migratory cues and curiosity in the current state, as well as the future expansion of the story world. Thus, participative consistency should be regarded as an end goal, wherein users become fully engaged while generating the most profit for the storytellers. This can only be achieved by the formation of excellent story worlds that carry constant narrative attributions, which are optimal for narrative value improvement and observation from the Hidden Markov Model. This thesis suggests that participative consistency is the component that strikes motivation in users and allows them to become fully engaged with the meta-narrative. We have looked at how we can best diversify the meta-narrative throughout the platforms. Again, this refers back to the concept that transmedia story worlds should be constantly growing through narrative channels. This narrative consistency allows for the Hidden Markov Model to value the narrative attributions through the entire story world, as well as estimating what the probable hidden variables will be for these narrative attributions. We also looked at whether there is a hypertext of successful narrative tropes. As many experts already suggested in the interviews, no two story worlds are identical. Nonetheless, every transmedia story world is constructed from the level of multi-narrative design, aesthetics, distribution of narratives and characters. These narrative attributions are constant 56 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences and crucial in story world construction and should be observable in each transmedia story world, regardless of meta-narrative or channel quantity. The Hidden Markov Model is used to measure the level of narrative attributions and how other immeasurable effects can alter that enjoyment. The Hidden Markov Model has no outcome, but should serve as an observation of the likelihood of participative consistency. In this time wherein audiences expect more out of their narrative products, it is participative consistency that gives storytellers a clear goal for transmedia producers to pursuit in order to gain a profitable product. Commitment and engagement of users is reached by meaningful narrative attribution, wherein narrative attributions stay in line in regulation of the metanarrative throughout each platform's affordances wherein each singular narrative event serves to tell the grand story of a story world itself. However, as we have seen with the Hidden Markov Model, there is a probable difficulty in how to value all the known narrative variables of the transmedia product. Even more, unknown variables such as hype, timing and distribution can alter the outcome of transmedia product acceptance. Therefore, the conclusion is that the success measurement of transmedia storytelling can only work in observing the current state of story world and how audiences engage in it, as well as forming probabilities for the success of a future state based on the current state. Constantly using the Hidden Markov Model to predict the likelihood of acceptance of new narrative extensions gives an idea as to what an audience wants and seeks in a story world. With that knowledge, one can then go back and change the planned progression of the story world, getting a better understanding of what gratifying experience users get from the narrative out of the story world. From there, storytellers can again use the Hidden Markov Model to see if the variables have turned favorable, altering the probability of the next narrative extension to be accepted. This thesis attempted to demonstrate the necessity of narrative knowledge within transmedia storytelling for observation purposes, allowing for the users to become engaged and motivated by the meta-narrative, rather than simply spreading content across channels. The industry can greatly benefit from a collective mindset of transmedia storytelling with a collective measurement tool and end goal, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel of transmedia content, context and measurement tools with every new transmedia story world. As of such, the full potential of transmedia storytelling might not have been witnessed yet. Several factors are to blame, most notably the lack of understanding what a transmedia story world should contain in terms of offering a sufficient level of narrative attributions and migratory cues for an audience to become engaged with narrative pursuit, evolving in participative consistency. 57 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Reference List Atkinson, S. (2014). The Performative Functions of Dramatic Communities: Conceptualizing Audience Engagement in Transmedia Fiction. International Journal of Communication, 8, 2201-2219. Bastiaens, O. & Bouwknegt, H. (2014). Transmedia and semiotics, a structural model for transmedia dynamics. 12th World Congress of Semiotics. Basharin, G., Langville, A., & Naumov, V. (2003). The life and work of A.A. Markov Bertetti, P. (2014). Toward a Typology of Transmedia Characters. International Journal of Communication, 8, 2344-2361. Bordwell, D. & Thompson. K. (2009). Now leaving from platform 1. Retrieved from: http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2009/08/19/now-leaving-from-platform-1/ Boumans, J. (2007). Cross-media: an operational term for city and regional development policy. Davis, C. (2013). Audience Value and Transmedia Products. Media Innovations. 175-190 De Graaf, A., Hoeken, S., Sanders, J., & Beentjes, H. (2009). The roles of dimension of narrative engagement in narrative persuasion. 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Welcome to Convergence Culture. Retrieved from: http://henryjenkins.org/2006/06/welcome_to_convergence_culture.html Jenkins, H. (2007). Transmedia Storytelling 101. Retrieved from: http://henryjenkins.org/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html Jenkins, H. (2009). Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture, Media Education for the 21st Century, Cambrige and London: The MIT Press. Jenkins, H. (2010). Transmedia Education: The 7 Principles Revisited. Retrieved from: http://henryjenkins.org/2010/06/transmedia_education_the_7_pri.html Jenkins, H. (2011). Transmedia 202: Further Reflections. Retrieved from: http://henryjenkins.org/2011/08/defining_transmedia_further_re.html Jennings, M. (2000). Theory and Models for Creating Engaging and Immersive Ecommerce Websites. Klastrup, L. & Tosca, S. (2004). Transmedial Worlds - Rethinking Cyberworld Design. Kohlschein, C. (2006). An Introduction to Markov Models. Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Multimodal Discourse: The modes and media of contemporary communication, New York: Oxford UP. Long, G. (2007). Transmedia Storytelling: Business, Aesthetics and Production at the Jim Henson Company. Markov, A. (1906). Rasprostranenie zakona bol’shih chisel na velichiny, zavisyaschie drug ot druga, 135-156. McIntosh, B., Cohn, R., & Grace, L. (2010). Nonlinear Narrative in Games: Theory and Practive. Retrieved from: http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/882/nonlinear_narrative_in_games_.php McQuail, D. (1987). Mass Communication Theory: An Introduction (2nd edn.). London: Sage O'Briens, T. (2008). What is User Engagement? A Conceptual Framework for Defining User Engagement with Technology. Parody, C. (2011). A Theory of the Transmedia Franchise Character. 59 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Phelan, J., & Rabinowitz, P. (2005). A Companion to Narrative Theory: Blackwell. Pratten, R. (2011). Getting Started in Transmedia Storytelling. Producers guild of America (2010). Code of Credits - New Media. Retrieved from: http://www.producersguild.org/?page=coc_nm Rockwell, G. & Mactavish, A. (2004). Multimedia. The Companion to Humanities Computing. Ruppel, M. (2006). Marc Ruppel's latest paper. Retrieved from: http://www.universecreation101.com/marc-ruppels-latest-paper/ Ruppel, M. (2012). Visualizing Transmedia Networks: Links, Paths and Peripheries. Ryan, M. (2004). Narrative Across Media: The Languages of Storytelling, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Scolari, C. (2009). Transmedia Storytelling: Implicit Consumers, Narrative Worlds, and Branding in Contemporary Media Production. International Journal of Communication, 3, 586-606. Toschi, A. (2009). The Entertainment Revolution: Does Transmedia Storytelling Really Enhance the Audience Experience? Von Stackelberg, P. (2011). Creating Transmedia Narratives: The Structure and Design of Stories Told Across Multiple Media. Walker, J. (2004). Distributed Narrative: Telling Stories Across Networks. 60 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Appendix Transcript: Carlos Alberto Scolari Date: 22.02.15 1: What would you say is the best narrative approach to provoke intrinsic motivation within audiences to progress in the story? Traditional tips and tricks like cliffhangers, seriality, intertextual links, etc. still work in transmedia narrative worlds. The suspension of disbelief and the creation of an immersive universe, classical ‘tools’ of written or audiovisual fiction (and videogames!), should also be part of the transmedia strategy. Transmedia storytelling is just a subcategory of storytelling so I consider that the tips and tricks developed in the last 2,500 years still work. In this context, I believe that the most creative and relevant things are coming from the prosumers. For example prosumers are developing new textual formats or narrative strategies in the borderlands of the traditional media system. For example YouTubers are changing traditional television. 