With the passage of time, and just as it happened with other entertainment systems such as radio and television, streaming begins to move towards interactivity with the user. The first platform to include the experience was Netflix With “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch,” viewers have the option of choosing their own ending for the film. And they also released a special interactive based on the series “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”.
But are not the only ones: Amazon Prime Videothe streaming platform of the retail giant, offers with just one click the actor information of the fiction that is seen on the screen and other suggested titles.
And in hbo maxalthough they have not yet included the general public in these proposals, they test with “Live on Max” broadcasting live concerts during which the audience can ask questions for the artists to answer, a format they hope to resume this year. And in both Brazil and Mexico they added live content from the UEFA Champions League.
Gaming
Interactivity has opened the foray into the world of online video games for platforms. The video streaming giant launched its gamer profile in 2021, with 5 five mobile games for Android devices. The initial offering includes titles tied to Netflix shows like “Stranger Things: 1984” and “Stranger Things 3: The Game,” as well as “Shooting Hoops,” “Card Blast” and “Teeter Up.”
Video games gave Netflix another way to attract new customers, and a differential over its competitors, Walt Disney Co. (owner of Disney+ and Star+) and WarnerMedia (owner of HBO Max).
This was highlighted by Mike Verdu, Netflix’s vice president of game development, announcing at the end of 2022 that Netflix It ended with almost 214 million subscribers and an annual increase of 26%.
Meanwhile, Amazon sets its sights on Loco, an Indian video game streaming platform based in Mumbai. Live game streaming has been popularized globally by Twitch by Amazon.com Inc. (mostly in the US), and DouYu International Holdings Ltd. and Huya Inc. in China.
But in India, which had no tradition of console or desktop gaming, the genre got a boost during the pandemic. Y Mad It has expanded rapidly in the last year, with monthly active users growing six times and monthly active streamers increasing tenfold.
This alerts Disney that it fears a brake on its growth (it intends to reach up to 260 million subscribers worldwide by the end of 2024), even more so when Microsoft plans to reinforce its streaming strategy: Bill Gates’ company advances with the purchase of the gaming giant ActivisionBlizzard for $69 billion, and announced that it has created a new Xbox division to publish games on the cloud under a service streaming.
And Sony Group is propping up its video game subscription service under the code name Spartacus: a kind of Netflix for video games that will go for 25 million subscribers.
advanced
There always has to be an Argentine in the advanced. Or so we would like. The truth is that Etermax, the company he created Maximo Cavazzani for the development of its popular game “Trivia Crack” in English, has just partnered with Netflix to include “Trivia Quest”: It will be available online in a series format to discover how much the user knows about the platform and the general culture.
Andy Weil, vice president of Interactive Content and Comedy at Netflix, explained to The New York Times when presenting the alliance: “We know that there is constant competition. But this is a new experience, particularly for broadcast TV.”
The daily quiz will be available from April 7 globally to play on all supported devices. Netflix, including smart TVs, computer browsers, media players, Android devices, game consoles, and Apple devices. They are episodes with 24 questions, 12 standard and 12 difficult, from categories that include science, history, entertainment, sports, art and geography. Throughout the game, players “will embark on a mission to rescue the animated citizens of Trivia LandWeil detailed.
Players will still be able to move on if they answer incorrectly, and will have the opportunity to re-ask the questions and try again.
Juan Pablo Veiga, VP of Business Planning & Operations at Etermax, told how the path went for the company in its agreement with the streaming giant. “Asked”, which has been multiplatform since 2013, sought to innovate by generating new initiatives outside of what was already established, creating projects in which the user had a more active role. “At Etermax we have the DNA of innovation and we found people who came with the same initiative. It was a team effort; we wanted to provide content with an interactive narrative and we proposed it to Netflix.
Referents
“40 people worked on the development from an external consultant, and we, about 15, on the composition, the characters, the theme and the narrative. We originally focused on the American public, but with the advanced projectwe saw that they had an interest in expanding it in seven languages, including Korean, an important market for Netflix, Japanese, French, Italian and German.”
The mechanics of the game that debuted on April 7 and will release one chapter per day -with a total of 30-, is to take the user through a 12-minute tour and a questionnaire based on different topics of general interest. “They are the categories of the standard game, according to the public of Netflix: series, history, wonders of the world, fictional characters, some sporting event, in two game modes, easy and difficult”, adds Veiga.
“The protagonist is Willy, the spinner who has to compete against his arch rival Rocky, the sword, to free his friends. It is playful and the participant receives prizes to encourage their active experience”, adds the VP of Etermax, who was inspired by the potential of Twitch, the gaming social network in which Sergio “el Kun” Agüero and the Spanish Ibai Llanos shine.
The YouTube of amazon It encourages live transmissions and has its paid cost, which, although it is in dollars, is paid in pesos and does not have the surcharges for purchases in foreign currency. “The future of gaming goes in that direction. We are interested in continuing to grow in multiplatform universes, especially on Twitch, what we did with Amazon for the launch of the ‘Maradona, Sueño bendito’ series in which we designed a competition in which users answered questions about Diego,” Veiga summarized. “We like to realize that local initiatives are in line with the mainstream of the business. And things are 100% incubated from here”, he concluded.
Image gallery