2: To what extend do you think one platform within the transmedia story can invoke engaged loyalty for the entire transmedial story? There are different levels of engagement, loyalty and participation. Many consumers may enjoy a book or a TV series but not all of them will expand their consumes to the rest of the narrative universe. Consumers may be loyal to the whole narrative universe or to just a couple of media. I think we need a more complete taxonomy of consumers and prosumers practices. We should analyze many more cases to answer this question! 3: What do you think are the factors that ultimately decide which transmedia story becomes a success and which do not? There are no secret formulas… The same may be said about books or movies: it is almost impossible to forecast the success of a production. However, in “transmedia storytelling” the most important thing is “storytelling”: the transmedia expansion will never save a bad narrative. Transmedia, in this context, is like 3D effects in cinema: they will never save a bad story! If the storytelling is good it will engage the consumers and invite them to explore the narrative universe. 4. How can transmedia producers facilitate the migratory behavior of audiences in transmedia storyworlds? 61 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences They can facilitate this migratory behavior for example developing a good narrative articulation of the different textual pieces. It is impossible to tell everything in a single media… The producer should create interesting intertextual links and seduce/invite the consumer to explore the whole narrative universe. It is important to define very well what to tell in each media; in other words, the producer should also manage the grammar of each media (comics, videogames, etc.). This combination of narrative issues (cliffhangers, interstitial contents, etc.) and media languages should be carefully planned. 5. What role does interpretation of fragments of a narrative play in facilitating the migration of audiences from one platform to another in transmedia storyworlds? Pieces of a narrative which are distributed across multiple platforms but linked together by a subject. This is a complex question that depends on what narrative universe we are talking about. Some short formats (like trailers, sneak peeks or mobisodes) may facilitate the migration from one platform or media to another. Mobisodes or webisodes may also be used to ‘test’ expansions –for example a spinoff of a TV series- before developing a brand new product. 6. How important is it for transmedia producers to know the interpretative skills of their target audiences in order to construct storyworlds? Why? This is basic to design a powerful transmedia world. I’m not just thinking on the “target”: I’m thinking on a more semiotic conception of the audiences/users. If you understand those interpretative skills and the specificity of each language and media grammar you can even create a narrative world that covers different groups (i.e. children, teenagers, adults, etc.) 62 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Transcript: Jen Begeal Date: 26.02.15 Duration: 25:12 1. In your opinion, how should a narrative be fragmented in order to be distributed across multiple platforms? (05:08 - 07:10) Jen remarks that it is a good question. She afterwards also explains that there are many ways to fragment a narrative and that there is not one set of rules. In her opinion, it really depends on the project. However, she does remarks that if you are going to break up a narrative, break it up into characters. That is what she did with her project 'Zenith', where she divided narrative parts into a present and future. She remarks that if you want to break the narrative, you have to break it in that way that the structure fits the actual story itself. 2. How do you decide when one story fragment ends and another one starts? (07:10 08:44) Jen told she actually wrote a blog about that. She tells us that you just have to see where the story naturally ends or naturally changes. Sometimes the story takes a natural turn. But what you don't want, is to force transmedia. However, transmedia should happen naturally. That is, when the storyline or platform changes, that needs to feel very naturally. 3. Which factors affect the construction of a storyworld? (08:44 - 10:10) Jen remarks that the most affective thing to a story world are characters. You cannot have a good story world without good characters. She also says you cannot have a good story world without its own history. You as a creator also have to know the things in the story world that are not visible to the audience. She tells that a story world has a lot of different components. Her example is when you would try to recreate Atlantis. Why does it exist today? What is the history? Who are the people? How did they get there? You have to know your characters and the background. 4. How do you think transmedia producers can facilitate the migratory behaviour of audiences in transmedia storyworlds? (10:10 - 12:38) Jen laughs, remarking that storytellers have tried to uncover that for years now. She also regrets to inform that she really doesn't have an answer. She tells us that you need to know what audiences you are creating for, since not everyone will be interested. She says you have to build your storyworld for the 'deep divers', the people who are gonna be really involved in your project. She also tells that she works a lot with social media and that 63 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences storytellers seemed to have forgot about the power of word-of-mouth since we are so focused in new digital media. She therefore remarks that if you have a good product for a special niche market, those special audiences will surely talk about your product to others. 5. Do you think a transmedia storyworld should be immersive? (12:38 - 13:56) According to Jen, yes and no. It really depends on the story itself. Most transmedia are going to be immersive by definition, because you have to dig deeper to actually become part of the world. She says it really depends on the end goal of your campaign. Most of us create transmedia just because we love it, and because we want to get an outcome from it. What that outcome is and how deep you need your audience to go in the rabbit hole for that is up to you. 6. And what kinds of outcomes do you usually search for... look for? (13:56 - 14:40) Jen says that you want people to buy your product. Or you want them to donate to your campaign or you want to bring awareness to something. There has been some great transmedia campaigns around social issues. Those are just some of the ways that transmedia is used, but there is always some sort of payoff in the end. 7. How do you know that a transmedia project was a success? (14:40 - 15:48) Jen says that is another thing they have been trying to figure out. She actually remarks that she had a conversation with a friend about this the day before. She tells there can be different ways, it also depends on your medium for instance, if you have a social media campaign in your transmedia campaign, you can measure your ROI, you can measure your CPCs, you can measure what the drop-off rate was. Same with websites, you look at your analytics. For transmedia, you have to take all of your mediums and you have to analyze every single platform. 8. What do you think makes people want to pursue a storyworld? (15:48 - 17:22) Jen tells that people just want to be part of a story. They want to feel special. She remembers she and her friend were very immersed in 'Lord of the Rings' and that they started developing stories on their own. So, the story world became very personal for her. A story world can get personal and that is why people get involved. People grasp unto it. As long as we as producers and creators think about the audience first and we think about what kind of stories people identify with, then we'll create more successful stories. 64 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences 9: What would you say is the best narrative approach to provoke intrinsic motivation within audiences to progress in the story? (18:05 - 19:01) Jen says it is asking them to do very simple task. You want their tasks to be simple, but you want to evoke emotion. Get an emotional response. 10: Do you think transmedia platforms should be more 'episodic' of nature, or more 'interactional' of nature? And why? (19:25 - 20:15) Jen says this answer would refer back to the story world answer, that it really depends on the story itself. It can differ. Some stories call for episodic nature, some don't. A love story for example, is not episodic. 11: What do you think are the factors that ultimately decide which transmedia story becomes a success and which do not? (20:15 - 21:24) Jen tells that the ultimate factor, according to her, are characters. Because, people want to identify with characters and with a story. Stories are a mirror and that identifier is usually reflected through the use of characters. 12: For example, with some transmedia fictional stories may be of a fantasy setting, but that is not necessarily based on realism. How then, do you think people still relate to different people or races? (21:24 - 22:55) Jen thinks because they are written from a human point of view. . People identify with dreams and passion. Elves are perfect beings that don't have human problems, they are perfect. People identify with characters, because they are who we are and who we want to be. We usually identify with flawed characters. She also gives the example of Harry Potter, which is sort of a 'Cinderella story', who becomes someone real and more than he was. 13: To what extend do you think one platform within the transmedia story can invoke engaged loyalty for the entire transmedial story? (22:55 - 24:38) Jen explains that in transmedia, most people stay on one platform. People may only follow a story on Facebook. People are platform agnostic. Depends on where they get pulled into first. However, people can suddenly switch when the story takes a sudden turn in which they have to follow. If they are really engaged, but she thinks that is very jarring. She remarks that switching between platforms a lot is very jarring. 65 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Transcript: Andrea Phillips Date: 27.02.15 Duration: 27:20 1. How should a narrative be fragmented in order to be distributed across multiple platforms? (00:50 - 01:58) Andrea thinks it depends on the story you are telling and what works for your audience as there is no one right way to do it. She gets this question a lot, but she thinks some methods serve some outcomes better than others. In Twitter you can create casual characters, but if you don't want them to be casual, don't put them on Twitter. It depends on what artistic purpose you are trying to achieve. 2. How do you decide when one story fragment ends and another one starts? (01:58 03:18) Depends on how people use media. You think of what message you want to convey to the audience. If someone has a flat tire, you could make a series of angry Instagram pictures, that tells the story of the flat tire. Or, you can make one longer video. There is no right way. 3. Which factors affect the construction of the story world? What is essential? (03:18 06:09) She says you need a certain consistency of feeling, between the parts. Mostly that is canon material consistency. She thinks that is just a fashion and that fashion can change. She gives the black/blue-white/gold dress from social media as an example. You can see things different and characters can have that as well. There needs to be a fluency. Once audiences have bought into your core of your story, like that there is magic or there are dragons everything else has to be incrementally based on that, it has to agree in that one big thing you want your audience to believe, that brought them in the story world in the first place. You can make an audience believe anything, as long as it follows with what you have already done. 4. In your book you state, 'the more fragmented a story world is, the more immersive it is.' Why do you think that is? (06:09 - 08:22) She thinks because it feels like a real thing. The brain has a bad boundary between what is fictional and what is not. If a character appears in your mail or social media as a normal person, it becomes harder for your brains to remember he or she is not real, because you want to respond with real emotion as you would do with a real person. She says that 66 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences fragmented story worlds usually means that it is more responsive and more likely to talk back or feel like it could. Everything in the normal world could suddenly become part of transmedia. 5. Do you think it is essential then for a story world to be immersive? (08:22 - 09:08) Andrea doesn't think so. She remarks that we also have books and film that are not necessarily immersive. When we watch a film, we know we are watching a film. You do not feel in any way you are in the film. She thinks there is a tendency in transmedia of things we have invented for stories, but there is like thousand years of narrative theories that are still valid and important. 6. What do you think makes people want to pursue a story world? (09:08 - 10:40) Andrea thinks it depends. She thinks, fundamentally the reason we consume a story is that the story is providing us a desirable and emotional experience, and the kinds of experiences we desire differs in people, that is why we don't like all the same stories. For example, if you like the feeling of falling in love romantically, you can read romance novels in a safe space. Nothing bad is going to happen if you read a story. 7. What kind of strategies do you use to guide audiences from one platform to another? (10:40 - 12:02) She says that a wise man once told her 'if you want your players to know something, tell it to them.' She thinks that you need to make information simple. She thinks, instead of making information organic and hard to find just make a clear story with clear links, with an archive of information or a recap of information. It's all about making it easy and accessible. 8. Do you think current transmedia producers do that? (12:02 - 13:00) She thinks some do, some don't. Sometimes it's not in the aesthetic of what you are trying to achieve, meaning not everyone is going to do all the work so not everybody is part of your audience. She reminds us that there is no right or wrong way to do transmedia. If you want to maintain the core of your story, you may have to sacrifice audience numbers. You can fool people, but you have to know what consequences will be for the choices you are making. 9. How do you think transmedia producers measure the success of transmedia? (13:00 - 15:38) Andrea jokingly says it is black magic. She thinks it funny, because a lot of the success is measured through reach on social media, which is not a real number, purely hypothetical. 67 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences She says there are a lot of shenanigans with presenting numbers and how well you did. However, inwardly this is more difficult because you need to know what you want out of the project, something intangible. Maybe you are looking for an artistic emotional response and then the number of hits don't matter, but the number of posts about feelings. If you are selling something that doesn't matter to you except for the money and sales it will not work. You need to know why you are making this product and who it is for. So you measure your success based on what you were trying to achieve in the project. Once you know what it is, then you can measure what is relevant to that particular outcome. 10. What would you say is the best narrative approach to provoke intrinsic motivation within audiences to progress in the story? (16:00 - 18:04) Andrea says that it is not transmedia. If you want somebody to be extremely motivated to finish the story, you make it zero work for them to finish the story. . That's why you watch TV shows and movies, they are put in front of you and the one after that and even changing the channel is too much effort. In a game, you talk about discrete decisions you have to make. Nobody puts a website in front of you, or like a game. Somebody already has decided to follow the story. Andrea says you need to create tension, unsatisfied curiosity. The feeling that the story is not complete, a question they hope to find the answer for, like clickbait. 11. Do you think transmedia platforms should be more 'episodic' of nature, or more 'interactional' of nature? And why? (18:04 - 20:55) Andrea laughs and says it is funny I should ask this question. She explains the Alternate Reality Game model with the example of a rock show. Once a live event is done, it's done. The reason it is funny is that Andrea is working on a project herself, with a project that feels interactive but is actually not interactive at all. It works with a character that sends mails to players and responses you did in the story world. People do not want to do the work, but they do want to be credited. Andrea says storytellers want to create this feeling of deep immersion. But at the end of the day, only a small fraction of players email a character or contact them. Playing into the crowd as we do with transmedia at this moment, we can definitely do that better. 12. What do you think are the factors that ultimately decide which transmedia story becomes a success and which do not? (21:00 - 23:40) Andrea says it's luck. Luck. Andrea says that there is this myth on the internet that if you make something amazing, then the whole world will come to see it. That is not true. She says there is so much media that just don't make it, perhaps bad marketing or bad relations. 68 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Whether your product succeeds or fails is not a reflection on you or your product, you just never know. Sometimes you might see something great by chance but you stumble across it by accident because it was not promoted. She says it's a cold, hard truth. 13. To what extend do you think one platform within the transmedia story can invoke engaged loyalty for the entire transmedial story? (23:40 - 25:15) Andrea says a lot of power resides in one platform. As an example she mentions Lizzy Bennett. It can start out with one personal video blog and that was so personal that people sought her out on to Facebook and Tumblr. That drove them back to more videos. Ideally, every piece is interesting in its own right. Everything you do is marketing a teaser for everything else. Transcript: Joris Hoebe & Tim Murck Date: 02.03.15 & 03.03.15 Duration: 23:07 & 12:42 2nd of March, 2015 1. What would you say is the best narrative approach to provoke intrinsic motivation within audiences to progress in the story? (06:17 - 09:11) 69 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Tim says he has thought about this and says he's an advocate of focusing everything on the story itself, as quality needs to beat quantity. For the story it is important to make the story interesting. He says you need to give intrinsic motivation with your story if you want your audience interested. However, he says interest beats relatability. He says the balance between relatability and interest needs to be correct. Joris agrees and says that the structure of the story needs to be right. We look in a story for inspiration and change, personal change. Joris says that what we do in transmedia is put the user as the main character. He says all stories are about people who try to get to their end goal. That is what we are trying to do, for example with adding interaction. 2. Do you think transmedia platforms should be more 'episodic' of nature, or more 'interactional' of nature? And why? (09:11 - 13:57) Tim says it depends on the story. He says the episodic structure of transmedia is a reason to be interactional. He thinks interaction is a good thing, but also overrated. His example is, when you have a book, you forget there are other things around you. And that is simply because of the story. Joris says there is also a problem with the term 'transmedia'. We all have different definitions. Joris says he likes the story world aspect of what actually is transmedia. He says Tim is more focused on interaction and platform-hopping, while he is more focused on story worlds. Joris often wonders whether all this migration between platforms is still useful to the story. He says that often sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram do not actually add something to the story essentially. He is not sure whether migration is needed to make an immersive story. 3. What do you think are the factors that ultimately decide which transmedia story becomes a success and which do not? (13:57 - 15:30) Joris questions what a 'success' is. He says there are beautiful projects that only reach ten people, while there are also bad ones that reach millions. Joris says that in their project they had a goal of targets, like reaching 50.000 downloads and they had 90.000 downloads so that was obviously a success. Later on (in the next questions), he also mentions that there are also 'superplatforms' which are dominant, such as television. He believes these platforms already can have a high target audience. He says TV and cinema are the dominant platforms. 70 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Tim says the success factors of your transmedia story are primarily decided by your target audience. So the more people you reach that can relate, the bigger your success. 5. To what extend do you think one platform within the transmedia story can invoke engaged loyalty for the entire transmedial story? (16:58 - 19:37) Tim thinks that is very much the case. He thinks people prefer one platform most of the time. At first audiences are going to experience the story through one platform. But that can trigger that they become all-in invested to the rest of the story on the other platforms. 3rd of March, 2015 6. How can transmedia producers can facilitate the migratory behaviour of audiences in transmedia storyworlds? (01:07 - 03:05) Joris says the easy answer is to make migration easy. So, for example, make design buttons that are attractive that create incentives that are easy to follow up with. But he thinks that is more like a practical thing. He thinks the beauty and difficulty of transmedia is to design this very well. What he likes to perceive this with discovery and difficult migration: not every player is as active as the other. Some want to discover, some don't want to, just sit back and relax. He says that this distinction is basically the difficulty. 7. Do you have any specific strategies that you use in order to guide audiences from one platform to another? (03:05 - 05:14) Joris says we are always looking for this conversion. In his project they had this opportunity for people who downloaded an episode to already watch the next episode and he says that really helped to get people to download. He says the television was the dominant platform and at the end of an episode there was the commercial to download the app. That made it really easy. Fans wanted to be part of the world and did not want to miss out. He says, just like examples such as Marvel, these universes can only exist because of the fans and their love for the characters. 8. What in your opinion, makes audiences pursue a story world? (05:14 - 08:12) Joris says that the one thing is that he doesn't think that the percentage of people who pursue story worlds are not that big. Maybe something like 20 percent of the media consumers. But if they do pursue a story world, he thinks it has to do with escapism and experiencing things you normally wouldn't. Joris says he really likes magic, but he thinks it is 71 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences also cool to be in a world like True Detective. It has to do with discovery and learning new things, changing your perception of the world. 9. What makes the story world immersive then? (08:12 - 09:30) Joris thinks there should be some kind of realness and should be a believable story world, that is our task as world builders, building a world that is coherent, you need to make rules. He says you also need to set the boundaries. 10. Do you think it is essential for a transmedial story world to be immersive? (09:30 10:53) Joris says we are looking for immersion and transmedia is just a strategy for a story to be immersive. To get the attention of the audience, but that does not mean it is not necessarily a goal. Transcript: Drew Davidson Date: 19.03.15 Duration: 21:05 72 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences 1. In Star Wars, do you think the motivation for users to migrate from one platform to another is big enough in that universe? (04:10 - 08:11) Drew mentions that Marie-Laure Ryan and Henry Jenkins have written some interesting things about this. He says that when creating a universe, you are also creating different media that are windows into that universe. He says Star Wars did a nice job in marketing, with introducing a whole mythology. He doesn't know whether it was mentioned to become this big, but it definitely became big with the addition of toys. He says toys do this nice thing of creating your own adventures of imagining more of that universe. He says that with Star Wars, all comics and stories have to be approved by George Lucas and in one story he approved the killing of Chewbacca. As for the universe expansion, he thinks that J.J. Abrams definitely has the potential to do it right. He also mentions the games that smoothly connects to scenes in the movies, just like in the Matrix. 2. 1. What would you say is the best narrative approach to provoke intrinsic motivation within audiences to progress in the story? (08:11 - 09:50) Drew thinks that is a good question. He likes the intrinsic part. He says people care about what happens in the story, that gives them motivation to jump from platforms. You want to get more out of the story. He thinks characters is the biggest asset. What happens to them is plot, the second most important asset. He says people like cliff-hangers. He says Star Wars is a good example, because the characters in itself are interesting but the fictional universe is so interesting. And sometimes people want to understand more about the universe itself. 3. Do you think transmedia platforms should be more 'episodic' of nature, or more 'interactional' of nature? And why? (09:50 - 12:30) Drew thinks long about the answer. He remarks the Matrix example of the game, which not many people have played. Drew says it relates to earlier about intrinsic motivation, you can make me as audience feel important by giving them a role of agency or make them feel like that in the boundaries of your design. Interaction can be clever, but may be not defined as true transmedia, at least kind of. He says that the Telltale games that have episodic nature also do a nice job. It leaves you hanging for more. He remarks the Lost Experience campaign, which did not really have that much of an impact on the show. He also gives an example of the tv show/game Defiance, that both influences each other. 4. Earlier you said interaction can be clever but maybe not pure transmedia. Would you say then, that interaction does not fit into the nature of transmedia? (12:30 13:18) 73 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Drew thinks that interaction is actually perhaps the full potential of transmedia. And he is not sure whether we have already seen the full potential of what transmedia could be capable of doing. 5. What do you think are the factors that ultimately decide which transmedia story becomes a success and which do not? (13:18 - 15:46) Drew has to think about itl. He thinks tt gets back to the basic, story and narrative, characters, events and putting characters into situation where you want to know what is happening next. It needs to be well plotted. He says Marvel has been really clever in their wealth of superhero back story. The audience gets bedazzled every time of all this new information. You need to build on a solid base. He also gives Prometheus as an example, which builds on Alien. The transmedia campaign was great, but the movie not so. But the transmedia usage was great because they made use of the universe that is built around it. 6. To what extend do you think one platform within the transmedia story can invoke engaged loyalty for the entire transmedial story? (15:46 - 17:16) Drew says that the idea of a 'tent pole' is really powerful, something like a movie release that everyone watches. He says something like that makes the accessibility easier for the other media, because there is a high level of exposure and popularity. He says that pop culture does a tremendous job covering the releases of film, tv shows and games, which he thinks are the three areas that seem to do the most work for transmedia. 7. Lastly, I want to talk with you about Assassin's Creed, just as with Star Wars. Since the Assassin's Creed universe may be not so well developed as the Star Wars universe, do you think the prospect of the series is well implemented in the last years, or was it a hit and a miss? (17:16 - 19:42) Drew thinks that we have to speak of a minor success. He notices that the games work well enough that they can make a series and pay the bills. He thinks in that regard it did well enough. He did not play all games. Drew believes that the story does not have enough coherence as a whole. He thinks that playing with mechanics as, for example, a pirate in the fourth one Black Flag is fun, but in another one you are playing in the Itialian Renaissance and therefore he thinks it jumps around too much. He thinks that the concept of history exploration to save the world is fun, but that the concept is now only used for game mechanics and settings, rather than actually being in the overarching story itself. 74 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences Transcript: Jeff Gomez Date: 19.03.15 Duration: 42:05 75 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences 1. What would you say is the best narrative approach to provoke intrinsic motivation within audiences to progress in the story? (00:38 - 05:02) Jeff thinks there has been a slight change in that question with the advent of interactive storytelling. It used to be in narrative that the secret to emotional response is to somehow appeal to aspiration notions. There is a certain degree of wish fulfilment: we yearn to see if the character achieves his or her goal. We empathize with that. Jeff says with the advent of new developments of multiplatform and interactive narrative there is an additional new layer. We feel necessary to not just engage but to create a motivation to move dynamically from one medium to the next. It requires a powerful engagement. He says there needs to be a feeling of inclusion, a response that your feelings about the narrative can somehow be communicated and listened to. Either by others or the narrative itself. He also says there is also a feeling of control. It is not part of the narrative proper, but part of the audience that they want to acquire the narrative, when they want it and where. He says if you not have these components of control, your audience may not be motivated to follow without these aspects in pursuit of the content. Jeff says The third aspect is a feeling of intimacy. The narrative is through its communication across platforms connecting on a psychological level on an intimate level to go deeper into the narrative to find out more about the story world. It gives a feeling of intimacy. It is all of the conventional attraction of the story plus these three aspects that give a new kind of loyalty, participation and multiplatform engagement. 2. Earlier you said we feel necessary to not just engage but to create the motivation to move dynamically. Would you say people naturally want to follow a narrative? (05:02 06:28) Jeff says we are psychologically wired to follow a narrative. With multiplatform narrative we see a fundamental psychological shift which is allowing for younger generation to be simply tuned to move from one medium to the next. Jeff says all we need are the cues and indications where to go from the narrative.. Jeff says then they will follow the breadcrumbs and enjoy their story world on whatever platform it appears on. 3. Do you think transmedia platforms should be more 'episodic' of nature, or more 'interactional' of nature? And why? (06:28 - 09:58) Jeff says the advice that he gives to clients is that each component needs to be selfcontained with a beginning, middle, end, and needs to be quality that reveals something new 76 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences about the characters and the world. He says that if you define that as episodic, you are correct. However, he says they are not necessarily laid out in front of the other. He says in transmedia events could happen at the same time or events could be in the past or future. In transmedia you can issue those pieces separately and out of chronological order. He says the audience is smart enough to figure it out if it is well made. He says in terms of the level of interactivity, he thinks it should be more to the taste of the storyteller. He says we still see that conventional narrative are still popular do not need to be interactive. But he also remarks we are seeing more and more types of media like apps and games that have interactive components. He says the key with regard to interactivity is what we call the architecture of dialogue. He says the most important form of interactivity is the option for audience to express themselves in terms of their feelings, but also in terms of their creativity back to the storyteller. 4. What do you think are the factors that ultimately decide which transmedia story becomes a success and which do not? (09:58 - 12:40) Jeff says in terms of the factors, the number one factor is that it needs to be a good story. He says this really is an issue that is missed by content creators. Creators of content feel that the interactive component or that the content is scattered is enough to draw an audience and the story is secondary. He says that is not true. The story needs to be compelling. Jeff thinks to furnish a storyworld that links to extension, you need to have a rich world. One with past and future. One that exists beyond border of screen. He says it is not necessary to have fantasy or science-fiction worlds, realism also works, even worlds that exist in nonfiction. He says it is a matter keeping track of details and of communicating narratives consistently. If you fail to do that, pieces can contradict and break the illusion that there is a living, consistent story world. 5. To what extend do you think one platform within the transmedia story can invoke engaged loyalty for the entire transmedial story? (12:40 - 15:30) Jeff says we are seeing that one of the reasons for the rise of transmedia is that different platforms form different touchpoints, for different types, for different audiences. Like Harry Potter, kids know the novels in the early 2000's. Today, the medium kids are introduced to Harry Potter is not the novels or the movies. It is the videogames. In this particular case, videogames play a crucial role in the continuation of the franchise and the world. Jeff says that commonly, the way people get sucked into the story world to the roots in the storyworld is called the 'driving platform', through which most people will be exposed to the world. 77 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences 6. Earlier you said you see 'all we need are the cues'. What would you say are the most important and useful for producers for an audience to migrate to the next platform in the narrative? (15:30 - 20:13) Jeff says very good. He says there are two categories of cues. One is the 'exegesis', meaning the cue exists outside of the context of the narrative. That means outside of the story. He says when we hear music in a movie, that movie does not exist in the movie, it exists for us. But in, for example, a disco film, the music exists in the story. Then it is part of the 'diegesis'. Jeff says that in transmedia, the exegesis is the information that tells the audience that this episode takes place at that time, in this universe. Or when a movie is over and the screen says something like 'if you want to further pursue the adventures of these characters, buy the videogame', or it is in an advertisement. That is the exegesis. Jeff says that then there is also the diegesis, which he thinks is more fun. In diegesis, a characters is making a reference to an event that has happened or we do not know much about at this point. And then, Jeff says, we become motivated to hunt for that answer. He gives the movie 'Tron Legacy' as an example. A character tells the hero that she is the last survivor of her people because she was saved by a hero who gave his life. That is a reference to the father of the main character. You actually play that event and the father in the videogame. So, if you watch the film after you played the game, you feel amazed because they talk about something that 'you' did. And if you haven't, you might look it up and find that there is a videogame of that event they talk about in the film. 7. How can transmedia producers can facilitate the migratory behaviour of audiences in transmedia storyworlds? (20:50 - 23:08) Jeff says the truth lies in the beginning of transmedia. The producer's job is to make sure everything cooperates. That takes a specific skill set, authority and diplomacy. Then you have to do a significant amount of planning. That goes into the development process. Jeff says we have seen over and over again that if the relation is loose, there is not much motivation for the audience to move across the story. They can live without it, because it does not count. Jeff says that then you are need to make sure that that content is compelling and interesting. There need to be more narrative tags in the exegesis and diagesis, as earlier mentioned. 8. How do you define when one story fragment ends and another one starts? (23:08 24:28) Jeff says we are still relatively early in the art of transmedia storytelling. He says they recommend that a story needs to be complete. If you encounter transmedia narrative 78 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences separate from the rest, you feel a satisfaction. The content needs to be complimentary. It is not necessary to leave the audience on a cliff-hanger that requires them to go looking for information on another platform. That can become irritating and slows down the dynamic. You need to make sure to define the dynamic process. 9. What do you think makes audiences pursue a story world? (24:28 - 27:05) Jeff explains that the idea of pursuit comes when a narrative is compelling enough to make you want to think about what happens next or makes you want to think about that you love this world so much, you want as much as possible of it in your life. When human beings find that they are truly emotionally connected, collectors mentality starts to kick in. We want more. Jeff gives sports as example. Just like sports, you want to learn everything about players. Same as story worlds, you want to know everything. That lies in these extra pieces of content, something the audiences wants to pursue. What you want to know might lie in these additional pieces of content. So people want to do the work of pursuing content. Jeff says this is the key to make people move from one platform to the next. He also says identifying with the character, but also the message of the world and thematic content is appealing, needs to be an interesting place to be. These are also key components. 10. What do you think makes a good transmedia story world? (27:05 - 28:28) Jeff says one of the key factors is that the world needs to be devised by a visionair. Jeff thinks we have to acknowledge that even today good storytellers are rare and not many can make a rich world. Someone like that needs to work behind the scenes to make the world so that all these various components can be as compelling as possible. Jeff says you also need supporting people, creative people who are willing to play within that sandbox and questions what needs to be answered about the world. Jeff thinks these are the key factors that distinct a story world. 11. You talked about 'questions'. How do you think transmedia producers set these 'questions' into the narrative that people can recognize to follow the story? (28:28 31:01) Jeff says that's a matter of narrative artistry and some narrative design. Jeff explains that if the world is set up and clever references are made to things that the audience doesn't understand but are intrigued by, it is they will ask questions. Jeff gives Star Wars as an example. What were the Clone Wars? Jeff remarks that these kind of questions rose up, even though the entertainment felt complete. The first Star Wars film had a beginning, middle and end but these questions set up for an exciting expansion of world. But Jeff says 79 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences the audiences must not ask too many questions, because then it becomes too dense. Jeff says knowledge is power, especially in audiences. Those with a power to speculate or those who do find out the proper information, they are powerful, especially on the internet. You want to feed into that power in order to keep the information going around the story world. 12. You said the references do not need to be totally understood by the audiences. But how often should they be? (31:01 - 32:12) Jeff says that to a degree it depends on audience. He says that in sciencefiction films, or superheroes, or fantasy you can be a little bit obscure, because there is a love for minutia and they are going to investigate any moment of content. Jeff warns that if you get too obscure, audiences can let it pass. You don't want that. It therefore has to be simpler references, like a lost love. Jeff remarks that audiences are not that used to investigation processes. 13. Is it essential for a transmedia story world to be immersive? (32:12 - 33:58) Jeff says the definition of transmedial storyworlds for him and his company is that they make themselves available in different ways in different media. That is because the modern person is surrounded by screens wants to have access. If the content is poorly done it is not going to feel immersive because the illusion is broken. You need to make sure there is a quality and richness to the experience. Some believe immersion is not achieved until you have created certain interactive components or even a virtual component to the narrative. He says we don't believe that is entirely reuqired. Games, for example, can help but not necessarily. 14. How do you think transmedia producers should measure the success of a story world? (33:58 - 39:47) Jeff says there are more and more methodologies and measurement tools. He says it used to be a simple guarantee of spreadability was of course going to connect. He says that more recently, we have been able to track people in multiplatform implementation. He gives Apple as an example. With Apple, they know everything about you. This is a way for Apple to hopefully give you a better experience with customization. He also mentions Xbox. With Xbox, you are tagged by the Xbox online monitoring system, everything you do in the community is tracked. It allows them to know how far you are in games and have the ability to offer you what you would be interested in. Jeff explains that in the wider world for motion picture and television transmedia, it's more difficult to track, since network studios do not have that complete control. He says that a certain podcast ,'Serial' was immensely popular. More than a million people downloaded it every week. But the producers did not allow a 80 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences forum. The audience built its own community with its own forum , outside the environment of the podcast. However, he explains this made measurement difficult for the producers because the audience was so scattered. Ultimately, they were able to figure out how active everyone was highly active around the narrative. In that way, Jeff remarks 'Serial' the podcast became transmedia experience in itself. Everyone tried to solve the mystery of the narrative. That measurement has helped the podcast create CPM (cost per mille) for advertisement, which meant that the podcast could make more money and so they could make more money than some TV shows A truly remarkable breakthrough in transmedia and Jeff says that is good news for us. Transcript: Ilse Romero Date: 22.03.15 Duration: 12:07 81 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences 1. What would you say is the best narrative approach to provoke intrinsic motivation within audiences to progress in the story? (01:38 - 02:30) Ilse says it depends on what you want. She thinks that in every transmedia narrative you try to reach engagement within the audience. So basically you are trying to connect with this audience so make sure that all the elements of your narrative make sense to the audience you try to reach. She thinks this intrinsic motivation and meaning making needs to connect to an audience. 2. Do you think transmedia platforms should be more interactional of nature or more episodic of nature? And why? (02:30 - 03:18) Ilse thinks it definitely needs to be more interactional. Because engagement is one of the key points in transmedia, you have different story points on different platforms. So if you are interacting with them, you can measure people's engagement. She thinks there is a big difference between participation, interaction and engagement. You are able to measure this through an interactional project. With episodic, you only look at parts of a story world. 3. Could you give me an example how we could measure transmedia through interaction? (03:18 - 04:28) She says that with interaction you are looking at reactions from people. She gives the example of the Lizzy Bennet diaries. They have a lot of Youtube episodes, but what they were doing is that they had different profiles. And with interaction, according to Ilse, you are measuring how much people are responding with characters. You are measuring each interaction and not just the number of Likes. She thinks it is actually not that easy to measure, because it is difficult to come up with a sort of strategy to see whether audiences are really interacting or just clicking. 4. What do you think are the factors that ultimately decide which transmedia stories become a success and which do not? (04:55 - 07:19) Ilse mentions the factors that Henry Jenkins has devised for transmedia storytelling. For example, spreadability of content. She tells me that in her research she had found different things that can make a transmedia story more successful. She focuses on 'The Blair Witch Project' on how it engages people. She talks about the element of surprise that horrors and thrillers can have. Another element of success is providing content that is interesting for the people who are watching that is precisely sharable, meaning you want to share it with your friends. She says that online we are basically looking at how much people are sharing. She says that another important element is for a story to be continuous. If you don't have 82 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences different elements on different platforms following each other, you are going to lose people along the way. The different elements need to be connected. 5. How would you say then is a story best connected? (07:19 - 07:48) Ilse thinks it is by the narrative itself. She says that if a story does not connect, you cannot move along with your audience. She says it needs to be the story narrative that has continuity. 6. How would you say is the best way to get people to the next platform? Are there sort of cues? (07:48 - 08:32) Ilse says there are a lot of platforms nowadays that ask audiences to go to a next medium. She also says transmedia content does not necessarily has to be provided by the creator. Usually it allows for collaboration. Asking people to go to another site or platform is basically a cue to move from one platform to the other. 7. To what extend do you think one platform within the transmedial story can invoke engaged loyalty for the rest of the transmedial story? (08:32 - 09:38) Ilse thinks that a lot of visual content engages better than just words. She sees Youtube as a middle: it is very easy to follow, but it is not the platform itself that is creating engagement. Transcript: Jeff Watson Date: 25.03.15 Duration: 38:49 83 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences 1. What would you say is the best narrative approach to provoke intrinsic motivation within audiences to progress in the story? (00:59 - 03:50) Jeff finds that's a big question and thinks it's hard to say if there's a single approach. He thinks storytellers are always inventing new ways to tell stories and to express themselves and create transmedia experiences for people. That said, he thinks here are certain kinds of stories that are more for creating an agency and desire to participate with intrinsic rewards of itself. One form is the mystery. With mystery Jeff says, leaving spaces where stories are incomplete, audiences have to participate and solving a problem is something that is agency driven, fun and satisfying and a rewarding experience of itself. It also involves meeting with other people, like alternate reality programs. Jeff says essential information is often left out and kept secret to keep mystery, that audiences must answer themselves, turning them from passive to active participators. That makes it rewarding. 2. Do you think transmedia platforms should be more 'episodic' of nature, or more 'interactional' of nature? And why? (03:50 - 05:45) Jeff thinks the primary affordance of all this technology that we have isn't just about distributing content or presenting content in different context, but inviting people to let people connect with each other. He says the internet allows to connect directly with creators, characters and each other. Jeff thinks that participation and interactivity are the cornerstones of a good transmedia experience. Otherwise it is storytelling in the old way, but sticking it in different slots. If you don't have participation and play, you are not making the most of the opportunity of creating a transmedia story world. 3. What do you think are the factors that ultimately decide which transmedia story becomes a success and which do not? (05:45 - 09:24) Jeff jokes that if he knew that magical formula he would be a wealthy man. Jeff thinks it depends from case to case. He always advices his students that if you design for everybody, you please no one. Whether it's a video game or movie, if you are not very specific of who your audience is and what they want, you cannot be successful. As soon as you try to design for everyone, you let down the need to be specific will fail. Therefore, specifying for audience is important. Jeff thinks another area where transmedia projects can fail, is if the project does not allow openness for the audience. Leaving gaps and holes in the story world to fill in themselves for audiences works, and that means letting go for control. Jeff gives the director Wes Anderson as an example, who has everything in control in his films. For filmmaking, that can work. However, if you try to make people participate, share, 84 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences collaborate, you have to leave room for them to be creative too . Jeff thinks a good transmedia project is as much as facilitating storytelling as it is about telling stories. 4. To what extend do you think one platform within the transmedia story can invoke engaged loyalty for the entire transmedial story? (09:24 - 11:55 and 15:15 - 17:30) Jeff says that in alternate reality games, we talk about the idea of the rabbit hole. The rabbit hole is the gateway. He says its maybe a clue, like a weird-looking website. This rabbit hole metaphor extends into transmedia. Jeff says there is not always going to be a single entry point. He thinks audiences have different reasons to enter a story world, it can depend on the form how they entered that story world. For example, two people love vampires, one loves videogames, but the other anime. If you had both components in your transmedia project, they enter the experience through their respective components. Jeff thinks this is one of the core ideas of thinking in transmedia, there is not a temple transmedia property. After a break, Jeff says that sometimes the temple media property, the center of transmedia experience can damage the overall experience, like Hollywood movies and their transmedia experience. For example, Jeff gives The Matrix transmedia promotional campaign. The movie depended on the entire transmedia experience. People did not understand the stories, since they did not experience the entire transmedia experience. And people who saw the film first where kind of turned off by the story world lying behind it because it was all so confusing. They might have found the story world interesting if they found it through the smaller components. 5. How do you think can transmedia producers facilitate the migratory behaviour in transmedia story worlds? (18:02 - 22:21) Jeff thinks it really depends on the project and mostly the audience. He says you should always ask, who am I designing for? When we are loooking at transition across texts and platforms, who are we talking about? He gives as an example that his mom has different media habits than himself. Based on the needs of the audience, you need to think what media they will come in contact with. Jeff says you need to think how you can get your audience to notice there are similar events playing on other platforms. Jeff says his sixteen year old cousin is on a number of social media and plays video games, so Jeff will need to facilitate different strategies for migration than his mother. Her internet behaviour only revolves around email, so then you would have to create something email-based. Jeff says you also have to think what kind of experience you want to make. Something amazing, something hard to figure out? Jeff says something hard can also be attractive. Anything that starts audience agency or is a mystery and is a draw that bring people from platform to platform and context to context. 85 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences 6. And which transmedia stories become successful? The ones that are really easy to follow with obvious or the one with more complicated cues? (22:21 - 27:45) Jeff thinks that depends on the audience. As an examples, he tells that in San Francisco there was a brilliant transmedia experience. It was very hard to find and even harder to find out more. The story was very interesting, something about a mind-control cult and you would find different pieces of the puzzle in the city. Because of the scarcity of the narrative artefacts in the game, word-of-mouth spread about the game very quickly. If you try to draw millions of people, that is very different. It depends on the model you are going after. Jeff says you have to think: what is our goal with this project? Transmedia can also be about just creating a small transmedia experience, like in San Francisco. Creating for only a few people (or maybe even one) is very different than creating for hundreds of thousands. He thinks that curiosity is very strong. People want to answer questions themselves and in a way that is inviting people to play. 7. What do you think are the components that make a good, successful story world? (27:45 - 30:15) Jeff again gives gaps in the story as an example. He says a successful story world is completed up that the audience understands what is at stake, has to be interesting and puts together a story to a kind of tangible form. But, the audience must always ask questions and can add their own answers. His example is Lost, where there was a lot of transmedia in it with the context of the TV show. As long as there were questions, transmedia could be made. All these questions kept the energy high. 8. When it comes to the construction of a story world how do transmedia producers which story fragment should be on one platform and which on the other and how do they decide when one ends and one starts? (30:15 - 33:34) Jeff thinks that is determined on project to project basis. He says that this idea of a good project will keep the qualities of each media. Each medium can do specific things. He says a website can do different things than a film, for example. You need to design what parts are best suited for what medium. He says that some people tell the same story across channels. His example is Star Wars. You can make a videogame with the exact story, but then you know how that will turn out. You are not asked to make meaningful decisions that do not have consequences. You want audience choices to be important and meaningful, you want to create a space in the story where people can work with their own experiences and creations. He concludes that this 'medium specificity' needs to be well designed. 86 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences 9. Is it essential for transmedial story worlds to be immersive? (33:34 - 34:54) Jeff says it depends on what you define as immersive. According to him, there is a virtual reality idea and sensory immersion. He explains that with Alternate Reality Games: our real lives are already very immersive. Everything is imbedded and part of your world. He does not think immersion is necessary. Jeff thinks you can do interesting transmedia things when audiences are constantly aware of an experience. That said he also thinks that inherently, we drag content across different media. In its very nature, that can be a kind of immersion. 10. How you do think transmedia producers can measure success? (34:54 - 38:21) Jeff thinks that's a very difficult question. He says that sometimes advertisers joke that we know half of our advertisement is working, we just don't know which half. He thinks that is also sometimes the case with transmedia. Like with alternative reality, people participate on different media and the numbers are very hard to count. Participation by word of mouth or public spaces is hard to measure. All transmedia is focused on marketing, it would seem. Advertisements also make it harder: are people going to a film because of the transmedia project or the traditional advertisement? Jeff says that the platform system Conductr provides producers with social media management to measure the scale of participation. Jeff also says that sometimes you do not care about numbers, you just know what you do has an impact for people. Like with a play. People show up and they are touched by an artistic experience. Jeff says that sometimes only through qualitative measurement can you know how strong an experience worked. Transcript: Robert Pratten Date: 31.03.15 Duration: 23:27 87 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences 1. What would you say is the best narrative approach to provoke intrinsic motivation within audiences to progress in the story? (16:00 - 18:04) Robbert says that the story needs to be something the audience cares about. You have to understand your audience and what resonates with them. He says that the second thing is that the choices they make is relevant and that makes it worthwhile for them. 2. Do you think transmedia platforms should be more 'episodic' of nature, or more 'interactional' of nature? And why? (18:04 - 20:55) Robbert says that both is actually good. He says transmedia should be more episodic as interactional. His goal as a company is to allow them to interact with the story at any time, not at just a single time. The story world becomes a living, breathing entity. What you see with books or movies is a snapshot in time. Interactivity allows us to create a living world in which the character grows. That doesn't mean the character has to be contemporary. You can blend the world of the character with this world, and then the character can respond to the audience. He says that one of the good things about episodic, that you have not only a continuing story, as creator it allows you to respond to audiences and evolve to their needs. The problem with book or a movie, once out it's out and becomes very difficult to modify. According to Robbert, the great thing of episodic is it can be developed and kept being developed. 3. What do you think are the factors that ultimately decide which transmedia story becomes a success and which do not? (21:00 - 23:40) He says that it always comes down to the audience. Robbert mentions his blog, where he did formula for what makes something engaging. You can have too many characters and not enough drama. He mentions a project called Stillwater, with different characters. He likes it but he notes that that project could be more responsive. Sometime there is too much content, like Stillwater. If you want people to explore, you need inertia, that comes from your connection with the story world, according to Robbert, also one of the reasons why it's easy for people to work with existing story worlds, because they are already passionate about the characters. Projects that start out with brand new worlds and characters have to perform more work and therefore the audience also has to do more work. 4. To what extend do you think one platform within the transmedia story can invoke engaged loyalty for the entire transmedial story? (23:40 - 25:15) Robbert thinks that is totally possible, because that is what happens in transmedia. 88 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences 5. What do you think are the benefits of having good narrative attributions for a story? Is transmedia really dependent on narrative or is there more to it? (23:40 - 25:15) Robbert says it's key. The story is vital. For example, it is not just a game. We use game mechanics to maintain engagement make things interactive. The key part of storytelling is the storytelling. People build relationships with fictional characters. If your audiences cannot bond with characters, you have a big problem. The story is vital. 6. What do you think is the best way for the industry to observe and measure transmedia storytelling(23:40 - 25:15) Robbert says this is something that comes up from time to time. He says things like clicks and views are easy to measure, but there is the realization that such numbers do not give the whole story. But what are the real numbers? How can you measure passion? Robbert says the problem is we cannot measure passion, except by simply asking. He says there are marketing ways to measure, like sales. Robbert says that superfans and their conversation will cause the story world to get on someone else's radar. Robbert's example is that some people only buy New York bestseller books. But those books can only reach that level by the passions of fans. For concept creators, they must focus on the core audience. You will not get massive views, but you will get fans with passion. 7. What kind of strategies do transmedia producers use to guide audiences across multiple platforms? (13:12 - 15:10) Robbert thinks by creating as little friction as possible. Most producers tend have a hub, a main site to get as much information as possible. Like, tentacles that form into other platforms. One of the things we do is, for some audiences we bring everything together. It's very easy not to go to other platforms. As experience grows, people use platforms as intended. In the early days of transmedia, people would send chapters of stories with an email. But people don't want to read that way. But the mail could be from a fictional company that is in the story. Robbert thinks it's not about giving platforms, but getting platforms to come to the audience. You have to think how people can use platforms in their daily lives in a way that is native to that platform. 8. And how do you decide when one fragment of a story ends and the other one starts? (15:10 - 17:42) Robbert ponders and says that he doesn't quite think of it that way. He doesn't think of them as fragments, but layers. Robbert is trying to think what's the right mindset. According to Robbert, a story has a three act structure. He mentions the narrative theory of kernels and 89 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences satellites, where kernels are the key plot points and satellites are the fillers. The flesh around the bone. What is the backbone of the story? That all occurs in one platform. Then, the other stuff, the richness to the story world, might be on other platforms. If people keep on one platform that is okay, because they can keep up with the speed of what is going on. On a single platform are the main building blocks. Robbert doesn't think of a story as beginning, middle and end but as different perspectives and other frames to the story world through these different platforms. 9. What do you think makes audience pursue a story world? (17:42 - 19:00) Robbert thinks it's like any story: wanting to know what happens in the end. He says like any commercial, you need to attract people with defining your genre. If you have a thriller, people know what they can expect. You need to attract people. Basically, it's delivering to their expectations. And it is drawing them in with that. Robbert thinks that what's interesting with technology is, it can have a certain impact, but the real thing that triggers is the resolution, how the story is going to play out. 10. Do you think that audiences should have more freedom to construct the story world themselves? (19:15 - 21:32) Robbert thinks that when you design a story world, you should have a role for the audience. when you design story worlds, you want to give a satisfying experience. You must not leave things to chance, so do not let audiences decide everything. You need to know the premise and what you want to say. Therefore, you need to construct the story world rules and laws to deliver on the story world, don't give it away to audiences. within the lore of your universe you can create the rules for the audience. It's kind of within certain boundaries but wherein they have room to explore. The fans appreciate canon but also nonfiction (he gives alternative Harry Potters as an example), there you can give them as much freedom as possible, but if you want them to contribute to your vision you need to give them the right rules. 11. What do you think determines whether a story world is good or not? (21:32 23:01) Robbert says it depends on whether there is a connection with the audience. You need compelling characters that are driven. He says it's a little bit like making a film. You have a script and the director needs to think in each scene what the camera is going to film that reinforces the script. The most important thing is that you need to know what it is you are 90 NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences trying to say. If you are not clear about your message in one medium, it's only going to get worse when you put it into other platforms. The premise needs to determine everything. That is what people resonate to and that is what gives you the consistency. 91